Obama's "Lipstick on a Pig" remark draws Swift denunciation from McCain camp
Down South, we're familiar with the phrase "lipstick on a pig." As in, you can put some on one, but it's still a pig. Barack Obama of Illinois used the phrase today during a campaign stop in Lebanon, Virginia.
"The other side, suddenly, they're saying 'we're for change too,' " Obama told the crowd. "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."
The McCain campaign decided to take that as a sexist swipe at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, though nothing in Obama's remarks targeted her specifically.
Former Gov. Jane Swift of Massachusetts -- where, perhaps, they don't have colorful expressions about pigs -- denounced the comment as "disgraceful" and maintained that since Palin is the only national candidate who wears lipstick, it was clearly directed at her.
"Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology," Swift said on a conference call tonight hastily arranged by the McCain campaign.
Why is she so sure the remark was aimed at Palin? Forty million Americans saw the Palin acceptance speech, when Palin quipped that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick.
"Calling a very prominent female governor of one of our states a pig is not exactly what we want to see, when we supposedly are going to see this great debate that is the politics of hope," Swift said.
So, one reporter asked, what about that time in the primaries when McCain took a dig at Mitt Romney, invoking another porcine colloquialism -- that you don't get in a wrestling match with a pig because the pig enjoys it and you both get dirty.
Tooootallly different, Swift insisted.
"She's the only woman in the race," Swift said.
Never mind all those buttons at the GOP convention about Palin being the "hottest governor from the coolest state."
The word "sexist" never passed the ex-governor's lips, not on this call. Safe to assume from here on that no attack on Palin that can be characterized as sexist will go unanswered.
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