Politics as usual.
Yesterday one of my Republican coworkers asked me if I heard what Barack Obama had said. "He called Sarah Palin a pig! He said 'you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.'" I expressed shock that he would call Ms. Palin a pig of all things. Inexperienced, smug and holding views completely contradictory to my own? Yes. A somewhat offensive choice in its implications about women's voting patterns? Yes. (Although apparently some women really do just vote superficially.) But a pig? Couldn't he have thought of a slightly less offensive way of criticizing her?
So this morning I turned on Fox News. I know. Fair and balanced, my ass. But sometimes I like to see how the other side thinks, so I tune in to all the right-wing talking heads. They were going on and on about how Obama had offended everyone monstrously by calling Palin a pig, how it was outrageous and he should apologize, blah blah blah. So I watched the clip.
Ok, first of all, he never mentioned Palin by name. I think what he was doing was alluding to her pitbull speech. A clever allusion - but not a direct reference to her personally. The pig here is the Bush administration and the potential McCain administration, not Ms. Sarah Palin. A reaction of faux outrage is very clever on the McCain campaign's part, because it creates artificial controversy and allows them to use the "sexism" argument that could prove very useful in attracting female voters.
Eh, politics as usual. But I really do not think Obama was in the wrong on that statement. It's just another example of a flawed, overhyped campaign process that is only going to get worse in the next two months.
So this morning I turned on Fox News. I know. Fair and balanced, my ass. But sometimes I like to see how the other side thinks, so I tune in to all the right-wing talking heads. They were going on and on about how Obama had offended everyone monstrously by calling Palin a pig, how it was outrageous and he should apologize, blah blah blah. So I watched the clip.
Ok, first of all, he never mentioned Palin by name. I think what he was doing was alluding to her pitbull speech. A clever allusion - but not a direct reference to her personally. The pig here is the Bush administration and the potential McCain administration, not Ms. Sarah Palin. A reaction of faux outrage is very clever on the McCain campaign's part, because it creates artificial controversy and allows them to use the "sexism" argument that could prove very useful in attracting female voters.
Eh, politics as usual. But I really do not think Obama was in the wrong on that statement. It's just another example of a flawed, overhyped campaign process that is only going to get worse in the next two months.