I’m sure you’ve heard by now the infa­mous line that Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­date Barack H. Obama said:

“You can put lip­stick on a pig,” he said as the crowd cheered. “It’s still a pig.”

“You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”

“We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”

Is this a swipe at Repub­li­can Vice-Presidential Can­di­date Sarah Palin — as the McCain camp believes - or is this just a com­mon Wash­ing­ton saying?

Well, I did a lit­tle Google search on “lip­stick on a pig” and this is what came up:

1. Urban Dic­tio­nary: slang for when some­one tries to dress some­thing up, but is still that some­thing. usu­ally used on ugly broads, when they put on a skirt and some lip­stick and well, they still look like the same digust­ing pig.  “You put lip­stick on a pig, it’s still a pig.”

Hmmm.…

2. Amazon.com: Lip­stick on a Pig:  Win­ning in the No-Spin Era by Some­one Who Knows the Game by Torie Clarke.  Torie Clarke, by the way is a “for­mer com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor with the Pen­ta­gon in the early years of the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion and a for­mer advi­sor to Sen­a­tor John McCain.” (Ital­ics mine.)

That’s interesting…Might have to get this book and read it.

3. Everything2: As a metaphor, it indi­cates a lost cause or a futile gesture.

This is what Obama says he meant by it.

And No. 4: Chris Pir­illo: Win­dows Vista:  Lip­stick on a Pig, dated July 18^th, 2006.

See the def­i­n­i­tion in No. 1.

As you can see, the phrase has mul­ti­ple uses and appar­ently has been around for some time.  It also appears that it’s used quite exten­sively in pol­i­tics to cat­e­go­rize failed poli­cies.  Unfor­tu­nately for Obama, he decided to use it too recently after Sarah Palin used the “What’s the dif­fer­ence between a hockey mom and a pit bull?  Lip­stick” phrase.  As a result, the phrase is car­ry­ing a dou­ble con­no­ta­tion, and not all positive.

Could it be a slip by Obama, or could it have been planned delib­er­ately so they could excuse it by say­ing, “Well, John McCain has used it, too.”  I don’t know.  No one knows what the Obama camp truly meant by the state­ment.  I think in this case, we’ll have to take Barry at his word and give him a pass on this.  (Yes, I just said that!) See the update below.

The McCain cam­paign needs to focus on other things — like actual poli­cies — instead of pars­ing words. Now I know they weren’t pars­ing words.  See the update below. There’s only 54 days until Elec­tion Day, so let’s start get­ting seri­ous about what this coun­try needs.  Quit play­ing word wars and quit the per­sonal attacks - on both sides!  Amer­ica is sick of it.

Update (7:42 p.m.): Okay, I must con­fess some­thing.  I didn’t get to watch the video ear­lier (Stream­ing media is blocked at my place of employ).  But now that I’ve seen it, I have a dif­fer­ent opin­ion.  Based on Barack Hus­sein Obama’s hes­i­ta­tion, rub­bing of the fore­head, and the audience’s reac­tion, it is clear that it was a delib­er­ate swipe at Sarah Palin — there is no doubt in my mind now.  So as far as the last para­graph of the post above — ignore it.  IT WAS DELIBERATE.  That is all.