Thoughts on Lipstickgate

After the clip of Obama making his pig-in-lipstick comment came out last night, people on both sides of the political spectrum came out in defense of him, stating that it's an old saying, a figure of speech, something commonly used in Washington - it was an unfortunate choice of words, it wasn't targeted at Sarah Palin.

To which I say....Bullsh*t.

Barack is nothing if not slick, he's a gifted, natural speaker, and he's an accomplished wordsmith. Every speech he gives is exquisitely crafted, every nuance and inflection in his delivery is carefully planned. There was no accident here, no double entendre. He knew exactly what he was saying, the people in the crowd knew it (you can seem them starting to cheer before he even delivers the punchline) and everyone at that event knew just who he was going after. "Innocent" - my size 12 butt. This is down and dirty Southside Chicago politics - just gender baiting instead of race baiting - at its best.

But for the sake of argument, let's say he really didn't mean to take advantage and capitalize upon the new buzzword of this campaign. Let's pretend we believe it was a "rookie mistake." It strains credulity to believe that he thinks, in this 24/7 news cycle with cameras rolling every second, that the media isn't going to pick up on every little thing he says and dissect it. It is a reality in this day and age, and if you believe him, you must come to the inevitable conclusion that he is unprepared to handle the intense scrutiny that awaits him, and that he lacks the tact and thus the ability to handle the fact that the world is literally hanging on his every, publicly spoken word.

As I tell my clients and my kids when I see them devolving into exaggeration and hyperbole, "words matter." Say what you mean, mean what you say, and be prepared to back it up.

Can we afford this kind of mistake in the current geopolitical climate? To steal a Hillaryism: Is this the guy we want answering the phone at 3 am?

This is a very revealing moment in his campaign, and it demonstrates his utter hypocrisy - remember when he said he wanted to "elevate the political discourse" and pledged not to get into old-school personal attacks and smears in the campaign? It was all illusory, there's no "change" involved when you resort to dirty politics as usual. Wait - what was that thing about lipstick on a pig?

Psssssst: Barry, you've got lipstick on your teeth. Oink, oink.