Wednesday, September 10, 2008

You Find What You Look For

For the record, I don't believe the following quote from Obama was directed at Palin:
"You can put lipstick on a pig ... it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."
That said, you'd think the man who keeps finding racist comments under every rock, and who keeps warning audiences that the Republicans are going to play on their fears about his race, would be more careful not to make any comments that could be interepreted as sexist.

And he should not act self-righteous and outraged over this. Some of us have just enough long-term memory to recognize the hypocrisy.

UPDATE: Some commenters at Instapundit are pointing out the proximity of "lipstick/pig" to "old fish" to suggest this was not unintentional, but an actual swipe at the lipsticked pitbull and the old McCain. They make a good point. But I'll hold with my initial opinion for now.

I still think Obama crying foul over the McCain campaign's outrage is hypocritical, though. As much as I'd like to have seen McCain's campaign just ignore the whole thing and let it take on it's own life without their help. Best thing they could do? Have McCain and Palin either both make statements that they didn't think it was intentional or, as someone else suggested, compliment Obama on his newfound sense of humor. Perhaps even jokingly refer to each other as "the lipsticked pig and the old fish" a few times and then drop it.

I don't think we're going to get anywhere in American politics by being hyper-sensitive about everything. It does nothing to get us past our current problems. I believe learning to laugh at ourselves and then dismiss it shows maturity and confidence while putting those who make such attacks (or overreact to such attacks) look foolish and petty--as they should.

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