More Outrage?

Is it the media or is it conservatism that promotes faux outrage as a way of garnering attention? Is it the fault of a media so desperate for attention, relevance and advertising dollars? Or is it the fault of conservatism, which is so devoid of merit its attempts at attention are naturally base and meaningless. It's sometimes hard to say. Today Barack Obama condemned the “phony outrage” perpetrated by Republicans regarding the use of lipstick on pigs. Obama said this today (courtesy of the New York Times):

“What their campaign has done this morning is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw out an outrageous ad because they know it’s catnip for the news media,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m assuming you guys heard this watching the news. I’m talking about John McCain’s economic policies and I said here’s more of the same, ‘You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Suddenly, they say, Oh you must be talking about the governor of Alaska!’”

He's correct, of course. But I couldn't help be concerned by the last few lines of the article.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain-Palin campaign, chastised Mr. Obama for trying to blame the media for reporting the lipstick remark, rather than taking responsibility himself.

“Barack Obama can’t campaign with schoolyard insults and then try to claim outrage at the tone of the campaign,” Mr. Rogers said in a statement. “His talk of new politics is as empty as his campaign trail promises.”

Employing an animal reference of his own, he added: “Apparently, the buck never stops with Barack Obama.”

I want to know whether it was actually the McCain hack who thought the reference was an animal one, or it was the reporter who inserted his own prejudice.

All racial and ethnic groups have been victimized by racial slurs; however, no American group has suffered as many racial epithets as have blacks: coon, tom,
savage, picanniny, mammy, buck, sambo, jigaboo, and buckwheat are typical.

I do know this, if it had been a Republican/conservative on the receiving end, their special response faux outrage creation squad would have circulated the fact that some hack had used a racially-offensive word (buck), even though the meaning was obviously a reference to the famous sign on Harry Truman's desk.

Right?