he thought he was so clever back during the primaries when he'd say things like that in reference to Clinton- like "the china's flying"
-which made it clear to me how the guy really feels about women.

From TL's "Jews for Jesus" thread:

If you know any Jewish voters, please forward this to them. Particularly if they live in Florida. They can assess for themselves the danger of giving any voice in government to these extremist radical right groups.

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle

I think to myself, what an as-hole.

Then I have to remember, unbidden, that Obama called for exactly this months ago.

We are both disgusted with the Democratic Party, for very different reasons. He's a very crunchy-granola kind of guy, and also a big misogynist. Which wraps him up in hypocrisy now and then, because he freely admits that the two of us are the two smartest employees X Inc. has. Even though I am an icky gurl.

But the comment that had me sitting there with my jaw on the floor was this one: "I follow politics on the most trustworthy and honest liberal political site available - Daily Kos."

<boggle>

This was in response to my claim that the Dem primary process was corrupt, five states broke the rules but only two were punished, the RBC violated its own rules by giving unearned delegates to Obama, voter fraud and intimidation in caucuses, etc - and he said he hadn't read a word about any of this. And he cited his trust of DK as proof that it therefore didn't happen.

I promised to send him links to how Kos abandoned objective and realistic coverage this election, and drove off hundreds of readers, but just linking to TL won't be enough.

Why isn't there a Koswatch site?

That's how McCain used it to diss Hillary's healthcare plans (the early 90's version and her present one from the campaign). He did not use the phrase about her; he used it about her plans.

Last night on Letterman, Obama explained what he meant when he used it this past week, to gleeful laughter from his audience; and then he went on to talk about smelly fish, but I digress to another possible slur. Great--simple explanation from Obama; game over. He's cleared things up.

But, it seems to me, he went one step too far and dissed Palin herself. Per the transcript:

Obama:  "...in Illinois, the expression connotes the idea that if you have a bad idea, in this case I was talking about John McCain's economic plans, that just calling them change, calling it something different, doesn't make it better, hence, lipstick on a pig is still a pig." [NB: Here's the straight forward explanation. Coulda stopped with that.]

Dave: "Now what I like about this scenario is because they demanded, the Republicans demanded an apology."

Obama: "Yes, they did."

Dave: "So that means there had been a meeting at some point somewhere along the line." [NB: Dave, were you helping him out? or leading him on?]

Obama: "All of them."

Dave: "Yeah, they got together and they said, `You know what?  He called our vice presidential candidate a pig.'" (audience laughs)  "Well, that seems pretty unlikely, doesn't it?"

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."(my emphasis; my notes)

So, by going a step too far, Obama underlines what he probably really meant with his reference to the lipstick on a pig when he was speaking at a campaign rally. Now, he makes it worse, almost, by emphasizing that McCain was a sentient human being who makes proposals, albeit bad ones, but Palin is a thing, lipstick, an inamimate object. He used lipstick to refer to Palin as an object--that's the diss.

(It's reported, btw, that inside the Obama campaign Palin is called "Lipstick.")

It's the old objectifying of women thing, OK? Like referring to a woman as a "piece of a$$." It's demeaning and ugly. Or photographing a woman and showing only her legs and shoes, but identifying the photo as the woman. When a part of the body of a man is shown in a photo, it's usual to caption the photo as, for example, the hand of Barack Obama. Something I picked up from Melissa over at ShakespearesSister.

How many of you honestly believe that even in 2008, a black man can go to the south, call a white woman a pig and receive thunderous applause from a white audience?  There is a New South but it's not that new.

"The stickiness factor says that messages must have a certain character which causes them to remain active in the recipients' minds. Moreover, they must be deemed worthy of being passed on."