(Copyright 2008)
The WALTHER REPORT
By Tony Walther
The whole “lipstick on a pig” thing that the McCain campaign is using against Barack Obama is a cynical ploy to keep diverting discussion from the real issues. Timing is everything, though, and Obama was careless to use an expression that could be interpreted as a slam against holier-than-thou Sarah Palin.
I say if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen super mom. And if you are so thin-skinned that you interpret everything the other side says as an attack on your womanhood, you certainly don’t belong in politics (we know you’re just throwing up a smoke screen, though).
The fact is, the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig – but it’s still a pig” has been used by McCain and Dick Cheney, among others, in the past (and for all I know, Palin, in all her frontier folksiness). But Obama had the misfortune of using it not long after Palin, a self-described “hockey mom,” said that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is “lipstick.” Who knows? Maybe Obama had something working in his subconscious when he used that phrase. It is a fact that Palin has taken him off his game.
And then there’s the fact that Hillary Clinton hollered sexism during the campaign and the Obama camp has hollered racism, and now we’re back to the charge of sexism being used by the McCain camp against Obama.
Obama needs to be careful what he says, but more importantly he needs to realize now that he’s been caught in a trap. He’s supposed to be running against McCain. But like Frank Burns in the TV Show M*A*S*H often let Hot Lips Houlihan do his talking for him to Col. Henry Blake, we the voters are now the colonel and McCain is silently bitching to us through Hot Lips (lipstick?) Palin.
And poor Joe Biden gets no respect. All he has to look forward to is fighting a girl. Any guy knows you can’t win that one (well okay, Obama did with Hillary, but don’t ruin my point).
I’m looking forward to see how Charlie Gibson of ABC handles the Palin interview. I’ve heard the McCain camp may think they have him intimidated over the criticism he got earlier in moderating one of the debates – we’ll see.
The Republicans are using dirty politics with their outright lies. Even after the fact that Palin supported the infamous “bridge to nowhere” project has been out there for several days, I just saw an ad on TV and she’s still claiming she told Washington it could keep its money.
The Republicans really want to win this one and are willing to do whatever it takes. Are the Democrats?
P.S. Actually I never really got a handle on what a “soccer mom” is and now I wonder what a “hockey mom” really is. Palin probably is unique, but I suppose the rest of these creatures are busy busy moms who indulge their children and run them back and forth in their pickups and SUVs to soccer or hockey games and don’t have time to really study the issues, and besides the news is depressing, all things should be happy and good. They are worried about security for their families and themselves, though, so they dutifully apply “support the troops” stickers on their bumpers, that should take care of things. Also, I never heard the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig…” before all this, but I did hear that “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Hold on Sarah! I did not call you a sow. Don’t shoot! Hey what are you going to do with that hunting knife?
P.S. P.S. And Barack, hey get back in the game buddy, this is embarrassing.
P.S. P.S. PS. And Sen. McCain, how do you do that? talk without moving your lips.
