Let’s ignore, for the moment, the fact that both McCain and Obama said “lipstick on a pig” before. I think it’s more than likely that Obama was at least primed to use that line by the pitbull-hockey mom joke last week. But in what respect is Obama’s use of this line sexist or an attempt to “play the gender card”? The context makes it clear that the primary meaning was an analogy for McCain dressing up his policies as ‘change’:
“That’s not change. That’s just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”
But again, let’s be charitable and assume there was an implied jab at Palin. To my ear, there are a few plausible candidates. Some commentators have suggested he straightforwardly implied that Palin was a pig. Which would be insulting, but doesn’t sound sexist to me. A more subtle (although more sensible) jab would be the following implied argument:
That’s arguably unfavorable, except that Palin made the comparison herself. Perhaps the most politically salient reading would be this:
That’s as close as I can get to a sexist reading. It at least draws the analogy by calling Palin the ‘lipstick’ on McCain’s ‘pig’ of a campaign, and the use of ‘lipstick’ does suggest ‘female’ of the choices above. But the statement is aimed more generally at the fact that she has brought new energy to the ticket because she is young and perceived as a reformer and, yes, a woman – but that’s because this a first for the Republicans. And the content of the statement is still to critique McCain on policy rather to dismiss Palin based on her gender. Granted, anyone could see that after last week mentioning “lipstick” would inevitably bring this storm down, but it’s still a pretty tenuous connection.
UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, Obama gets it, as shown from this transcript of his David Letterman interview last night:
Obama: “It does. But keep in mind that, technically, had I meant it that way, she would have been the lipstick, you see?” (audience, Dave laugh) “But now we’re…”Dave: “I don’t know, you’re way ahead of me.” (audience laughs)
Obama: “Yeah, the failed policies of John McCain would be the pig.”
Leave it to a former Con Law professor to realize how an analogy works.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Apparently, the Republicans think they’ve found a winner in the first option:
And as we all know, “old rotten fish,” is a euphemism for unqualified small-town mayors.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
[...] old friend Tony has it right when he says: Some commentators have suggested he straightforwardly implied that Palin was a pig. Which would [...]