Jane Swift just makes me embarrassed to be a human being. Via Jake Tapper:
Speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift tonight flatly stated that Obama had called Palin a pig.
"[T]he formation of the Palin Truth Squad couldn't have happened too soon, as we saw when Sen. Obama in Lebanon, Va., this evening uttered what I can only deem to be disgraceful comments comparing our vice presidential nominee Gov. Palin to a pig," Swift said.
"Sen. Obama owes Gov. Palin an apology," she said.
Asked why she was so confident Obama was "comparing" Palin to a pig, she said Palin was the only one of the four candidates on both parties' tickets who wears lipstick."She is the only one of the four candidates for president, or the only vice presidential candidate who wears lipstick," Swift said. "I mean, it seemed to me a very gendered comment."
But, Swift added, if "as part of his apology Sen. Obama wants to say, no, he was calling Sen. McCain -- who is a true hero in our country -- a pig, then I suppose we could wait en masse for an apology to that, as well."
It was pointed out to Swift that, after the line about the pig, Obama had said, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' it's still gonna stink after eight years."
Swift then suggested that Obama was calling McCain a fish.
"I have a fourth-grader and two second-graders at home," she said. "I would not teach them that this is sort of a high-minded debate on policy issues when they are calling people rotten old fish or a pig. In fact, it sounds a lot like some of the least intelligent debates on the playground sound like at our elementary school."
I'd say the McCain campaign has jumped the shark, except I don't want to be accused of using a schoolyard epithet.
--Noam Scheiber