White House ’08: Puttin’ lipstick on a pig of a politics story
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
John McCain said of Hillary Clinton’s health-care proposal last year: “I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” McCain made a similar-sounding remark about former GOP presidential Mitt Romney during the New Hampshire primary: “Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty — and the pig likes it.” And now the McCain camp is up in arms – because Barack Obama riffed on Sarah Palin’s line from last week’s Republican National Convention today in Southwest Virginia.
“You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig,” Obama said, referencing one of the more memorable lines from Palin’s RNC speech in which she deadpanned: “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
“Sen. Obama uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice-presidential nominee to a pig. It’s clear to me, as I’m sure it will be to fair-minded Republicans, Democrats and independents across the country, that Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology,” said Jane Swift, the former Massachusetts governor and the head of the newly-formed Sarah Palin Truth Squad, in a conference call with reporters this evening.
Swift said the comment is “just the latest in a series of comments that many folks like me will find offensive” – listing among those a comment from Obama’s running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, that Palin is “good-looking” that Biden delivered in remarks to a rally in Toledo, Ohio, last week, in which he also made self-deprecating remarks about his own physical appearance.
Swift would probably then also find offensive an item from the Republican Party of Virginia website that I happened to come across yesterday. Under the heading “Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama: Compare the Candidates,” the RPV offers an issue-by-issue breakdown of Palin and Obama on matters including one labeled Public Opinion. In the item for Palin as it appears on the site today: “Very attractive accomplished mother with a career.” In the item as it appeared yesterday (from the Google cache): “Smoking hot in a naughty librarian sort of way.”
A reporter asked Swift specifically about the comment that McCain made about Romney earlier this year. “I think there is a difference,” Swift said. “Ultimately the American people will make that decision. I think what Sen. McCain was complaining about were the accusations that were coming toward him that were equally indefensible. And so I do think there is a difference. And I think ultimately the American people realize that calling a very prominent female governor of one of our states a pig is not what we want to see when we are supposedly going to have this great debate that is the politics of hope.”
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I think Palin was supposed to be the lipstick on the pig of McCain’s campaign. Sexist? Naah–irrelevant. So I think actually that conservatives are calling her the pig. Hmmm.
SEAN HANNITY: I want you — to get your reaction. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
MIKE HUCKABEE: It’s an old expression, and I’m going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin; he didn’t reference her. If you take the two soundbites together, it may sound like it. But I’ve been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that’s maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I’m going to have to cut him slack.
FOX NEWS
Hannity and Colmes
9/9/08
“Enough is enough The Mc Cain campaign’s attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy – the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan just last year. This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run,” said Obama campaign senior advisor Anita Dunn.
Statement from U.S. Representative Thelma Drake, Palin Truth Squad
“Rather than delivering on his promises of hope and change, Barack Obama sunk to a new low today with his remarks today regarding Governor Sarah Palin. It is offensive not only to women, but anybody that cares about having a substantive debate on the issues. Unfortunately for Senator Obama, this type of playground politics does nothing to overshadow the fact that Governor Palin has a stronger track record when it comes to fighting corruption and fiscal responsibility in Alaska than he has been able to accumulate in the United States Senate. The McCain-Palin ticket is proud to run on a record of reform, and if that has Democrats running scared — it should. It’s hard for Barack Obama to paint himself as the agent of change if he harbors the same mindset that Sarah Palin, and millions of women just like her, have been fighting against their whole lives.”
Obama’s lip stick / pig remark … and, Biden’s unsavory children with special needs remarks show us what a couple of creeps these two candidates are. In lieu of Sarah Palin’s comment about hockey moms, pit bulls and lip stick, Obama’s lip stick/ pig remark was extremely demeaning. Even though I am not an Obama supporter, at least I thought he had some degree of class and sophistication. He can try to cover his tracks by saying that the lip stick remark was not directed towards Governor Palin, but anyone with half a brain knows that’s exactly what he meant. I think Obama knows his campaign is in real trouble, and that’s why he’s stooping to such desperate, insulting and distasteful attacks. Obama is definitely not Presidential material.
Is there anything more fake, more phony, more overtly manipulative and cynical than the McCain campaign’s open efforts to have it both ways with Sarah Palin — i.e., making her out to be tough but demanding relentlessly that she be treated as a delicate flower? This is a job interview, not a mass massaging of Sarah Palin’s ego, and anyone who behaves as though it is otherwise is just trying to play the American people for fools. I hold in special contempt Carly Fiorina and Jane Swift and all the other women who disingenuously claim this is sexist treatment.
McCain’s just trying to win a political point, nothing more, in this particular incident, but his choice of Palin is in itself a more troubling sign.
I agree with Huckabee on this one. BOTH SIDES have incredibly thin skins when it comes to comments made in the heat of battle. It’s similar to Palin’s “community organizer” remarks that some on the Obama side claimed were racial.
Come on, folks. Lighten up.
AAAAAGGGHH- enough already! The original quote as I remember was “…it’s like puttin’ perfume on a pig: it’s still a pig!” The lipstick addition appears to be McCain’s idea coming back to haunt him. In any event it raises the ugly truth that politics in America today has. in my opinion, has reached its nadir and can best be described by another old PIG bromide that goes “never wrestle with a pig you get nothin but dirty and the pig loves it ” !
McCain ally Mike Huckabee took Obama’s side on the issue, saying he didn’t think it was a swipe at Palin.
“It’s an old expression, and I’m going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin; he didn’t reference her. If you take the two sound bites together, it may sound like it,” he said on Fox’s “Hannity and Colmes.”
“But I’ve been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that’s maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I’m going to have to cut him slack.”
Isn’t BaracKk Obama half white? They always say black man but he is half black and half white. What am I missing?