One wonders why Barack Obama is running against the Republican Vice Presidential nominee. A few days ago Governor Sarah Palin jokingly compared herself with a pit-bull wearing lipstick. Since then, Barack Obama and his campaign have been using the word lipstick in various allusions to his female opponent. Today, Obama went over the line, and it will cost him dearly.

“The Community Organizer and the Governor.”

“The time has come,” the Organizer said,
“To talk of many things:
Of-governors-and inexperience-
Of John McCain-and kings-
And why my polls are nose-diving-
And whether women are pigs.”

His supporters say he was describing the Republican’s new mantra of “change” when he made the “lipstick on a pig” comment. Perhaps he was, but his audience undoubtedly took the comment to be a reference to Sarah Palin as they uproariously laughed. It was quite stunning that Virginians would so disgracefully guffaw upon hearing an American woman governor described as a pig, but they did. Even if Senator Barack Obama did not intend to vulgarly insult his political opponent that way, Obama’s Virginia supporters were overjoyed that he was doing that, and he did not chide them. Sadly, Virginians are becoming as coarse and mean as the rest of the country, it seems.

I find it a bit difficult to give Obama the benefit of the doubt in his use of “lipstick on a pig” comment. It is because Barack Obama is an urban guy. He has pretty much lived in metropolitan areas since he came to the United States from Indonesia some years ago. In normal slang, “You put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig” means dressing something up to appear to be something it is not. However, In urban slang “Lipstick on a Pig” has a much coarser meaning. It refers to “ugly broads, when they put on a skirt and some lipstick and well, they still look like the same digusting pig.”

“You can put lipstick on a pig,” said Obama, as he paused for the laugh lines. He never chastised his supporters for their laughter at his allusion to a woman as a pig. There is no doubt that the lipstick reference was meant to apply to Sarah Palin. The audience knew it and Barack Obama knew it. And, sadly for the Obama campaign, the women of America knew it too.