Four days before the infamous "lipstick on a pig" remark by Sen. Obama, Gov. Sarah Palin was depicted as the lipstick-wearing porcine embodiment of "Federal Budget Earmarks" in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch cartoon by R.J. Matson (see picture at right; h/t tipster Chuck Hodges).

Yesterday NewsBusters contributor Warner Todd Huston noted that Obama's remarks sounded remarkably similar to a speech bubble in that ran in a Tom Toles cartoon the same day, September 5, in the Washington Post.

It's not too far-fetched to say Team Obama is cribbing his stump speech laugh lines from the liberal funnies.

The folks at FreeRepublic have found an interesting... uh, shall we say coincidence... concerning Barack Obama's widely panned September 9 comments made at a rally in Virginia where he seemed to be saying that Governor Palin was a "pig" by referencing the "lipstick" quote from her acceptance speech at the GOP convention. It is looking like Obama's comments were not off the cuff, but scripted. And, not only were they scripted, but they were stolen without attribution from a Washington Post political cartoon by Tom Toles from September 5. Will the media notice?

Obama tried to quip that "you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig" when attacking the McCain/Palin record. But the entire segment, including the previous comments leading up to the insensitive "pig" line, are almost word for word from the Tom Toles cartoon from September 5.