haha, I love Stephanie Cutter.

[ErinBerin84]

Michelle's Chief of Staff Stephanie Cutter was just on MSNBC with Norah O'Donnell, and Norah was asking if the lipstick thing has gotten Obama "off message", and Stephanie says "Hey, if it gives me an opportunity to talk about McCain's record on women, which is nonexistent- he's against children's health insurance, against equal pay...I'm not seeing a lot of people out here defending McCain's record on women because it IS nonexistent, then we're fine with that." She also mentioned McCain laughing at Hillary being called a bitch at one of his campaign events earlier. And Norah quoted Nicole Wallace saying "None of this would even be such a hot button issue if the Obama campaign had not been sexist towards Hillary in the primary!" and Stephanie said "Nicole Wallace is GOOD....at putting lipstick on a pig! Because that's what she's doing!" I wish she had mentioned that Palin called Hillary a whiner, but all in all, she was cracking me up.

[justiceischeap]

1. I liked her "What's good for the goose"

That was nice.

[ellacott]

2. Great response

[Sugarcoated]

3. Now THAT'S the way to answer a question!

Turn it around to your advantage. Beautiful Stephanie!

[mimir]

4. lipstick on a pig

I have to disagree. Stephanie was good, but she still falls into the trap to some extent. By fighting fire with fire when we are dealing with arsonists, we end up achieving the results that the arsonists desire. The Democrats always fall prey to these kind of tactics. And the nasty, vile, scum-puppet running much of this from the shadows (none other than impartial Fox contributor Turdblossom) is loving every minute of it, because his brand of political dirty work has been passed down from the father of public relations, throught the Nazis (believe it or not), to the evil but effective modern day propaganda practitioners. Well, so much for description of the enemy. How do we deal with this kind of thing effectively? I suggest first fighting fire with water, then running down and repeatedly exposing the ultimate source of these tactics. The water we use is swift response that shames the media (yes blame to the media for real sins and shortcomings, not the scapegoating and red herring "look over there" distractions that they use against the media) for treating this crap and these tactics with that false "fairness" and bogus even-handed treatment that the rabid right depends on and exploits. Yes, condemn people like Jane Swift (where is the sense of irony and "you gotta be kidding me?" that we should heap on that lady? - the model for Ms. Palin with the abuse of state goodies while she was in charge in Massachusetts) for putting this false controversy forward. Our people should be screaming and laughing - ridicule is the appropriate response. "You gotta be kidding me - Mr. Straight Talk used the phrase himself and there is nothing sexist about it," or "Ms. MSNBC interviewer, how can you sit there and treat these accusations seriously, when you are smart enough to know how fake and Rovian this is?" They do not have to treat every party to every dispute as if their point of view deserves equal treatment. If these so-called journalists and the Main Stream Media were around during World War Two, I could picture them on split screens giving Hitler equal time with his concentration camp victims. Not every situation has two real sides, unless you count right and wrong as equal sides. And sometimes there are more than two legitimate sides to an issue. But here, what we have is clearly a Carl Rove special. The theme is: if you are clearly in the wrong, ignore it, deny it, jump up and down screaming that the other side is doing something wrong. Rinse and repeat (how much extra shampoo did that sell?). When will our side learn? We have to repeatedly run over to the curtain, rip it aside or asunder, and show the nasty little fat balding guy pulling the levers.

Let me suggest a tactic of our own. Every time they pull something like this, let's get loads of people on the talk shows shaming the interviewers and the networks for crediting such crap. Let's hold up a picture of Rove and, each and every time, run through the list of scams, lies, frauds, and slanders. Mention Max Cleland, the Swiftboat jerks and the hatchet job they did on Kerry, go back to Turdblossom's earliest days of dirty (and probably felonious) tricks in Texas and eslewhere. Even talk about what he did to John McCain. Turn over the rocks and let people see the squirmy things underneath. Give credit (or blame, or prosecution) where it is due. Rove's tricks work. Look what happened to Dan Rather. Classic Rove. Rather and his crew are reporting on a legitimate Bush scandal - his Air National Guard dodge. They've got good evidence and, it turns out, some questionable stuff. That's all Turdblossom and his trolls needed. Dirty tricks jiu jitsu - turn the whole thing on its head. Suddenly the "biased media" is the issue and a story that should disqualify the Shrub is forgotten. GWB goes from Fortunate Son to victim of the media in a heartbeat. The original (legitimate and true) story is forgotten. I have often wondered whether the supposedly forged documents that caused the matter to be flipped on Rather and his people might have come from Rove and company (plant the stuff and watch the producers go for the bait). If so, they should be hung. If not, then their fast and nasty reaction to the discovery of the flawed reporting was awe inspiring. In any event, the fake controversy eclipsed the important story - the fact that Bush was a Chickenhawk protected by daddy and his friends, while Kerry was spilling blood for his country. We cannot let the Rove playbook continue to work.