Liberal Chauvinist Pigs

Since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin became the choice to round out the GOP ticket for Sen. John McCain, there's been a firestorm of reaction, much of it ecstatic, much of it appalling. What we have witnessed is shocking and disheartening to those of us in our 50's and older who thought we had laid major sexism to rest in the 80's. We did see new evidence of this in the mainstream media's treatment of Hillary Clinton, but I thought it was just as much an issue of most of the media being biased--come on, you know they were starstruck--toward Barack Obama. As far as the liberal blogosphere, I think it had to do with their relative youth--let's face it, they're a foul-mouthed majority male bunch. And after all, we conservatives are used to being given the back of the mainstream media's hand.

But the vile character assassination of Sarah Palin has reached a fever pitch. And now Barack Obama is piling on. Monday he patted Palin on the head, much as he did Hillary in the primary. Yesterday, in Lebanon, Virginia, Barack Obama went overt:

"That's not change," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said of what Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is offering.

"You know, you can put lipstick on a pig," Obama said, "but it's still a pig."

The crowd rose and applauded, some of them no doubt thinking he may have been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's ad lib during her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last week, "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

A pig. Lipstick on a pig. And the crowd laughed. They laughed. What should we call this swinish, misogynist behavior?

Maybe he just can't help himself. Does the expression male chauvinist pig come to mind? But this isn't just a slip of a tongue--it's a pattern. It's deliberate:

Obama made a sexualized attack on Palin, comparing her to a pig. This is exactly the same sort of thing that he did in the primary. Earlier in the cycle I noted:

Jake Tapper first noted this when Obama said that Hillary was "taking out the claws." At the same time he noted that Obama would use "[l]anguage such as 'when she's feeling down' 'periodically' she 'launches attacks.'" Tapper noted that a number of female reporters and bloggers picked up on this. Later Obama complained that Hillary was "throwing the China" at him. Again, Tapper heard the dog whistle. Tapper noted that this "feeds into the 'harridan' caricature of Clinton."

This is the stuff that alienated Hillary Clinton voters.

This is the supposed post-partisan uniter Barack Obama, all Hope and Change, these are his supporters. And his running mate, Joe Biden, says Sarah Palin's candidacy is a step back for women, as if we couldn't assess her for ourselves.

Let's look at how the mainstream media has been treating working mom Sarah Palin. No credible person, blogger or otherwise, can honestly say she hasn't been attacked as a working mom. And it's a double standard. If you're a conservative woman you're supposed to stay home and stay in the kitchen, is that it? Your parenting skills can be questioned, while smug liberal media moms get a pass--they're some of the ones saying it.

How about the liberal blogs, now practically joined at the hip with the supposedly objective press. Arianna thinks Sarah's a distracting Trojan moose (!?), stay classy Arianna. And a successful conservative woman with more executive experience than Barack Obama is a distraction? Leftist Salon says she's a dominatrix. Salon also compares her to Muslim fundamentalists, comparing her Christianity to the terrorist organization Hamas. This is deeply offensive, and the positions Cole cites are smears of her beliefs. Check her record, please, stop the smears.

Madonna or whore--the way women have been controlled and demeaned for centuries. And this is all coming from so-called "progressives". HotAir:

I find this fortnight of reaction utterly fascinating. When challenged by a strong, self-made woman, what has the mainstream media done? They have painted her as:

• A hick
• A slut
• A bubble-headed beauty queen
• A bad mother

[snip] Some of us scoffed at the notion that Hillary Clinton got victimized by a sexist media. I’d say that the profession is doing its level best to cinch that reputation with its unhinged attacks on Palin. In the end, though, this is much more about them than it is about Palin, and it’s pretty disturbing.

Now they are going after her special needs baby.

In contrast to these pure slime excuse for men, Todd Palin. And a message to mothers.

The Anchoress sums it up.

And I say--Liberal Chauvinist Pigs. The rest of us are riled up. Casting pearls before swine.

They will rue the day.

UPDATE: It's clearly an agreed upon tactic and imagery. The Politico:

Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan on Tuesday – introducing Joe Biden at a campaign event – ripped into Palin’s record and punctuated it with this snarky jab. “There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick,” he said. Later in the day, Obama used a variation of the lipstick line, though he was clearly talking about the McCain-Palin reform rhetoric. "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said. "It's still a pig."

UPDATE: Backlash. WaPo, "Palin Energizing Women From All Walks of Life":

Susie Baron is a Republican, a mother of two and a home-schooler. She voted for Mike Huckabee in the Ohio primary, but now -- because of Sarah Palin -- she thinks she is part of something much bigger.

"I wouldn't even call it a Palin movement, I'd call it a sleeping giant that has been awakened," Baron, 56, said at a rally here Tuesday. She described its members as a silent majority of women in Middle America who "are raising our families, who work if we have to, but love our country and our families first."

"And until now, we haven't had anyone to identify with," Baron said, adding that traditional feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women do "not represent me."

UPDATE: Remember this?

And this. And Alice Palmer.

--crossposted at BlogHer