I’m surprised he didn’t call her “Sweetie” too:

“You know, you can put lipstick on a pig,” Obama said, “but it’s still a pig.”

This only one day after his wife took an obvious snarky shot at Palin too. It’s like high school, I swear.

MORE: It’s going over real well:

The entire exchange is of course deeply offensive and disrespectful, treating his opponent’s running mate as a sexualized object and a mere mother, to put it bluntly. I can’t imagine there is any Democratic woman — forget the Republicans and Independents — who isn’t embarrassed. Obama appears to be crumbling under pressure, reduced to swinging away at the person who has supplanted him as the political star of the Election.

STILL MORE: Predictably, the Politico covers for Obama, unable to put 2 and 2 together (the Democratic congressman who introduced Obama in Lebanon, Va., made a lipstick joke to set the table). But Politico reporters Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen say Obama “was clearly talking about the McCain-Palin reform rhetoric.” So it was clear to the journalists who decipher the world for us with their superior judgment and worldly experience, but not to the audience, which snickered and winked at Obama’s little joke.

AN ASIDE: As an editor, I never let reporters use the word “clearly.” First of all, what’s clear to one person is not necessarily clear to another. Second, it’s usually a way to try to sneak opinion into what should be a straight news story. Save “clearly” for your columns, guys.