I don't think Obama's meant it as a personal attack on Sarah Palin when he used the phrase "lipstick on a pig" to describe what the McCain-Palin ticket offers. It just doesn't sound like him; he's more graceful than that. Nevertheless, it's easy to see why many people are interpreting it that way, given how Palin is the only candidate that wears lipstick, and she compared herself to a pit bull wearing lipstick in her speech the other night. It was, I think, an unintentional error, but one that really could hurt Obama. Steve Sailer thinks Palin has finally cracked his cool. Excerpt:
Jeez, when somebody makes a joke about the the stupid job you had when you were in your 20s, you make a joke back. You don't get all hurt, peeved, and self-righteous like Obama did about Palin's little "community organizer" witticism. Maybe his "lipstick" line wasn't aimed at Palin, but he ought to have expected that everybody would take it that way by now.Obama's Achilles heel has always been that his gimlet-eyed appraisal of human beings doesn't extend to himself -- he can't keep from feeling sorry for himself. It seems like a hundred years ago that I called Obama "a close student of other people's weaknesses, a literary artist of considerable power in plumbing his deep reservoirs of self-pity and resentment, an unfunny Evelyn Waugh..." (Waugh could never stop feeling sorry for himself that he was born into a merely affluent, respectable family rather than a rich, aristocratic one. Obama's sad "story of race and inheritance" is more complicated, but still rather similar.)
That's why Dreams from My Father reads like the Brideshead Revisited of law school application essays.
The GOP brain trust (if such an oxymoronic body exists) will sooner or later figure that out and try to spend the rest of the campaign poking and prodding Obama's delicate self-image to see what happens.
This is getting fun!
UPDATE:
Man, it didn't take long for the McCain web operation to jump on this one. Take a look at the viral ad they've come up with. Totally unfair, and a distortion -- but effective:
UPDATE.2 The more I think about this, the more I think it's a big mistake for McCain's team to play the sexism card, especially on such paper-thin grounds. What they're doing is laying the groundwork for Team Obama to play the race card if McCain says something that might even slightly be construed as racially insensitive. Nobody believes Barack Obama is a sexist, or should believe it, because there's no evidence of it. Similarly, I don't think anybody really believes John McCain is a racist, or has reason to. Has there been a sexist double standard deployed by some on the left against Palin? Sure. But Barack Obama hasn't gone there, and I think McCain will regret going there against Obama on the sexism front -- even if Obama was foolish to use the folksy phrase.
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For all those who want to think Obama meant no insult... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! you really like to fool yourself, go ahead and try.
My wife had an interesting take on Obama's clumsy and juvenile double entendre... "I'm sick of Clinton, why does he have to do the same stupid thing's I was tired of hearing from Clinton?"
I agree. It was clumsy, juvenile, and absolutely intended the worst insults that could be drawn from it - but tried to create "Plausible deniability" for himself.
Sorry Obama, you're far too transparent. It was stupid, bad judgement, and juvenile. And sadly, the actual measure of a very small man.
Yes, a very, very small man.
A boy, in fact.
One too wet behind the ears and too short in the saddle to be President.
Earth to Obama: You're running against John McCain, not Governor Palin.
And by the way ... where's Smokin' Joe Biden?
Watcher said:
"And by the way ... where's Smokin' Joe Biden?"
Apparently out telling people that Hillary would have been a better pick for VP! Is he trying to jump a sinking ship? Or just put lipstick on it?
McCain's use of "lipstick on a pig" was in direct reference to Hillary Clinton. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8IhMMhe8w
No, James. In wasn't in direct reference to Hillary Clinton. It was in direct reference to her health care plan:
McCain: "Yes, sir."
Reporter: "I noticed in your speech you avoided any comparison of your plan to Hillary Clinton's plan. I'm curious, have you or your staff put a price tag on what you see coming out of her campaign for Hillarycare?"
McCain: "No, but I... there's many things that concern me about it. It's vaguely... not vaguely, but eerily reminiscent of what they tried back in 1993. I think they put some lipstick on the pig, but it's still a pig."
Maybe you need some new speakers or headphones.
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