Lipstick On President Bush?

In this election year lipstick seems to be playing an inordinate role. You’ve heard McCain call Hillary’s healthcare plan a pig with lipstick. You’ve heard Obama call McCain’s economic plan a pig with lipstick. And you’ve undoubtedly heard Gov. Palin compare herself to a pitbull with lipstick. Never have cosmetics been used so often in political analogy.

But as I hear all the rhetoric about Palin and lipstick I can’t help but visualize another Palin, Michael Palin of Monty Python fame, performing as George W. Bush in drag. Why? Because the similarities between Gov. Palin and Pres. Bush are so striking that lipstick might be the most significant difference between the two.

Palin, like Bush in 2000, ran on a platform of changing the status quo. But Palin, as a reformer has been proven to be oxymoronic.

Just for fun, let’s compare the President and the “Pitbull.”

Nepotism – Like Bush, Gov. Palin has demonstrated an uncanny knack for placing the most unqualified of friends and loyalists in important government position. Just as Bush’s schoolmate ‘Brownie” was placed as Director of FEMA, Palin has given at least five former schoolmates jobs, many of them at inflated pay, since becoming governor of Alaska two years ago.

Secrecy – Again like Bush, Palin has refused to cooperate with government investigators and has conducted official government business using private email accounts so as to keep public records private. Palin apparently believes, as does Bush, that public oversight of government is a barrier to be overcome, not a stalwart of a free society.

Ignorance of World Events – Much as Bush was shown in 2000 to know little of the world outside the U.S., Palin has demonstrated her ignorance by her complete befuddlement concerning the “Bush Doctrine’, the most sweeping and controversial foreign policy shift of our time. And it is unlikely that being able to see Russia adds much to one’s pragmatic foreign policy credentials.

Militarism – Again like Bush, Palin’s seems far too inclined to use military might as an instrument of first response. To imply that war with Russia is justified over the Georgian invasion is foolhardy. Palin demonstrates the same failed, neocon tendency to rule the world through force which has so ostracized of the US and destabilized of the world under Bush.

Abuse of Power – Indications are that Mayor/Gov. Palin has flaunted democratic restraints on executive power again and again. From her alleged attempt to fire her State Trooper brother-in-law, to the illegal use of government offices for private campaign functions, Palin has shown the same executive arrogance for which Bush has become famous.

So it seems that animal analogies, cosmetically enhanced or otherwise, do not exactly fit the bill this election cycle. What we have here is much more unsightly.

Yes, my friends, while lipstick on a pig may be unappealing and lipstick on a pitbull somewhat bizarre, lipstick on President George W. Bush is not a pretty picture at all. God forbid we settle for just that.