Obama is knee-deep in political slop after remarks he made while at a campaign stop in Lebanon, Virginia.
Attempting to draw a stark contrast between his and McCain’s policies, Obama said, “Except for economic policy, heath care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics, we’re really going to shake thing up in Washington.” Obama said, mocking McCain. “That’s not change – that’s just calling the same thing something different. You know, you can put lipstick on a pig – it’s still a pig.”
The McCain camp was quick to respond – not by setting the record straight on McCain’s positions – but shifting voter attention to lipstick-wearing pigs.
“Senator Obama uttered what I can only describe to be disgusting comments, comparing our vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, to a pig,” said Jane Swift, chair of the “Palin Truth Squad,” in an interview with the Washington Post.
Swift, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts said Obama’s stump remarks were, as liberal Democrats might define, gender insensitive.
Syndicated conservative radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt said of the developing pig-gate controversy, “Callers and e-mailers are furious with Obama. Beyond furious, really. MSM (mainstream media) is ignoring this tsunami of a story thus far, but it has traveled around the globe and back and will keep traveling. Millions of women will never forget and they won't forgive.”
Central to this manufactured controversy is Obama’s failure to galvanize strong support among America’s white female voters – especially those still loyal to Hillary Clinton. Polls have consistently shown Obama’s weakness in gathering their support and explains McCain’s bold move to exploit Obama’s “gender gap” with the choice of Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.
Though Obama’s remarks clearly ridicule McCain and not Palin, this has not stopped McCain and his supporters from mischaracterizing the statement as being against Palin and, by implication, all women.
This “controversy” represents a pivotal turning point for the Republican Party. It clearly demonstrates that political demagoguery is no longer the exclusive domain of their Democratic rivals, and they –Republicans – will better the instruction.
McCain, with his strong predilection for reaching across the aisle to his Democratic colleagues, has lately helped blur the distinctions that once produced a healthy separation of principles between the nation’s two political parties. This abdication of principle lowers that rivalry to mindless tribal warfare.
Tribe Big-R now accuses Tribe Big-D as having insulted R’s second in command. Tribe Big-D is outraged that the pig debate distracts them from accusing Tribe Big-R of hating children, women, people of color and waging an illegal war against non-threatening foreign tribes.
Lincoln would be ashamed of the party of Lincoln and the Union he fought so hard to preserve. He battled his Democratic opponent Stephen A. Douglas on the question of slavery with reason and sound argument. But it was a far different kind of American that attended the Lincoln-Douglas debates under flickering torchlight. Americans no longer know their history, basic civics or understand much about the world around them. It is in this mental and moral vacuum the two parties must compete.
The issues of power and restraint, of war and peace, of good and evil are mere side spectacle to the crucial issue of pigs with lipstick. What is truly amazing is that this strategy seems to be working. As of this writing, Rasmussen state polls show McCain behind Obama by only four votes in the Electoral College.
Americans, polls show, hold their elected leaders in contempt. They claim to decry the petty bickering that makes up so much of what passes for political debate in Washington. What is missing from the equation is this: If you want a better class of politician, you first need a better class of American.
--Mr. Curmudgeon
