POST WATCH

Part One of a continuing series (well, continuing until I can no longer stomach reading the Washington Post editorial page).

The Obama apology twins are back, whining through their lipstick.

Here’s EJ Dionne, Tiptoeing through the mud:

The campaign is a blur of flying pieces of junk, lipstick and gutter-style attacks.

The media bear a heavy responsibility because "balance" does not require giving equal time to truth and lies. So does McCain, who is running a disgraceful, dishonorable campaign of distraction and diversion.

and Eugene Robinson, Listening to the scream machine:

I hear McCain's amen chorus screaming, "Lipstick on a pig! Lipstick on a pig!" But they're well aware that Barack Obama was unambiguously talking about McCain's economic ideas, not his running mate. It seems incomprehensible that the McCain campaign would make so much noise about an allegation that clearly doesn't hold a drop of water -- until you realize that the noise is the whole point.

As long as people are talking about barnyard beauty tips, they're not talking about substance. Any day spent arguing about meaningless ephemera is a small but significant victory for a campaign that has nothing to say.

Uh, huh. Just who made the “lipstick on a pig” comment, anyway? Let’s be generous and assume that the lipstick comment was “unambiguously about McCain’s economic ideas” (a stretch) and Obama is half as smart as the Democrats think he is. Just how smart do you have to be to realize the implication of that comment when one-half your opponent’s team is female?

Back to E.J.:

Yes, Democrats are a gloomy lot, inclined to see ... the other side as tougher, meaner and more manipulative.

Tough? Well, yes, Republicans are tough. Progressives might be able to figure that out if they’d abandon their stereotype of red America as filled with gap-toothed hillbillies too stupid to look out for their own interests and look anew at the people who are actually building this great nation.

Mean? Well, if by “mean” Dionne infers that Republicans fight back with all the tools* at their command, then yes, I guess Republicans are “mean.”

But manipulative? Oh, come now, E.J. Hunters don’t manipulate their prey into a trap; they shoot straight for the heart.

So, yes, Democrats have a right to be gloomy.**

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*Sarcasm is a tool. So is humor. Both are more effective than obscenity and whining.

**Gotcha!