It is absolutely clear that Obama meant this as a hit against Sarah Palin (listen to the way the audience laughed, they got it). He’s angry that a chick is cleaning his clock and so he is pushing back in his typically snotty underhanded way. We know what he’s doing and it’s not very presidential.(via)“The Palin Truth Squad” responds to the Obama sexist remark:

The newly-formed “Palin Truth Squad,” sensing an opportunity to express outrage and portray Obama’s comments as sexist, struck back at a comment made by Obama comparing the McCain ticket to “putting lipstick on a pig.”Obama drew the analogy while mocking the McCain campaign’s new “change” message.”You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said to a laughing Ohio audience. “It’s still a pig.””You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”Truth squad chairwoman, Gov. Jane Swift, said Obama’s use of the pretty common expression reeked of sexism.”She is the only one of the four presidential candidates that wears lipstick,” said Swift, explaining that the statement was clearly directed at Palin.

Update: The Obama campaign responds:

“Enough is enough,” Obama senior adviser Anita Dunn said in a statement e-mailed to reporters “The McCain campaign’s attack tonight is a pathetic attempt to play the gender card about the use of a common analogy – the same analogy that Senator McCain himself used about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan just last year,” she continued. “This phony lecture on gender sensitivity is the height of cynicism and lays bare the increasingly dishonorable campaign John McCain has chosen to run.”

Evidently the “sweetie” candidate does need a gender sensitivity lecture since he refuses to apologize for his demeaning comment that everyone knows was aimed at Palin.