I have gotta say that I'm shocked to see people here asserting that the "lipstick on a pig" comment was "obviously" directed at Sarah Palin. I mean seriously, was Obama anticipating Sarah Palin in this other instance where he used it last September?
"I think that both Gen. [David] Petraeus and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker are capable people who have been given an impossible assignment," Obama told the Post. "George Bush has given a mission to Gen. Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig."
Does this mean that last September, Obama thought that Bush was wearing lipstick? It's a
euphemism, like saying "you can polish a turd...", or whatever other one you choose. And had he used "polish a turd...", would that mean he was calling McCain and Palin "turds?" The goal of euphemisms is to make a point
without being literal. I mean, I expect some hard-core conservatives to see this supposed "controversy" in a literal way...hell, a frighteningly large portion of them take stories in the bible literally despite pesky things like "facts" or "science" or "evolution". But frankly, the fact that this fabricated indignation from the McCain camp is gaining such wide traction scares the shit out of me. Seriously - the Repubs have been calling every single question about or criticism of Palin "sexist", just hoping that at some point, it might stick. And this is it? This is what reverberates with people?
Now do the Democrats have to be careful in the face of these b.s. "sexist" charges from Republicans? Absolutely. I'll bet large sums of money that you won't hear Obama use this euphemism any more. But saying that this was a deliberate swipe at Palin just doesn't hold water to me. At all. In any way. Maybe it would if the McCain camp
hadn't been calling virtually
every reference to Palin "sexist", or if Obama had never used this euphemism before, or if the context of the statement was even remotely directed at Palin, or if Obama had a history of name-calling. But those are all hypotheticals that
don't apply, so as far as I'm concerned, this whole "story" is a non-issue.