More campaign flapdoodle

CNN has the story of the bullshit over what Barack Obama said, and what he meant:

Obama made the remarks at a Virginia campaign stop late Tuesday afternoon: "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."
Within minutes, the McCain campaign announced a conference call focused on the remark, which they said was a deliberate reference to Palin's line: You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick. Palin used the line in the opening remarks of her convention speech, and she frequently uses it on the campaign trail.
In Iowa last October, McCain drew comparisons between Hillary Clinton's current health care plan and the one she championed in 1993: "I think they put some lipstick on the pig, but it's still a pig." He used roughly the same line in May, after effectively claiming the Republican nomination.
It wasn't the first time Obama used the line. In a phone interview with the Washington Post last September, he used it in reference to the situation in Iraq. "I think that both Gen. [David] Petraeus and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker are capable people who have been given an impossible assignment," Obama told the Post. "George Bush has given a mission to Gen. Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig."
Other politicians have also used the phrase in recent years, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rep. John Mica of Florida and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, among others.
Torie Clarke, a former McCain adviser, even wrote a book called Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game.
Still, the McCain campaign says Obama's use was intentional, and they want an apology.
Obama's campaign said "enough is enough" and accused McCain of running a "dishonorable campaign."
"The McCain campaign's attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy -- the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan just last year," said Obama campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn. "This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run."
McCain ally Mike Huckabee took Obama's side on the issue, saying he didn't think it was a swipe at Palin. "It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin; he didn't reference her. If you take the two sound bites together, it may sound like it," he said on Fox's Hannity and Colmes.
"But I've been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that's maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I'm going to have to cut him slack."
But McCain's campaign is not about to let the issue go. They released a Web ad Wednesday that plays Obama's lipstick comments, then asks, "Ready to lead? No. Ready to smear? Yes."

Rico says you can put lipstick on every pig in Washington if you want, but it won't make them any prettier. These people need to get off it and find some other line...