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.

There’s more funding (for teachers and charter schools); more standards (to improve achievement); and more choice (for local “innovation” programs and open source classrooms).

Obama speaks at an Ohio school on Tuesday.

These policy events present something of an alternative campaign universe in targeted states. While the national press and political websites go gaffe-gorging, local papers cover Obama’s working class agenda. Take these headlines from this week’s Dayton Daily News, for example:

OBAMA ON EDUCATION: PARENTS MUST HELP
OBAMA TALKS WITH ABX WORKERS ABOUT JOBS
SUPPORTERS WAIT FOR CHANCE TO HEAR OBAMA

Local voters gain information by attending events or learning about them through their circle of friends. At each stop, I’ve watched campaign organizers ask attendees to sync their cell phones with Obama’s text message network. The campaign is also furiously registering new voters in red states like Virginia to buck the region’s Republican foundation. (It hasn’t gone blue since 1964.) Jay Newton-Small reports the early returns of that effort, in a new article today for Time.com:

Virginia is one of 10 states that went for President Bush in 2004 but that the Obama campaign believes will be [tight in November]… Since January alone more than 3.5 million new voters have been registered in 17 of the 23 states tracked closely by the Obama campaign where information is available…. [I]n 14 of the states at least half of the new voters are under 35, a key demographic for Obama. (emphasis added)

Obama’s education speeches have been depicted as an appeal to women voters, but they also resonate with young voters in general, whose priorities include education, along with Iraq and the economy, and could be crucial to Obama turning the tide here.

To even entertain McCain’s far-fetched attack, one would have to think Obama had a political death wish. Rather than attack Palin, however, Obama has spent the past few days praising her story and personal characteristics at each stop in Virginia, Ohio and Michigan. He has confined all his criticism to policy differences.

I was sitting at a press table in the Virginia gym as Obama rattled through two cliches to argue that the McCain/Palin ticket could not deliver change. First, Obama reached for a farm analogy: “You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “It’s still a pig.” Then he said, “you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”

The pig cliche went from Politico to Drudge before Obama had left the stage.

The McCain camp pounced with an emergency conference call, and the press corps unthinkingly dug into the story.

McCain surrogate Jane Swift accused Obama of talking about Palin and demanded an apology. Swift said she thought Obama was referencing Palin because she is the only candidate who wears lipstick. I guess that means no one can take offense at the fish analogy, since none of the candidates are wrapped in newspaper.

This entire non-event — a candidate uses a common cliche in passing while answering a question about “change” — barely merits any reporting. It definitely isn’t worth the lead of The AP’s traveling report on what Obama did today, for example.

Don’t take my word for it; even the journalist who jump-started this drama said so. Amie Parnes, who I’ve been sitting next to this week on Obama’s plane, added this addendum to her short lipstick post:

The McCain campaign is now saying Obama called Palin a pig, which he didn’t. They also note that “lipstick is a fairly common idiom he often uses,” as in a recent Washington Post interview. McCain has also used the phrase…(emphasis added)

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder also swiftly debunked McCain’s ploy. But the distraction is already upending the news cycle. And I haven’t even seen a TV yet — since we’re en route to the airport.

This is the kind of blatantly false charge that works even when reported skeptically. Because, frankly, it shouldn’t be reported at all.

Campaign journalists don’t need to cover two sides to every lie — especially an outlandish gender card trick like this one.

For skeptical readers, I’ll note that I filed several policy pieces about Obama today, including one from the Lebanon event. I’m now wading into the pig ploy with the minor goal of providing some context from the road.

Actual sexism still infects American culture and U.S. politics, of course. But McCain and Palin undermine the fight for equality when they falsely and cynically stage fake offenses.

McCain’s decision to put a woman on his ticket was laudable and inspiring, (as I’ve written before), and regardless of the motives, it was good for the country.

McCain’s overall conduct is more significant than that one action, however. His cynical attempt to cloak his ticket in gendered victimhood is an offense to all women and men who value equality — and to any voters who still desire a campaign devoted to a truthful debate of the issues.