Ground Game

To read the blogs today, you'd be led to believe that Barack Obama is either a malignant sexist, or an endearing saint who would never use language to attack his political opponents. Why is it so hard to grasp what most likely happened?

1. Sarah Palin's "What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? One wears lipstick," joke was one of the more memorable from the Republican convention.

2. Barack Obama and his advisers wanted to answer that joke with a pun arguing that while Palin may be a new figure on the political scene, she still represents the unpopular/failed policies of the Bush administration.

Yes, others have used the phrase, including McCain. But it's hard to believe Obama just randomly decided to use the phrase for the first time, unaware of what would be a perceived proximity to Palin's convention joke. The Obama audience certainly seemed to get the joke.

Obama cannot be simultaneously heraled as the greatest political orator since JFK, while also not having to take responsibility when he says something unartful. In other words, he tried to say something witty and has now had his own joke flipped against him.

Of course, he wasn't calling her a pig. But I do think it's fair to ask if he was making a subtle jab at John McCain's age when he followed up the lipstick remark with, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

Again, I think Obama was only talking about the McCain/Palin policies, but to deny he was making any kind of verbal jab is the kind of blind allegiance that calls into question the intellectual honesty of Obama supporters. Instead, they should own it. He made a fair point, even a strong point. This should, and so easily could, be a day in which Obama was putting McCain on the defensive for this unethical ad.