The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, New York

Barack Obama strived to wrench the ill-tempered White House campaign back to voters' anxieties as he castigated the "lies and phony outrage" of his Republican foes over a farmyard taunt.

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig," Obama said at a school in Norfolk, Virginia, reprising his line from Tuesday to attack the Republican ticket's claim to be "maverick" reformers at odds with their own party.

In a new Internet ad, John McCain's campaign accused Obama of a sexist "smear" against the Republican's female running mate, Sarah Palin . But Obama aides flagged a YouTube video showing McCain using the same phrase himself.

"They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad, because they know that it's catnip to the news media," Obama said. "We have an energy crisis. We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children. We have an economy that is creating hardship all across America. We have two wars going on," the Illinois senator said.

"I don't care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and 'Swift Boat' politics," he said, referring to an ad offensive against 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry. The McCain ad showed a clip from Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention last week when she quipped that the only difference between an aggressive "hockey mom" like herself and a pitbull dog was "lipstick."

It then pulled Obama's line from Tuesday, delivered at another rally in Virginia, out of context and featured a television newscaster decrying "sexism" during the Democratic primary race between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"Ready to lead? No," a caption concluded next to a photo of Obama. "Ready to smear? Yes."

But Obama aides highlighted the video of McCain, at an event in Iowa last October, describing Clinton's efforts to revive her push for universal healthcare, which failed in the 1990s, as putting "lipstick on a pig."