POLITICAL MAKE-UP

POLITICAL MAKE-UP

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "Here they go again."

Late this past Spring, I wrote an email to a friend in Atlanta about the 2008 Presidential election. I said, and this is a direct quote, "McCain really cannot put lipstick on the pig they have created." Last November, I indicted the entire GOP in the same terms. In a blog titled "Back to the Future," I said, and again this is a direct quote, with "the current state of the union, they really have no story to tell, at least not one that can put lipstick on the pig they have created." 

Wow! 

I have now learned that I was attacking Sarah Palin. That I "insulted" her. That my comments were "disgusting." It really can't be the "lipstick" part. Afterall, she has described herself, to accolades all around, as a "pit bull in lipstick." So, I guess it was the p-word that really was over the top. 

In any case, thank God the Republcans have educated me. 

Up 'til now, I was just another hopeless liberal wedded to the intolerant culture of political correctness, too much in thrall to the "fact based" elitist media to fight a war to its someday over the rainbow winning end, too taken by "the Golden One's" soaring rhetoric to recognize a real man when he is running for President. An Ivy League educated lawyer, I was a poster boy for all that was wrong with America, in love with jury trials (and Roe v. Wade, for God's sake), a guy who actually thought Bill Clinton might even . . . have done a good job. 

But apparently, that wasn't the half of it. Now, I am also a sexist trafficing in "schoolyard insults." 

All thanks to my love affair with a metaphor.

According to their latest putatively logical syllogism, since Governor Palin is "the only one of the Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates who wears lipstick," those who claim the GOP's all show and no go campaign is simply an attempt to put "lipstick on a pig" are by definition insulting her. I know they were attacking Obama, who yesterday embraced the "lipstick on a pig" metaphor in describing the McCain campaign, and I swear I didn't give him the line (I've never even met the guy). But these GOP spinmeisters are serious people, at least they tell me they are, so I assume they weren't simply launching a spurious ad hominem at Barack. They wouldn't do that. They must have a point. Sarah Palin must really have been insulted. And though I do not presume to believe that she ever read my November blog (I never met her either, and she was way too busy these last two years getting those earmarks for Alaska, and telling us to make sure our Iraq war policy was right with God, and defending creationism, to focus on the musings of a hopeless liberal), or that she ever saw the email to my Atlanta friend (unless, thanks to the Patriot Act, Bush has seen it and passed it on to her), the undeniable fact is that I uttered these insulting words . . . twice. And if she had been listening, she would have been insulted. And in any case, I was being insulting. 

 And now that I know how insulting I have been, and how insulting Barack has been, I realize there really is no end to this veritable plague of metaphorical sexism now sweeping the country. 

We just didn't realize how bad things were. Or how many insults, over the years, have been levelled at this erstwhile hockey mom.

Take Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example.  At the 2004 GOP Convention, he brought the house down with his defense of the Bush economic policy, telling those who would bemoan it not to be "economic girlie men." Of course, since Sarah Palin is the only current "Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate" who is a girl, the Terminator must have been insulting her. Maria better set Arnold straight, right away, or he'll be off the McCain Inaugural Ball list. 

Then there was Richard Armitage, a former Deputy Secretary of State. Years ago, in defending the Iraq war before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, some of the Senators had the temerity to point out that Armitage had been among those in the '80s who befriended Saddam Hussein. Dick, however, was a stand up guy. He admitted it, saying that "his skirt" was not clean on Iraq. Uh oh! Last I checked, Palin is the only current "Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate" who wears skirts. Wasn't it pretty slimy of the Deputy Secretary to insult her for his mistakes? But who am I to talk. And Barack better not mention it either.

Of course, the news gets even worse for the Democrats. Guess who was the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Armitage levelled his insult at Wasilla, Alaska's then Mayor. You got it. None other than Joe Biden. And he did not take Armitage to task at all, didn't even so much as utter a "You don't really mean to say it that way, do you Dick?" friendly admonishment. Nope. Biden simply let the comment slide. Said nothing. And then, to add insult to injury, Biden actually complimented Armitage for his frankness, told him the country would be a lot better off if there were more honest folks like him, folks (I guess) willing to admit their skirts weren't clean either (even if they don't wear skirts, and Sarah Palin does). 

Oh boy! This could really turn the election. I think Obama should apologize. Immediately. And he should do it with Michelle at his side, wearing one of those stern looks Michelle gets when Barack doesn't take out the garbage, or otherwise acts like the insulting, disgusting guy the GOP says he is. 

And after he says he's sorry, he has to clarify what he meant by the "lipstick on a pig" comment. He needs to tell America that, from now on, "lipstick on a pig" is a clause that will never pass over his lips again. Not once. Instead, from now on, he will tell America that McCain is simply trying to put lipstick on a war that should not have been started, or . . . lipstick on a recession that is killing the middle class, or. . . lipstick on a right wing Supreme Court that is one vote away from gutting the right to choose, or. . . lipstick on a government that can't deliver emergency aid to New Orleans, or . . . lipstick on a health insurance system that works only if you don't get sick. 

There, that should do it. 

And Governor Palin, once again, I'm sorry.