Accentuating the negative

Last September, when the presidential race was close, Barack Obama tried to quell a flap in the news media over what he had intended as a routine jibe. “You can put lipstick on a pig,” Obama had said of the claim that picking Sarah Palin as his running-mate showed John McCain to be a reformer. “It’s still a pig.” Barraged with accusations of sexism, Obama eventually took time out at a campaign stop to address the swelling controversy.

“They seize on an innocent remark,” he fulminated, in apparent bewilderment, “try to take it out of context, throw out an outrageous ad because they know it’s catnip for the news media.”