Palin is Not a Pig, but Republican Politics is a Pig Sty! Lipstick Stupidity is Their Latest Distraction

Anyone who knows a bit about baseball knows that a pitcher can get someone out if he or she has overwhelming stuff -- a faster fastball, a severe slider, etc. -- or he or she can be the kind of pitcher I was -- a junkball pitcher, with an assortment of off speed pitches and lots of motion in my windup. The object was to get the batter's eye off the ball, to distract them, to sneak the ball by them by hook or crook.

That is what the Republican propaganda machine is doing in their deceptive plan to elect John McCain president. With the true mess they have made the last eight years, the way they win is to keep the voter's eye off the ball. They do not have strength on record or policies or plans or issues. So they distract with trumped up character issues and making it all about supposed culture wars, instead of the things that really matter --policies, policies, policies.

Now we have the poster story for this political atrocity that the Republicans, ever since Daddy Bush and the late strategist Lee Atwater (remember Willie Horton and the ad with Dukakis in a tank?) They have gotten better at this morally bad thing over the years, and this year we see doctoral level Atwater -Rove tactics. Witness the lipstick on a pig brouhaha, woven by Republican hacks and their journalistic brethren over a folksy remark used by thousands and thousands of politicians, professors and preachers over the years.

There is video evidence of McCain himself using the descriptive phrase several times, as well as Vice -President Dick Cheney, as well as other Republican luminaries. Obama used the remark a number of times in the primary campaign, long before Sarah Palin was a national Republican overnight hero.

But McCain's campaign says the sexist, "offensive and disgraceful" comment was directed at Palin and is demanding an apology. Their attack was fierce and shrill, from dozens of young, female surrogates picked fresh for the offensive, to the erstwhile man of integrity himself, John McCain, who approved this message in another questionable judgement. He should be ashamed of playing this game. I used to admire him when he was fighting this kind of politics in 2000. But now he has sold out to the Bushian team. He is playing the game their dishonorable way.

In Palin's speech accepting the party nomination last week, she joked that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick. So now we are told by some, she has the corner market on the word "lipstick" and anytime you say lipstick you are referring to her.

Give me a break! One retreaded joke in Minneapolis does not give you ownership of a word owned by the world. It is our collective word for all English speakers to use, not just Sarah Palin, who I assume is a self-described pit bull, but not a pig. If she were a pig, she should take offense to the remark. Since she is not a pig, the Republicans are showing their utter lunacy, their mounds clouded by Rovian politics, on this one. Sarah Palin is not a pig, but Republican politics is a pig sty, and they try to draw everyone, the whole country, into the mud with them.

"What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad because they know that it's catnip for the news media," Obama said. "I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift Boat politics. Enough is enough," he said.

Obama was commenting on McCain and the Republican record, not taking a personal slap at Palin, and anyone with any sense knows that. The Republican talking points crowd and their phony outrage only shows their own secret contempt for American voter intelligence.

Paul Begala, the old Clinton assistan, said on NBC's Today show that its was "smart politcs" for the Republicans to commandeer the news cycle with a distraction. It may seem smart to a political operative, but it is dirty, disreputable and dishonest. It has no good moral base. What may be smart politically is not smart for the country. It really is treason to the American democracy. What is more, the way they campaign is also how the Republicans govern.

America, keep you eye on the ball, not the distractions. No matter how much the Republicans try to put a new face on their heartless ideology and failed policies, they remain a dismal fact of American life, and they will remain the same under McCain and five-child hockey mom from up North.

No matter how they try to dress it up, they do not deserve four more years in power. They are trying to put lipstick on a pig. But it will still be a pig.