Date published: 2008/09/10
The BBC says:
The US Democratic presidential candidate has denied claims of sexism after likening his rival's promise of change to putting "lipstick on a pig".
Barack Obama said Republican John McCain's outrage was "phoney", a diversion from debating real issues.
The controversy began on Tuesday after Mr Obama said his rival was advocating change while pursuing the politics of the current Bush administration.
Mr McCain's campaign accused him of smearing running mate Sarah Palin.
Mrs Palin joked last week that lipstick was all that separated a "hockey mom" and a pitbull.
Mr Obama made the remark during a rally in Virginia where he accused the McCain campaign of trying suddenly to adopt the promise of change - a platform he himself has been running on for months.
Drawing a link between the Republican senator for Arizona and President George W Bush, he suggested change would be impossible for Mr McCain to achieve.
"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."
Mrs Palin, a self-described "hockey mom", made her joke about lipstick during a speech at the Republican National Convention last Wednesday.
Soon after Mr Obama's comments, McCain aides produced an election campaign ad referring to "sexism in American life", and accusing the Illinois senator of "smearing" Mrs Palin, governor of Alaska.
The Republicans are pathetic. They have no issues to discuss with America, so instead they discuss dross. And in this case, their aim is to further push the risible claim that the whole world is ganging up on poor old Sarah Palin. Poor old Sarah Palin, only one of the most corrupt small town mayors, and apsiring corrupt governors, in America, catapulted to mega-stardom by an old man with nothing to lose. To think that this woman could be running the most powerful country in the world in a few years, it beggars belief. You can imagine the Republicans then would be crying about how that nasty Vladimir Putin (or pick your favourite "bad guy of the minute") is making fun of poor old Sarah Palin. (Perhaps he'll bring a lipstick along and wave it in her face just to have a good laugh.)
And needless to say, even if Obama was saying that Palin was a pig, that could hardly be deemed to be "smearing" her, since pigs are intelligent and there is no indication that she is.
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