Does Obama understand women?

Posted by Marc Hodak on September 11, 2008 under Invisible trade-offs | 3 Comments to Read

I don’t know if Obama intended to call Sarah Palin a pig. I really don’t. But it can certainly be interpreted that way. Sure, the phrase “lipstick on a pig” is commonly used in Washington. Sure, McCain himself has even used it referring to Hillary’s health care proposal in 2007. But Hillary didn’t brand herself as the lipstick lady in 2007. Palin did two weeks ago. Everybody knows it. The media burned it into our consciousness. Before Nike, a teammate saying “Just do it,” was being supportive. After their ad campaign, he was being cliche. Same words, different time. That’s how marketing works. Obama knows this as well as anyone.

So Obama can complain all he wants about being unfairly tagged with a slur. Here’s what he’s pretending not to get. Let’s say Barack and Michele are drying dishes in the kitchen and he says something and Michele gets a look on her face. Barack doesn’t know where the look came from, but it’s not pretty. Barack says, “What’s wrong honey?” Michele says, “Did you just say I was a…” Doesn’t matter what she thought she heard. Doesn’t matter if he meant it. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t even matter if he really said it. All that matters is that she heard it. If you’re a guy, you’ve been there.

You know that this is not a moment to quibble, unless you sleep just fine on the old couch. You can go in with, “if you look at the context in which I used that phrase, you’ll see that what you think is not what I meant.” Doesn’t do you any good. If she has that I-don’t-believe-you-even-said-that look on her face, you simply apologize. Right then. Right there.

Right now, millions of women have that look on their face. They heard “lipstick on a pig” and, right or wrong, they heard Obama call Palin a pig. That’s how I heard it the first time I saw him say it. Barack explains, “If you look at the context in which I used that phrase…” OK, fine. I’ll buy it. But my perspective is worth nothing. I’m a guy. Every day Obama defends it, women on the fence are falling away from him. His minions can shout all they want about how he’s right, and the Republicans are making this up, or overreacting, or not able to take what they dish out. Whatever. Obama is pretending he doesn’t get it.

I say pretending because I think Obama is a smart guy, and he’s been in relationships a long time. He knows this stuff. There must be something–a righteous streak, a deluded sense of fairness, or maybe just fatigue–overpowering this knowledge and pushing it aside. It’s kind of a shame really. But McCain didn’t make him cross the lipstick line. Obama did it himself. How quickly can he jump back over it?