Filed under: Debunking
In Obama’s words:
“What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw out an outrageous ad because they know it’s catnip for the news media…I’m assuming you guys heard this watching the news. I’m talking about John McCain’s economic policies and I said here’s more of the same, ‘You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Suddenly, they say, Oh you must be talking about the governor of Alaska!’”
“See it would be funny, it would be funny except, of course the news media decided that was the lead story yesterday. The McCain campaign would much rather have the story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
-BC
The media (pathetically) is all abuzz because of a comment Obama made yesterday on the campaign trail, criticizing McCain for purporting to be about “change,” when in fact McCain is about the anti-thesis of change. Essentially, Obama was making the point that McCain might be a new face, but his policies are the same old policies of the Bush administration. Obama said:
“John McCain says he’s about change, too – except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics…That’s not change. That’s just calling the same thing something different. You can put lipstick on a pig – it’s still a pig….You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”
Suddenly, for that innocuous comment, the Republicans are all over Obama accusing him of using the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig” to poke fun at Palin, and the media, apparently because they have nothing better to do and don’t care to discuss the real issues of this election, are falling all over each other rushing to comment on the “lipstick story.” Palin’s people came out with this statement: “Barack Obama’s comments today are offensive and disgraceful. He owes Governor Palin an apology.“ For using the word “lipstick”??
I’m a woman, I wear lipstick, and as far as I’m concerned, Obama can use the word “lipstick” as much as he wants. I don’t know who I’m more disgusted with, the Republicans for yet another transparent and baseless attempt to divert the national debate from actual issues, or the media for being their willing handmaidens.
Aren’t journalists supposed to be good researchers? Palin studied journalism in school, she should know. If her campaign put to use any of those research skills she was supposed to develop in college, they would have quickly discovered that “putting lipstick on a pig” is a colloquial phrase, coined long before Palin entered the vice-presidential fray, used to refer to something that is being made to look appealing, when it quite clearly will not work. (See Urban Dictionary). For example, putting lipstick on a pig could be giving a lemon a paint job and trying to sell it as a new car. You can change the exterior, you can change how you refer to it, but a pig is a pig, even if it’s wearing make-up. Many other writers and commentators used this phrase long before Obama used it yesterday, and before Palin referred to herself as a Pitbull with lipstick. You can see examples here, here, and here.
The idea that anyone mentioning “lipstick” in a sentence must now be referring to Palin is simply ridiculous. Just because she’s a woman in politics who had the misfortune to refer to herself as a dog wearing make-up does not mean that she now has a monopoly on the use of the word “lipstick” in the national discourse. Palin needs to read the Four Agreements and study up on a basic life lesson that she apparently missed in journalism school: Not everything is about you.
Of course, the Republicans are fully aware that Obama wasn’t calling out Palin with his comment, and that Obama was actually using the phrase to call foul on McCain’s ridiculous claims that he will bring change to America. A McCain administration will not bring change to America; instead, it will keep this country firmly entrenched in the Bush administration’s policies for four more years. The Republicans, like their outrage is phony.
Saying McCain is about change is like putting lipstick on a pig – you can try to change the appearance of a pig, but underneath, the pig remains a pig. By talking about lipstick on pigs and wrapping dead fish in newspaper, Obama was calling a spade a spade.
Can we get back to the issues now?
-BC
My mother sent me a video that she had received through email purporting to be a portrait of Barrack Obama, accusing him of being a “Muslim,” a “racist,” a “quasi-Christian,” an “anti-Semite,” and a “Marxist” all in one. Wow. That’s a lot to accuse any one person of being, particularly when the accusations contradict one another. And we thought Muslims and Christians couldn’t come together.
If it wasn’t so offensive (to Obama and to all those the makers of the video were trying to dupe) and if I didn’t think that some people would actually believe the baseless insinuations, I would find it laughable. The video is such a transparent attempt to tap into and perpetuate a culture of fear. Fear of Muslims, fear of black people, and a general fear of the “other.” A general fear of brown people, perhaps.
Three days ago, I would have immediately discounted the video as bogus propaganda from the right wing, rolled my eyes in disgust, and turned my attention elsewhere, like the newest episode of Gossip Girl without even trying to get to the bottom of it. That was before the blog, and before my new found determination to expose right-wing spin for what it is – crap. I’m not posting a clip of it here because I don’t want to dignify the fear-motivated drivel.
So, I did a little digging, and here’s what I found out: The source of the video is an entity called “Illuminati Pictures,” a company which describes itself as a “political group” and a “religious experience” on its website. It’s “works” include music videos for Christian rock bands, a so-called documentary on whether homosexuality “can be altered or not,” a film on Haiti’s alleged dedication to Satan, and a film series “into the musical world of four underground, youth subcultures shaping the future of America every day: Skinhead, Straightedge, Black Metal, and Zealot.” Jason “Molotov” Mitchell (aka Rodney Talmud and Lorne Baxter), an alleged “Christian Soldier” is the President of Illuminati Pictures LLC. He’s behind a Christian TV show called “Flamethrower” that proved so controversial that Faith TV refused to air it. He’s also rabidly anti-choice.
In short, Molotov Mitchell and Illuminati Pictures, the company responsible for the baseless video attacking Obama, are religious, right-wing extremists with a very clear agenda to put religious, right wing extremists in to control of the United States. He’s probably super psyched about Palin and her anti-choice (no abortion, not even in cases of rape) position.
Of course Molotov Mitchell is against Obama: Obama’s not a right-wing religious extremist.
- BC
