It's not about the lipstick

So, here was Barack Obama, ranting about McCain's history as though it were not the unusual one that it is (his absurd "same old same old" sales pitch). And, when he got himself wound up, he made a reference to "put[ting] lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." If he didn't mean it as a double-entendre, on the one hand talking about McCain's voting history and on the other hand referencing Palin's pit bull with lipstick references, then he's really a bad orator, and his long history of gaffes alone should keep him from taking the presidency (after all, isn't diplomacy one of those things he touts as crucial in dealing with furriners?). And, if it was deliberate (as so many of us believe), he's an offensive jackass... but then, it's not so much sexist as it is opportunist. And, in any other circumstances, it would have been a tolerably good zinger.

Sadly, his own campaign conduct undoes him, here.


Obama came on the stage this morning to defend himself, by attempting to go on the offense. He accused the McCain campaign of raising a "false issue" to "distract" from the real issues of uh, ahm, uh... education, war, and something else lefties have done immense damage to and then blamed it on the right. Anyway, for the past eight months his campaign has taken statements by his opponents and twisted them to cry "racist" in a crowded theater. (oops, sorry. Wrong trite metaphor.) Every time somebody hit too close to home on genuine issues of his political/social history or character, his people would come out asking if terms like "inexperienced" and "associated with extremists" were code words for "He's black! Run for the hills!" Every statement against him was turned into a perception of racism, and not one was even remotely that way in intent or actual meaning.

So, when he cries that the McCain campaign is trying to distract from the actual issues, it looks a little bit too much like a pot calling the kettle porcine.