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
