A struggling economy. Rising unemployment. A crumbling housing market. Ballooning national debt. Disappearing social security and Medicare funds. Surging energy and food prices. Failing financial institutions. A looming environmental catastrophe. Increasing anti-Americanism. Burgeoning terrorist threats.
This is the reality.
No matter your political party or ideology, these are the issues that matter.
And yet, both political campaigns have chosen to spend a fair amount of money and time this week arguing about the phrase ‘Lipstick on a pig.” It would probably be funny if there weren’t so much at stake in this election.
Obama used the phrase in a recent speech, though it is quite clear from the context that he was using it to refer to McCain and his attempt to call himself an ‘agent of change’ despite the fact that most of his policies are identical to those of the current administration. ‘Lipstick on a pig’ has been used multiple times in the past by numerous politicians, including at least twice by McCain to describe Hilary Clinton’s latest health care plan (The phrase was even the title of a book authored by one of McCain’s former advisers).
The assertion by McCain’s campaign that Obama was calling Palin a pig is ludicrous.
First of all, Obama didn’t even mention Palin’s name anywhere near the statement in question. You have to make quite the leap in logic to assert it was a reference, even an oblique one, to her or the speech she gave at the Republican convention.
More importantly, the insult doesn’t make sense. Palin is a sexy mama. I’m not at all sure about her qualifications to be President of the United States, but if anything, she’s the lipstick here, not the pig.
Personally, I think McCain’s campaign is desperately trying to play the gender card here and it seems so beneath the image and substance of the man. I really believe McCain to be a man of high integrity, and I believed him when he insisted earlier that this campaign would be a respectful one focused on the issues.
Yet, I now have serious doubts. I believe McCain’s trying to take the high road, feigning innocence while everyone around him engages in the kind of sleazy politics the Republicans are so good at and which, unfortunately, seem to work.
In fact, I’m beginning to believe McCain is the real lipstick in this situation, being smeared on the pig of negative politicking. They are using his good name, his heroic past, his maverick reputation, his long and distinguished legislative career, to try and cover up the fact they are using the same old dirty political playbook in order to get elected.
My hunch is that McCain understands exactly what is going on, and has given at the very least his tacit endorsement of the plan. And if that’s so, then McCain isn’t just the lipstick. He’s the pig, too.
Deadman
I’ve just had the opportunity to catch up on a number of your laatest blogs. You are dead-on (pardon the pun) in everyone of them. What is this pig on lipstick crap!!? Why has anybody, especially the media and the Republican Party made an issue of this statement. Are we so paranoid that we need to find something critical and cynical about every word that someone utters? Do we not have extremely important issues to deal with? Can’t all US citizens (Democrats and Republicans) see and understand that the last 8 years have been totally disasterous for America and the world? Are we not destroying ourselves and our future generations? Why can’t these 4, seemingly honorable and conscientous people, spend their time concentrating on the issues that are important to us and the rest of civilization instead of wasting our time with putting lipstick on a pig.
I’m also sorry that your last Sunday was ruined, but if mine was going to be destroyed by that travesty they called a football game, it’s not so terible that yours was also.
Love ya. Keep writing
Deadman,
Once more I am amazed at your grasp of and capability to analyze and accurately predict the directions of the financial world. You have been telling me for some number of months now that a financial disaster was coming and, if I remember correctly, you even indicated that we should look for it in late summer or early fall. I believed your warning, but didn’t anticipate the severity of it. I was born a few years after the great depression was coming to an end (thanks in great measure to WWII and some actions by Roosevelt) and, therefore, never experienced the angst that my parents and grand parents must have felt. But I must tell you, even though Lehman and Merrill didn’t directly affect me (I hope you weren’t impacted too severly by it either), I really have that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomache after yesterdays debacle. I woke up this morning thinking about what other shoe was going to drop today. I haven’t had much time to check into things yet today, but if the sock in that shoe is AIG, I will be directly affected. I’m just hopeful that we are capable of surviving what is coming and that the impact will be minimal. I know that eventually things will once again turn around, but I wish I had a better handle on what it is that needs to be done to turn things around sooner rather than latter. I do know one thing for certain, it will take a great deal more effective, creative executive thinking and action to shorten the cycle and we can’t expect that type of intelligence to come from the economic philosophy that existed in the White House for the last eight years. God bless and help America and the world.
Thanks for the recognition! I generally don’t like to give a lot of blame OR credit to Presidents, or any politicians for that matter, for economic matters: Cycles happen, and not even the best government can change that fact.
But I think it’s quite clear that the current administration has left us quite the mess, with its inability to curtail spending even as he pours wasted money into an unnecessary and unjustified war and its failure to stem the worst excesses of the financial system through smart regulation. The deficit is out of control, the dollar is weak, and inflation has been running hot. We have no coherent energy policy. We have no realistic plan to save social security or medicare. The next administration will certainly face a number of difficult decisions and challenges.
On the other hand, cycles happen – the market will do a fair amount of the painful work on its own.
As far as AIG is concerned, I’m not sure the government will let that company fail. We’re talking about a company with $1 trillion of assets on the balance sheet and a total exposure on the liability side far surpassing that when all the counterparty obligations are counted. Unwinding that will prove to be a gigantic mess, that could snowball into the financial Armageddon everyone is fearing right now. The company needs time for things to settle down and hopefully for confidence in the economy to be restored, and I think the government or other better-positioned financial firms looking out for their best interests will try to give it that.
But I would still as they say hope for the best but prepare for the worst.