Alcyone - you're right on the Education ad [the sex ed for Kindergarteners one is the one I imagine you're referring to]. The 'cut funding for special ed' attacks against Palin are BS too [though I haven't seen an AD, I have seen it reported].
Most of the media coverage I've seen of the lipstick thing has pointed out that it's a pretty common statement in DC. Palin has used the pitbull statement before [and I've heard it elsewhere - it's a pretty common hockey mom joke and I think I've heard it with something besides hockey mom too] so it's not like she was taking Obama's lipstick/pig statement. SHOULD Obama be allowed to make a statement like that without the crazy repercussions of the last couple of days? Yeah. But the reality is that the lipstick thing has become SO associated with Palin - right, wrong or otherwise - that he really can't without it turning into a 'thing'. And the pitbull comment wasn't in her speech - it was off the cuff while her teleprompter wasn't working and in response to someone in the crowd [or a sign or something, I forget exactly].
I did see the cartoon thing and the article I read said that Obama used it, was contacted by the newspaper/magazine/whatever, used it again, used it and credited it to a cartoon, then used it again with no credit. Whether or not all that counts as being credited... not a clue.
As for the uppity thing... I never knew that it was a derogatory term until this week. I've used it and certainly never meant anything racist by it at all. I'd heard the term 'uppity n****r' when watching... Tuskegee Airmen I think but didn't realize that 'uppity' was part of the slur. I'd always heard it in this sense: snobbish, arrogant, or presumptuous [freedictionary.com definition] and would not have made the association. I didn't read the article you linked, but I would imagine Westmoreland was the same way, give him the benefit of the doubt just like I did Obama on the lipstick thing - SHOULD Westmoreland have known? No clue.
I think there was something else I was going to say but I've not got a clue what it was.
Both sides are making mountains out of molehills and not really addressing what they need to - what are they going to do about the deficit, the war, Iran, N. Korea [who really is running the show over there?], my taxes because I pay too much as it is, etc.
Carol
