Is Lipstick on Your Collar...or On Your Pig?

Before I write my next installment of day trips in paradise, I have to vent a little. Just a little. So if Mom is reading, skip this entry or I won't be responsible for your blood pressure. I am responsible for mine, so here goes.

Susan is irate this morning. I don't blame her. This is why I have to take hiking and fishing breaks from the insanity. One day I'm going to unfold my paper and see discussion of ISSUES on the front page instead of popularity contests. I hope.

So tell me why it's okay for John McCain to use the term 'lipstick on a pig' when referring to a policy of Hillary Clinton's, and it's NOT okay for anyone else to use it when referring to his and his running mate's policies? Does the GOP own the word LIPSTICK??? Come on. He's apparently used the term several times before, as has Dick Cheney. Does that qualify it as common usage? I guess so, as long as a Republican is the one using it.

The front page of the Oregonian headlined 'Palin's appeal redraws lines in campaign'. I find NOTHING appealing about her. I fall more along the thought process of Gloria Steinem, who had an excellent piece in the LA Times last week. As my friend K said after reading it, "She still knows exactly what to say". Titled "Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message", she begins with a tribute to women's involvement in politics:

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

Then goes on to say:

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

By the third paragraph, she serves up that pie:

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

I'm keeping my legs.

Back to today's news. I turned to 'please see A6' to finish the Palin article, only to find that the McCain camp is outraged that when asked if her election would mean a step back for women, Biden answered:

"Look, I think the issue is: What does Sarah Palin think? What does she believe? I assume she thinks and agrees with the same policies that George Bush and John McCan think...and that's obviously a backward step for women."

The RNC called his remarks "appalling and arrogant", and "better suited for the backrooms of his old boys' club". Pot, meet Kettle. This is why I have to keep taking hiking and fishing breaks. Thank goodness both Obama and Biden are hitting back at the baldfaced LYING that is going on. FINALLY. We need lots of backbone these next two months. CALL OUT ALL THE LIES. I liked this response ad.

There. Now I feel slightly better.