Wrestling with a pig

The latest manufactured outrage to hit the campaign is out there - and CNN's headline ensures that McCain's meme is going to make the rounds:

'Lipstick on a pig': Attack on Palin or common line?

The article actually contains the context to show that Obama's remark was about McCain's policies:

 "John McCain says he's about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out George Bush -- except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics -- we're really going to shake things up in Washington,'" he said.

"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."

Anybody see a reference to Gov. Palin in there? Are all references to lipstick now tied to the GOP's VP nominee?

McCain's campaign is so desperate to change the subject they might as well change their campaign slogan to  "look over there!"

I saw a McCain ad last night that (honest to god) denounced balooning budget deficits and placed the blame on Obama.

Are you kidding me? What party's been passing these budgets for the last 7 years? Under the GOP we've added 4 trillion dollars to the national debt. If voters wanna rein in crazy @ss spending, the last thing they should do is pull the lever for the GOP.

Get it into your skull America: McCain and Palin are asking you to forget who they work for - the party that brought you Iraq, recession, big government, reckless spending, and above all corruption.

They used brass knuckle politics across the board to advance their right wing agenda.
They have alternately threatened voters with trumped up dangers and equated their policies with 9/11 and "the troops" to quash criticism and debate.

Gov. Palin isn't some breath of fresh air - she's just the latest smokescreen from the GOP.
 (via The American Prospect)

What the nation learned about Sarah Palin last Wednesday, and what she has reinforced in all her public appearances since then, is that she is a master of the sarcastic, contemptuous sneer. It is extremely powerful to tell people that they are being ridiculed by someone else, that distant elite who live in cities sipping Chardonnay and eating brie as they look down their suspiciously long noses at you. And if you think that someone is looking down on you, the quickest way to feel better is to start looking down on them, which is just what Palin tells voters they must do.

And oh, did those Republican delegates swoon at their new tribune of down-home all-American virtue, their Hockey Mom from heaven. Meanwhile, up in the skyboxes ringing the arena, the people John McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth" nodded approvingly at the scene below. The party's patrons could rest easy knowing that once again, corporate and upper-income tax cuts are at the top of the Republican nominee's agenda. The troops on the floor had no more than a passing concern about that, though. They had been appropriately prodded with talk of values and God and the flag and the virtues of small towns -- but most of all, talk of those despicable liberals. Those liberals hate you, they were told, and they hate everything you stand for. So work your little hearts out.

The GOP has managed to wriggle out of eight years of accountability.

It's high time they get nailed right to the wall.