Face, Meet Palm

Apparently, Senator Obama used a well-known phrase––"lipstick on a pig"––to describe John McCain's sudden claim that he's the candidate of change.

The Republicans decided it was a sexist attack on Sarah Palin.

...

Um, what?

Look, I would describe myself as hyper-aware to incidents of sexism in media, popular culture, and the world at large. This blog's subtitle, after all, is "Fighting Misogyny and Religious Dogmas."

But this wasn't sexism. The phrase, itself, might be a little questionable, but it's also well-known and widely-used. So widely-used, in fact, that as the article points out, McCain used it himself last year.

It would be funny if it weren't so depressing. I saw a clip of Senator Obama speaking on the news the other night––he said, "They [the Republicans] think you're stupid." I'm starting to think he's right. Because how anyone could claim that the Republican Party actually cares about the lives of women is beyond me. The party that wants to claim sexism in every criticism of Governor Palin, that wants to blame the Obama campaign for even a mention of Bristol Palin's pregnancy in the news is the same party who spent eight years making jokes about a teenaged Chelsea Clinton being ugly.

They think it's fine for health insurance companies to cover Viagra but not birth control.

They want to demonize desperate women and label them baby-killers while simultaneously limiting access to social programs that might actually help raise those children they're so intent on seeing born.

They choose whole segments of the American population and make them second-class citizens through their racist, homophobic, and sexist laws and policies.

I'm going to stop now, because this is going to turn into something kind of seething––or maybe it already has.

When McCain announced Sarah Palin as his VP pick, she said:

...Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.

I would humbly suggest that, with an anti-woman candidate like Sarah Palin, I'm more than happy for that glass ceiling to stay intact another 4-8 years.