Lipstick on a Pig Distraction

Michael Kinsley asks "Why Do Lies Prevail?" in the Washington Post dated 10 September 2008. Kinsley writes, "John McCain was not offended when Barack Obama described McCain’s policy agenda as putting “lipstick on a pig.” I can’t prove that, but it seems so obvious to me that it’s more like a fact than an opinion. Nor could McCain possibly have thought that Obama was calling McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, a pig, since Obama didn’t even mention Palin. If Obama had even thought that his words would be misinterpreted as calling Palin a pig, he wouldn’t have said them. That also seems obvious. The whole controversy is ginned up, a fraud, a lie. All obvious.

I know that by even bringing this up, I am falling into the trap that McCain’s people have set and perpetuating this ridiculous controversy. But the routine acceptance of obvious lies now corrodes our politics as much as the money that was the subject of McCain’s famous act of Republican apostasy: McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. McCain has described his motive for McCain-Feingold as a giant mea culpa for his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. Maybe when this is over, one way or another, McCain will swear off corrupt lying the way he has sworn off corrupt money."

Read on here.