In an interview with David Letterman on Wednesday night, Letterman picked up where traditional journalists left off, posing a patently ridiculous questions about the lipstick cliche:

Letterman: Let me ask you a question here: Have you ever actually put lipstick on pig?

Obama: The answer would be no. But I think it might be fun to try …. This is sorta silly season in politics. Not that there’s a non-silly season, but it gets sillier. It’s a common expression in at least Illinois. I don’t know about in NYC. I don’t know what you put lipstick on here. (laughter) In Illinois, the expression connotes the idea that if you have a bad idea — in this case I was talking about McCain’s economic plans — calling them change, calling them something different doesn’t make them better. Hence lipstick on a pig is still a pig.

Keep in mind, that technically had I meant it this way, she would be the lipstick … The policies of John Mccain would be the pig.

I actually heard a reporter offer this same deconstruction of the analogy on the bus yesterday. But it’s pretty low on the list of reasons why this false attack should never have been seriously covered in the first place.

The real joke, as Obama might say, is on the American people.

While Obama spoke in a calm and earnest tone, his language was sharper than usual. Just this week, Obama declined to use the word “lie” — despite entreaties from local supporters — when discussing falsehoods from the McCain campaign. Today’s rebuttal dispensed with such diplomacy. “Spare me the phony outrage,” Obama said, criticizing the “news media” for treating McCain’s false attack like “catnip.”

McCain’s ploy helped waste two of the last 55 days of this election, Obama pointed out, saying that Republicans can only win by distraction and distortion.

Ticking off populist policies on the economy, education and health care, Obama said the public backed his agenda, while there is not “a dime’s worth of difference between what [McCain's] offering and what we’ve already got.”

The press is repeating McCain's distortion of Obama's reference to the common cliche about "putting lipstick on a pig."

During questions at the event, one attendee asked Obama how he could beat Republican lies while prioritizing integrity within his campaign — citing the 2004 defeat of Sen. John Kerry as a cautionary tale.

Obama conceded that it was a challenge to “fight nonsense” about taxes from the McCain campaign. For example, it falsely claims that the Democratic nominee would raise taxes when, in fact, he would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

“I still have faith that the truth will out, in the end,” Obama said, to a smattering of applause. “This whole thing about lipstick, nobody actually believes that these folks are offended,” he added, tweaking the party for PC hypocrisy.

“Everyone knows it’s insincere,” he added, “the media knows it! It’s a game; it’s a sport. Maybe if this wasn’t such a serious time that would be OK. But this is serious,” he stressed, reiterating his differences with McCain on education reform and Iraq.

As Obama voiced his optimism, however, the traveling press corps tapped away at a filing station in a small classroom here, churning out more headlines about a non-story created largely by the media, and repeatedly airing the McCain campaign’s false distortion of Obama’s remark.

It’s a sorry scene for the homestretch of this long, and important, campaign.