Did Obama Call Palin "A Pig"?

I am not one of those conservatives who think Barack Obama is a terrible person.  I don't.  He seems like a really good guy.  But man, he and the Democrats just don't know what to do about Sarah Palin.  Soren Dayton has this quote:

"You know, you can put lipstick on a pig," Obama said, "but its still a pig."

Now I think what the clearly dazed senator was going for was not a sexualized joke, but rather that Palin is unqualified, no matter how we try and jazz her up.  At least I hope.  In Obama's decency, I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt here.  But thats not the frightening part, this is:

The crowd rose and applauded, some of them no doubt thinking he may have been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Plain's ad lib during her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last week, "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

The Party of Feminism has truly come full-circle, hasn't it?  This hearkens back to the old workplace days of women being called "sweetie," and "darling," and "honey," doesn't it?  While Obama did not mean what he said, the Democrats response seems to indicate that they fully understood the analogy and fully support it.  Because to many of them, Sarah Palin is a "pig."  It has nothing to do with her looks, but everything to do about the life she has lead.  Sarah Palin has risen to prominence in America the exact opposite way American feminists have defined women to do.  She married her high school sweetheart, was a stay-at-home hockey mom, was active in the PTA, and generally lived an unremarkable life.  She didn't go to Bryn Mawr or Harvard or Cal Berkley.  She's an Idaho Vandal! She wasn't an activist of abortion, gun laws, and touchy-feeling restrictions on every day life.  She is pro-life to her core, she loves guns, and she certainly isn't touchy-feely.  She is proof that women can excel as conservatives, as moms, as normal women who can stay at home with the kids, who can coach sports.  

This is an idea that reflects the general life of most middle-American women, both liberal and conservative in many ways.  But its a way of life thats a mystery to liberals, and is a threat to the narrative they have spent two generations trying to define.  The fact thats its so many liberal women who are wondering if she can be a good mom and a good vice-president at the same time proves the old adage that the emperor has no clothes on.  

So when Barrack Obama makes a slip of the tongue (someone get a teleprompter, STAT!) like that, the Democrats show their true disdain for women who don't conform to their narrative of what women should be.  They really believe that Sarah Palin, for lack of a better word, is a "pig."

It further proves that these guys just have no idea how to deal with her.  In a way, she's a female Obama in terms of personal story.  So the harder Obama's campaign tries to denigrate her, the more it will denigrate themselves.  And folks, Joe Biden is the exact wrong person to put up against Palin in terms of direct comparisons.  

As for the "pig" line, could this be Obama's macaca moment?

Comments

The first McCain truthsquadding telephone call is taking place right now, and ex-MA Gov. Jane Swift is complaining about an idiom Barack Obama used today:

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new "change" mantra.
"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig."
"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."
"We've had enough of the same old thing."
Suddenly, common analogies are sexist?

The McCain campaign has little respect for Obama, but they don't think he is stupid. And the only way one can conclude that Obama meant to refer to Gov. Sarah Palin as a pig is to have concluded that Obama is as dumb as a doornail.

Obama is fond of this particular phrase. To wit, in 2007:

'I think that both General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are capable people who have been given an impossible assignment,' Sen. Barack Obama said yesterday in a telephone interview. 'George Bush has given a mission to General Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig.

And so is John McCain. Speaking about Hillary Clinton....

McCain criticized Democratic contenders for offering what he called costly universal health-care proposals that require too much government regulation. While he said he had not studied Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's plan, he said it was "eerily reminiscent" of the failed plan she offered as first lady in the 1990s.

"I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," he said of her proposal.
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[Bitter Typical White Person]

In a word to answer your question....NO

Only in the non-reality based alternate universe in which republican live does that charge take hold.

[The Northern Virginia Conservative]

I actually don't think so. But that doesn't matter, thanks to what Joe Biden said today.

[RicJohn]

This phrase has been used MANY times over the years. Vice President Dick Cheney used it against former Senator John Edwards during the 2004 campaign. I was waiting for Senator Obama to use the pig analogy to compare Governor Palin's rhetoric to her actual record because it would draw a laugh. She's trying to be some crusader politician but she's just a conventional pork barrel politician. She was for the "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was against it, and then goes around saying she represents "change". McCain, a Washington insider, is trying to run against his own party, even though he SUPPORTS THE SAME POLICIES that driven our economy and infratructure into the ground.

Bottom line: This statement wasn't sexist and Obama was not calling Governor Palin a pig. McCain said the SAME THING last year about Hillary Clinton's health care plan, saying it was the same 1993 plan disguised as something new.

I just find it funny that right wing radicals are now acting as though they are too good to answer media inquiries. I guess that's how a potential VP Palin would operate? Consult with Rick Davis, then decide if its ok to make a statement? What happened to "Barracuda" Sarah?

[Bill Wheaton]

I agree Obama was not refering to Gov. Palin, but the crowd he was addressing did. Obama either missed or ignored that, and that is where he made the mistake.

I am thrilled to see the McCain - Palin campaign responding they way they are, putting the Democrats on defense.

I remember all too well how the Bush 41 campaign failed to respond to the Clinton attack about the "worse economy since the great depression," which was a lie, but believed by far too many.

Looks like McCain-Palin won't make that mistake.

[KPO]

New Conservative Blog:

http://reaganconservatives-us.blogspot.com/

[George Templeton]

It's silly to even think that Obama was talking about Palin being a pig. If anything Palin is the lipstick and McCain is the pig in that statement. But I don't think Obama meant that either. Maybe it was inartful, but lets get real, this is nothing. The media made a big deal of this because its lazy. Now granted if a Republican had used that phrase that inartfully the media would've exploded in fury.

[Trevor]

The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride f*cking with you. F*ck pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.
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