On Pitbulls and Lipstick

Sarah Palin:

In last night’s speech, Governor Palin characterized herself as a pit-bull with lipstick.

GOV. PALIN: I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom and signed up for the PTA. (Cheers, applause.)

AUDIENCE: (Chanting.) Hockey moms! Hockey moms! Hockey moms!

GOV. PALIN: (Laughs.) I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick. (Laughter, cheers, applause.)

So I signed up for the PTA because…

I don’t quote Dick Cheney often, but he had something interesting to say in November 2004 while campaigning against John Kerry.

“As we say in Wyoming, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” quipped Vice President Dick Cheney in a stump speech yesterday, with reference to John Kerry’s claims he would be a credible war president.

I imagine the same logic holds true for pit bulls. Of course, my dog BooMan and I were once attacked and hospitalized by a pit-bull, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask for a dispassionate assessment of this self-characterization. For me, a pit-bull is an animal with the raw jaw-power of a leopard who will attack unprovoked and kill innocents. Don’t believe me? The people of Anchorage, Alaska do. This is from the August 18th, 2008 edition of the Anchorage Daily News:

The 6-year-old girl attacked by a family pit bull last week was taken off of life support and died after she went into an irreversible vegetative state, according to Anchorage police and the girl’s family. Isis Krieger was fatally injured in the attack while playing with Dozer in her East Anchorage mobile home last Tuesday. The dog bit her neck, breaking it and ultimately leaving her brain dead, said the girl’s great-grandmother, Wanda Injasoulian.

“I’m sick,” said Injasoulian, who learned Isis had been taken off life support Monday afternoon. “I’m completely, totally devastated, and the thing that hurts me most is that I wasn’t there when she went to Heaven.”

There’s no way to put lipstick on that.

Author: BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.