McCain's faux outrage: has he finally jumped the shark?

The mainstream media's main task in this election year has been, when it comes to John McCain, to demonstrate that when it comes to being someone's lapdog, Tony Blair was an absolute slacker. And while I'm not overly hopeful, it's possible the media has finally had enough. Accept for the most ardent and obvious backers of McCain, the idea that Obama was using a sexist attack on Palin is just too much (and especially given the way the GOP campaign continues to use proven lies over and over, as if there will be no scrutiny from the press.... o wait...).

Anyway, here's a small sampling, served up with the tiniest bit of hope.

Jake Tapper, at Politico

A reporter then reminded Swift that in December, McCain was asked about criticisms coming his way from then-opponent Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., and McCain replied, "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."

Was McCain calling Romney a pig? a reporter asked Swift.

Of course not, Swift said.

It seems to me we should have one rule. If Obama was calling Palin a pig, then McCain was calling Hillary Clinton one. If McCain wasn't, then Obama wasn't.

Noam Scheiber at the New Republic online:

What I love about the breathtakingly dishonest McCain ad about Obama's lipstick remark is that it so completely inverts the traditional elites-versus-Middle-America dynamic. If you didn't know anything about who said what, you'd probably assume it was some good ole' boy who alluded to lipstick on a pig and some liberal women's group that took offense. Instead it's basically the opposite.

Which makes me wonder if the McCain campaign isn't being too clever by half here.

Mark Halperin, from Time Magazine, on AC360:

HALPERIN: They knew exactly what he was saying. It's an expression. And this is a victory for the McCain campaign in the sense that every day they can make this a pig fight in the mud. It's good for them because it's reducing Barack Obama's message even more. But I think this is a low point in the day and one of the low days of our collective coverage of this campaign. To spend even a minute on this expression, I think, is amazing and outrageous.

Chris Matthews & guests on Hardball, via Glen Greenwald at Salon: