If It Oinks Like A Pig

Would you buy a pig in a poke?

The latest distraction in the increasingly silly Presidential Campaign is whether Senator Obama was calling a Moose a pig when he said, "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." He continued, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' it's still gonna stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing! It’s time to bring about real change to Washington. And that’s the choice you’ve got in this election."

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

-----Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

I guess it doesn't count that on October 12, 2007 McChange is quoted in the NYT [registration required] as saying about Senator Clinton's Health Care Plan, “I think they put some lipstick on a pig,” he said, “but it’s still a pig.”

Not to be outdone, Elizabeth Edwards said in April of this year that McChange's Health Care Plan was akin to “painting lipstick on a pig.”

Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig.

-----Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918 - ), The Gulag Archipelago

I'm told that Torie Clarke, a former-press secretary for one John McChange published a book called, "Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game"

With such a fairly common expression, it seems likely that we'd find it coming out of the mouths of many. And, lo and behold, even Senator Obama has used it previously, when he said almost exactly a year ago, "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."

The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
Supplies us sausage, ham, and Bacon.
Let others say his heart is big,
I think it stupid of the Pig.

-----Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971), "The Pig"

Suddenly the McChange/Moose Whine Machine™ is on a tear of Faux Outrage: Obama called Moose a pig! He's being mean to a girl!! He's being sexist!!! Wah! WAH!! WAH!!! Expect this silly piece of legerdemain to dominate the next news cycle, which is exactly what The Reich Wing wants. Anything to keep from discussing the last 8 years and scary thought of the possibility of the Moose and Squirrel Years™.

One ironic note: For her support of earmarks as Governor, and before that Mayor of Wassilla, Alaska, Pistol Pakin' Palin has earned the nickname "Queen of Pork."

With all my love,
Aunty Em