Maybe Barack Obama was talking about Republican press secretary Torie Clark's book Lipstick on a Pig: Winning In the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game
? Clarke's first sentence, excerpted on the Amazon website, seems to have a reverberation with John McCain:"If you could only know one thing about Charles Keating-the man who came to personify the savings-and-loan crisis of the late eighties-the thing to know is that he never, not once that I ever saw, carried his own briefcase..."From Booklist: Clarke is a former communications director with the Pentagon in the early years of the Bush administration and a former advisor to Senator John McCain. From her years of experience, she offers broad principles on effective communication--most notably, that honesty is better than spin--and illustrates her advice with stories of how the powerful have suffered for their hubris. She begins each chapter with sound recommendations (e.g., admit to errors as soon as possible) and then offers a behind-the-scenes look at several instances where the powerful have either handled news events well or bungled them, from the decision to invade Iraq to the savings-and-loan scandal. The advice is useful for businesspeople and public figures, but readers interested in the intersection of public relations and public policy will also enjoy this book. Vanessa Bush.Wonder why so far no one seems to have made the connection?