There were time, when I was a wee lad, my father and I tried to make the messes we made in the garage (working on something) look better by scooting boxes around, throwing a sheet over an obscure hunk of metal, etc. And I remember clear as day, my mother saying to both of us many times:
You can’t put lipstick on a pig…
Come to think of it, my grandparents were fond of saying that old American phrase. Pigs are recognized as just plain ugly no matter what. And that phrase just says it all in many situations. But in today’s political environment, a traditional phrase used to describe all kinds of situations and ideas, means only one thing: SEXISM!
Courtesy of Ben Smith’s Blog:
Amie Parnes reports from Lebanon, VA:
Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin’s new “change” mantra.
“You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said as the crowd cheered. “It’s still a pig.”
“You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”
“We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”
The crowd apparently took the “lipstick” line as a reference to Palin, who described the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull in a single word: “lipstick.”
UPDATE: The McCain campaign is now saying Obama called Palin a pig, which he didn’t. The Obama campaign notes that “lipstick on a pig” is a fairly common idiom Obama often uses, as in a recent Washington Post interview. McCain has also used the phrase.
Though on a day when Obama’s surrogates were joking that Palin’s record can’t be concealed with lipstick, it was hard for those following the campaign not to hear the echo.
UPDATE: Obama aide Anita Dunn responds to the McCain campaign’s claim that Obama compared Palin to a pig:
Enough is enough. The McCain 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.
Here’s the “sexist” (whatever) video of Barack Obama speaking in Lebanon, VA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPd4yk0x-egMy fellow Americans, I’m saying here and now that Election ’08 has officially jumped the shark! Oh no! Is there some kind of sexist reference in “jumped the shark”? Please be gentle. I’m a good man! REALLY!
And the McCain campaign is jumping on this like flies to excrement along with other outraged bloggers (see Memeorandum). Throwing around sexism charges without proof is downright disgusting. And if Obama made sexists remarks at that campaign stop, then I guess I’m a raving sexist buffoon for calling my white, French grandmother “Frenchie”.
UPDATE
Courtesy of Marc Ambinder, Senator Obama has used this phrase before when *GASP* men were the target:
I think that both General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are capable people who have been given an impossible assignment,’ Sen. Barack Obama said yesterday in a telephone interview. ‘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.
Obama’s a self-hating man that is sexist toward other men! That elitist black guy sexist dude pig lipstick LOVER!!!!!! Can I say it again? Election ’08 has officially jumped the shark. And as Charlie Brown says: Good Grief!
I’m not complex. Don’t have time for all that. And all that complex stuff bad for the stomach. Just color me simple and plain with a twist.