The (Pit) Bull Heard ‘Round the World…

Every four years, the American presidential election campaign generates a new batch of oft-cited political quotes.

On September 3, 2008, former Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin uttered a line that was soon both famous and infamous.

That night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, Palin gave a much-anticipated speech.

During it, the self-described “hockey mom” uttered these immortal words:

       “You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”

The quip was widely repeated in news coverage and is now found in many books and on websites that collect famous quotations.

Interestingly, Palin didn’t create the “women + dog + lipstick” joke formula.

An earlier example appears in the 2005 book What Every Man Wants In A Woman / What Every Woman Wants In A Man, written by Texas televangelist Pastor John Hagee.

In that enlightening guide to male/female relations, Hagee wrote:

“Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick.”

I’m sure female readers of Hagee’s work enjoyed that knee slapper. (Amazingly, he followed it with an even worse one: “Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”)

Of course, Palin’s version of the woman/canine analogy became the most famous.

After she said it, it was quoted, analyzed, praised and mocked for weeks in the news and around water coolers.

Even Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama couldn’t resist making a wisecrack that seemed to make a sly reference to it.

On September 10, 2008, while commenting on some of the policy “changes” proposed by Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, Obama used a version of an old joke about putting lipstick on pigs:

“That's not change,” he said of McCain’s proposals. “That's just calling the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig.”

Well, holy moly! That got the Republicans as mad as honked-off horny toads! So, they responded by calling Obama, among other things, a sexist pig.

Naturally, that made the Democrats as mad as a bull seeing red, so they responded by saying...

Nevermind. We had to listen to porcine puns and canine quips by politicians, headline writers and the TV pundits for weeks. It drove us all crazy. (Me anyway.) 

I’m giving the animal rights group PETA the last word on the great animal + lipstick analogy debate of 2008.

PETA posted an anti-animal testing Google Adsense ad that came up on some websites if you searched the phrase “lipstick on a pig.”

The ad said:

“Lipstick on a pig? Pigs shouldn’t have lipstick unless they’ve been kissed. Help Pigs now!”

And, may the gods help us voters live through the latest rancorous, insult-filled presidential campaign.

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Related reading and viewing…

“I can see Russia from my house!” The famous Sarah Palin quote that she didn’t actually say…

On September 13, 2008, actress Tina Fey took a break from her hit TV show 30 Rock to make a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, where she was formerly a writer and cast member.

At the time, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his running mate Joe Biden were in a seemingly close race with Republican presidential nominee John McCain and his recently unveiled pick for Vice President, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Ten days earlier, on September 3, Palin had given a rousing speech at the Republican National Convention that made her an immediate national celebrity. (The famed “Hockey Mom/pit bull/lipstick” speech.)

The following week, she was riding fairly high in public favorability and did a series of high profile media interviews.

One was with ABC’s Charles Gibson.

On the topic of foreign policy, he asked whether Alaska’s proximity to Russia gave her any special insights into Russian actions. Palin responded with a somewhat puzzling non-sequitur:

“They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”

Two days later, on September 13th, Tina Fey appeared in a sketch on Saturday Night Live in which she played Sarah Palin and SNL regular Amy Poehler played Hillary Clinton.

At one point in the skit, Poehler, as Clinton, made the intellectual-sounding comment that “diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy.”

Fey, looking remarkably like Palin, gave a response that mimicked Palin’s folksy style and satirically echoed the answer Palin used in the interview with Gibson.

With an engaging, Palin-like smile, she blurted:

“And I can see Russia from my house!”

It was a hilarious line and a great political sketch. The following day – and for days thereafter – it was the biggest thing on YouTube and in the media.

It got so much attention that many people assumed (and some still think) Palin actually said she could see Russia from her house.

She didn’t.

But, along with things Palin actually did say in the weeks after her Convention speech, Fey’s now legendary quote did help create skepticism about Palin’s qualifications to be Vice President.

After Obama and Biden won the election, that became a moot issue and Palin went on to become a professional politically-oriented media personality rather than a politician.

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The Top Quotes of the Year in 2009

Below, in chronological order, are my picks for the top quotations of 2009 — the quotes that seemed to get the most attention during the past year in the news and elsewhere.

There were more than would fit into a top 10 list. So, I’ll call them The Top 10 Quotes of 2009 – Plus a Few.

“I hope he fails.” Rush Limbaugh Conservative talk show host Comment about newly-elected President Barack Obama, on his radio show, January 16, 2009.

“I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.” Carrie Prejean Miss USA beauty pageant contestant and winner (later fired) Answer when asked by pageant judge Perez Hilton whether she believed in gay marriage, during the Miss USA contest, April 19, 2009.

“My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event, this ends up being what’s called ‘a teachable moment.’” President Barack Obama Comment to the press on July 24, 2009 about the uproar over his remark two days earlier that “The Cambridge police acted stupidly” when they arrested Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. President Obama’s use helped popularize the already existing term “teachable moment.”

“Obama...has a deep-seated hatred for white people...This guy is, I believe, a racist.” Glenn Beck Conservative talk show host Commenting on President Obama’s comments about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, in a discussion on the FOX News Network, July 28, 2009.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel.’” Sarah Palin Former Alaska Governor Post on her Facebook site on August 7, 2009, which first brought attention to the term “death panels.” She then gave it even more exposure in an op-ed she wrote that was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 8, 2008.

“We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma.” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley Adding a new catchphrase to the rhetoric used to attack the Democrats’ health care plan, at a town meeting in his home state of Iowa on August 12, 2009.  Four days later, President Obama publicly scoffed at claims that he or the Democrats wanted to “pull the plug on grandma” or create “death panels.”

“You lie!” Republican Congressman Joe Wilson The instantly infamous words yelled by the South Carolina Congressman as President Barack Obama was addressing Congress on the health care plan, on September 9, 2009.

“I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.” Musician Kanye West His rude rant after grabbing the microphone from award winner Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 13, 2009 (creating the much-parodied meme “I’mma let you finish”).

“I know it wasn’t ‘rape’ rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t believe it was ‘rape’ rape.” Actress Whoopi Goldberg Defending director Roman Polanski on ABC-TV’s show The View, on September 28, 2009, by attempting to portray his admitted rape of a thirteen year old girl in 1977 as, er, something else.

“If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly.” Democratic Congressman Alan Mark Grayson Remark by the Florida Congressman on the floor of the House on September 29, 2009, making “die quickly” the controversial Democratic counterpoint to “death panels,” “pull the plug on grandma” and “You lie!”

“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” British “Supermodel” Kate Moss Her answer when asked if she had a motto, in an interview published by the “fashion Bible” Women’s Wear Daily on November 13, 2009, prompting righteous outrage from anti-anorexia groups.

“We have a social purpose...[I’m] doing God’s work.” Lloyd Blankfein Chairman and CEO of the investment firm Goldman Sachs Defending himself and the financial industry, despite their role in creating the current financial crisis, in an interview published by The Sunday Times on November 8, 2009.

“The system worked.” Janet Napolitano Secretary of Homeland Security Her comment in a CNN interview on December 27, 2009 about the Nigerian terrorist who managed to board a plane with explosives, but failed in his attempt to blow up a planeload of Americans on Christmas Day. Napolitano’s absurd assessment was quickly repudiated by President Barack Obama.

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