Legal Commentary

"You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it?s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' it?s still gonna stink."

Now, I didn't blog this yesterday, because frankly, I considered it absolutely nothing. "Lipstick on a pig" is an extremely common expression, and it doesn't become taboo because somebody else made a wisecrack about lipstick on another animal or because that somebody else happens to wear lipstick.

And I don't like seeing a lot of men jumping to Sarah's defense over some other man's possible sexist slur of her. Excessive chivalry doesn't advance feminism, and women themselves, as Palin famously said, have "got to plow through." No whining.

But I'm putting this post up for 2 reasons:

1. I can see from comments on various other posts that my readers want to talk about it.

2. There's one thing I haven't seen anyone else say that I think needs to be said. Obama did not just mention a pig. He immediately mentioned a fish. That's 2 animals in rapid succession. And both of these animals are frequently used in sexual insults referring to women. The reference to the pig also has it wearing lipstick, which is obviously a female image. And the reference to a fish also has it stinking, which is exactly the aspect of fish that is used when fish are invoked to insult women. I still think it's nothing, but if you think it's something, fairness requires you to consider the remark in context.

Full post as published by Althouse on September 10, 2008 (boomark / email).