posted September 11, 2008 04:19 PM            

SUMMARY: Not quite a week after Gov. Sarah Palin joked about hockey moms being like pit bulls with lipstick, the McCain and Obama campaigns spar sharply over the phrase, "it's like putting lipstick on a pig."

The story begins, like so many these days, with Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week. Having stirred the crowd to its feet more than once, Palin delivered a knock-out line when she deadpanned:

“I love those hockey moms. You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.” The line drew cheerful applause and has echoed ever since, which seems to explain how Sen. Barack Obama found himself in the middle of an uproar when he uttered a time-worn phrase to denigrate Sen. John McCain’s proclaimed agenda for “change” in Washington.

After declaring that McCain will follow the policies of President Bush on economics, health care, taxes, education and foreign affairs Obama said, “That’s not change. That’s just calling the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.”

Gasp! He just said lipstick! Did he just call Sarah Palin a pig??!!!

That’s the charge.

Later that day, the McCain campaign arranged a conference call for reporters with Jane Swift, the former governor of Massachusetts. She said that when you add up Obama’s comments and Palin’s comments, you get Obama calling Palin a pig. Swift said Obama should apologize.

“Calling a very prominent female governor of one of our states a ‘pig’ is not exactly what we want to see,” Swift said.

The issue has dominated the presidential campaign for two days, with the McCain campaign stirring a controversy by having local lawmakers call for Obama to apologize, and the Obama campaign responding with examples of how often he and others have used the phrase. The Obama campaign called McCain’s campaign tactics “lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics.

On Wednesday, the McCain campaign released a Web ad called “Lipstick.” It begins with a clip of Palin delivering her lipstick line, then text flashes on the screen saying “Barack Obama on: Sarah Palin.” A moment later, the ad plays a small portion of Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark, but not enough of his quotation to make clear what he was talking about. The ad concludes with a clip of CBS anchor Katie Couric soberly remarking on sexism on the campaign trail.

The ad has two big problems, as does the complaint of former Gov. Swift. First, in the full text of the remarks it’s clear that Obama isn’t talking about Sarah Palin. He’s talking about McCain’s argument that he represents change.

Second, “putting lipstick on a pig” is a popular put-down, especially among politicians. It generally means taking a bad or unattractive idea and trying to dress it up.

We weren’t able to pin down the origins of this folksy expression, but we found tons of instances of people using it. It’s so common, the political newspaper The Hill labeled the phrase “Congress Speak” back in June, and gave it an official definition: “an expression used to illustrate that something unattractive cannot be beautified or otherwise positively changed by any amount of makeup or other exterior alterations.”

Obama and McCain both have used the expression.p> In September 2007, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson quoted Obama using the phrase to discuss Iraq policy:

“I think that both General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are capable people who have been given an impossible assignment,” Obama said. “George Bush has given a mission to General Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig.”

In Iowa on Oct. 11, 2007, McCain panned Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health care plan, calling it “eerily reminiscent” of the plan that failed during Bill Clinton’s administration, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.

“I think they put some lipstick on a pig,” McCain said, “but it’s still a pig.”

On Feb. 1, 2007, McCain blasted a senate resolution that would have criticized President Bush’s strategy in Iraq. Some had praised the resolution as a compromise measure, but McCain disagreed. “It gets down to whether you support what is being done in this new strategy or you don’t,” McCain said. “You can put lipstick on a pig, [but] it’s still a pig, in my view.”

It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he’s making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin. Her name never is used in the preceding sentence. In fact, it’s hard to see how one could interpret Obama’s lipstick-on-a-pig remark as referring directly to McCain, either.

We think it’s very clear that Obama was saying McCain’s effort to call himself the “candidate of change” is like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to dress up a bad idea to look better. Agree or disagree with Obama’s point, but his remark wasn’t the smear that McCain’s people have tried to make it.

posted September 11, 2008 07:41 PM            

I hope O'Bomber keeps this up. He sounds like he's losing his mind or trying to throw the election.

Perhaps he's just coming down with "Palin Derangement Syndrome".

What's hysterical is that all the O'Bomber Kool-Aid drinkers in the press and at O'Bomber campaign headquarters are focused on Palin the VP candidate...and not on McCain..who is O'Bomber's real opponent.

posted September 11, 2008 08:31 PM            

Still, when O'Bomber said it, his audience knew exactly what and whom he was referring too and that's Sarah Palin..and they laughed and cheered.

Watch the video Lotus posted. Hi Lotus, how are you doing?

O'Bomber called Sarah Palin a pig without actually saying the words.

He's catching lots of heat. And every one of his attempts to put Palin down results in McCain's poll numbers going up, outrage from women and women switching sides.

posted September 11, 2008 09:10 PM            

quote:

---

Watch the video Lotus posted. Hi Lotus, how are you doing?

O'Bomber called Sarah Palin a pig without actually saying the words.

---

Did you read my first post?

The ad has two big problems, as does the complaint of former Gov. Swift. First, in the full text of the remarks it’s clear that Obama isn’t talking about Sarah Palin. He’s talking about McCain’s argument that he represents change.

It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he’s making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin. Her name never is used in the preceding sentence. In fact, it’s hard to see how one could interpret Obama’s lipstick-on-a-pig remark as referring directly to McCain, either.

posted September 11, 2008 09:16 PM              

why do you think he said that?

I do not beleive it's something he should of said, then this argument, would not be happening...

posted September 11, 2008 09:20 PM            

Lipstick? Coincidence? Or another Freudian reaction.

and what is that old fish remark ? is he referring to Mc Cain.

Jwhop,
>>>He's just the same old typical Chicago politician

His pastor Wright for 20 years came to another ghetto area in NJ (East Orange) a week ago. They are all made of same stuff. Rude, immature, no judgement, gaffe machines.

posted September 11, 2008 09:25 PM              

Obama, should not have made those comments, the way I SEE it!

posted September 11, 2008 09:26 PM            

Very intelligent comment indeed

posted September 11, 2008 09:28 PM              

pitbulls make excellent guard dogs!

posted September 11, 2008 09:37 PM            

Here's how ridiculous all of your notions are:

Clarke is a former communications director with the Pentagon in the early years of the Bush administration and a former advisor to Senator John McCain."

So who's Clarke? She is the author of the book Lipstick On a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game . (<---Click the link)

posted September 11, 2008 09:45 PM              

the fact that Obama's comment, came after hers, shows that he used it, to get back at them, and what about the smelly fish?

posted September 11, 2008 09:49 PM              

All my love, with all my heart
To ALL. ...

posted September 11, 2008 10:17 PM            

quote:

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AG, you got that book from the images I posted, and it's from the 80's!

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First off, I didn't get it from your images. I got it from the news, from people making the point quite emphatically that Obama clearly wasn't making a dig on Palin, and that the phrase is common even with McCain (there are videos of McCain using the same phrase with regard to Hillary's healthcare plan Click here for one), and with people like Clarke his former advisor.

The book is copyright 2006 (not the 80's)(you can look at the copyright at amazon.com).

quote:

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AG perhaps you need to read everyones post without being too attached. With an open mind.

---

posted September 11, 2008 10:28 PM              

still, the comment came after hers, point blank, we all know what that means!

posted September 11, 2008 10:50 PM            

Every one who has a professional job knows what applying lipstick to a pig means. Mc Cain was apt. It just turned out to be plan of a female candidate he commented on. If it was a male candidate's plan, that comment would not have been politicised so much. Obama was just disgraceful. Jeez. Chicago style?

Lotusheartone,
Yes that comment came within days of Palin's comment. Perhaps Obama is shaken up.
He is just not presidential (I think). He had this face of disgust standing with Hillary during debates. And now Palin. Perhaps he hates his mother also who is white

posted September 11, 2008 11:06 PM            

The word "lipstick" became a potent political symbol on September 3, 2008, when Sarah Palin metaphorically expressed to the American people the dual nature of her persona: the tough bulldog reformer and the feminine, attractive, grown-up lipstick-wearing executive.

When reproaching John McCain's message of change in Virginia on Tuesday, Barack Obama linked the symbol of the feminine half of the Palin's duality to a pig. Apparently extemporizing while speaking before a crowd of enthusiastic supporters, a tired cliché of disparagement connecting pigs to lipstick somehow presented itself to his mind as he sought to please his audience.

The most memorable line from the most memorable speech in recent American history impressed itself on Obama's mind over the past week, as he pondered what went so terribly wrong. The night that phrase entered history was the night everything really began to fall apart for his campaign. His appeal as something fresh and different was suddenly road kill, and the perp flaunted her lipstick and cracked wise about how tough she is.

The connection between lipstick and animal life was definitely floating around in his subconscious, if you believe such a thing exists.

Grant him the assumption he intended only to refer to McCain's policies with the joke, and his latest explanation to David Letterman that she is the lipstick and McCain is the pig. There is still the question of why lipstick+pig had enough juice to find expression on the spur of the moment, as he searched for phrases to feed the crowd (who, by the way, responded with wild enthusiasm).

Does Barack Obama not understand that Americans do not like when someone compares their women to pigs? Such a view of women is truly foreign to America. Why on earth would Obama make such a sly equation, even if subconsciously, as he was extemporizing in front of an enthusiastic crowd of devotees?

There is, however, an audience which appreciates such insults, one possessed of an altogether different mindset than most American voters.

Is it possible that Barack Obama's apparent condescension towards women is the legacy of the Muslim school he went to in his formative primary school years? We have it on no lesser authority than that of New York Times that Obama attended such an institution in his single digit years as a child in Indonesia, returning to Hawaii at the age of ten to his grandparents' care.

And even though pig-lipstick asides may elicit shouts of approval in Indonesian madrasas, they do not play well with the American people. It may strike Obama as odd, but normal Americans -- the very people whose votes he seeks -- admire women who live their lives and raise their families in the spirit of traditional American values. Has he not noticed the waves of enthusiasm that swept this country when people learned who Sarah Palin is?

There is no doubt that Obama's sexist attitude will go down well with publicly-declared Islamic supporters such as Hamas' political guru Ahmed Yousef ("we hope he will win the election"), Louis Farrakhan ("this young man is the hope of the entire world"), and Libyan President Muamar Khadafi who said in his endorsement speech that "all the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for his success."

Obama is greatly mistaken if he thinks that equating Sarah Palin with a pig will endear him to ordinary Americans. He would do well to remember that even though Islamists may have cast their make believe votes already, the American people have not yet done so in real life.

From the moment she stepped on the national stage, it was obvious to most that Sarah Palin is the real deal -- a genuine American in the best sense of the term. Strong, honest, self-reliant, diligent, principled, optimistic and fearless, she embodies the spirit that made the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth. A woman with deep love of God, of her family and of her country, she is the quintessential product of America's heartland.

One doesn't have to watch her very long to know that Sarah Palin would never choose as her ‘spiritual guide' a man who shouts from his pulpit "God damn America!" and who gives life-time achievement awards to Islamist extremists like Louis Farrakhan. Sarah Palin would not put up with such a "mentor" and "advisor" for one minute much less for twenty years. Sarah Palin would also never associate herself with unrepentant domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers. Neither is she embarrassed to place her hand over her heart at the playing of the national anthem or to wear an American flag pin.

Sarah Palin is not ashamed of her country, and we can be certain that she will not travel abroad acknowledging America's mostly imaginary "mistakes." Sarah Palin will not stand before those who envy our success and imply that America wantonly tortures its terrorist detainees. Sarah Palin loves the United States of America. About that there can be no doubt.

A devout Christian, a loving mother, a devoted wife, a successful governor and a true patriot, Sarah Palin is a shinning example of the wholesomeness of American traditions. Standing next to her, Barack Obama -- a former street agitator, Ivy League lawyer, follower of Jeremiah Wright, scheming Chicago politician and Islamists' favorite candidate -- suddenly seems rather small and phony.