I have been blogging on presidential politics, and hence it is therefore mandatory that I say something about the Lipstick Affair. I will keep it brief.
I watched the video clip in question, and nothing is more apparent than that Obama was not making any kind of conscious reference to Sarah Palin. It also looked to me as though the audience reacted positively to the comment as though he had, and he was too tired, or too something, to jump out of the hole he had fallen into. But it seems clear to me that he did not jump into the hole headfirst on purpose.
But given the impact of Sarah Palin’s convention speech, and her lipstick joke, it seems clear that Obama only used that cliched political metaphor because he was too tired to see what would come of it. This was not a true-feelings-gaffe, but rather a blunder-gaffe.
Which brings us to the real import of all this. Sarah Palin has clearly burrowed deep into Obama’s brain. She has gotten to him, and he doesn’t know what to do. He is starting to blink like a quarterback who has been sacked from behind about five times in a quarter more than he is used to. This is another way of saying that he is starting to hear footsteps where there are none.
I can’t see how the McCain camp seriously thinks that this was a crude reference to Palin. I can see how they might believe this to be another good opportunity to give their psych ops team inside Obama’s head another opportunity to turn that screw they implanted. Obama is now pausing between each of his sentences long enough to completely rehearse the upcoming sentence before letting it out into the world. As wise as this practice might be for some of us for spiritual reasons, with Obama it just looks like he has the screaming jitters, fantods, and willies.