Damn shtein, you really laid it on thick. Nice article.

A load of horsesh*t, maybe the reason folks like Sarah Palin is she is one of THEM and most Americans don’t know a hell of a lot about foriegn affairs either. I don’t know what she IS but I know what she ISN’T.

She isn’t some silver spoon born and bred Ivy League Blue Blood who usually is elected to the office.

She isn’t a LAWYER (ie politician)

She isn’t a RADICAL feminist, but believes a woman can have both a career and family and both are equally important.

She isn’t a career politician

She isn’t some EAST Coast/West Coast debutante or as most would put it SNOB who tends to think they are far more “elite” than the common American because they have graduated from IVY U

She is what a Politician in America was supposed to be as evidenced by our Constitution and Founding Fathers, a REAL American Citizen who gets a TEMPORARY job in Politics and returns to their family.

To many times Americans have voted for “change” funny the candidate touting change is IVY League schooled candidate as are most of them. Last I checked you did not need a degree in “international” Politics to be a contender for the 2nd highest or 1st highest Office in the land. This held true for:

Washington Jefferson Lincoln Jackson Roosevelt (Teddy)

and many others who came from humble beginnings to the the highest office in the land. Hopefully Palin will be able to do the same and put an end to the “politics as a career” candidates we have had for way to long in America.

Everyone points to Obama’s similar inexperience, but Obama was vetted against other Democratic nominees in over 20 debates, debates that included experienced politicians and political legacy. We sometimes forget that the other Democratic candidates supported the Iraq war by handing President Bush a blank check. Obama was the only (viable) candidate, not sure about Kucinich, who did not have the Iraq war baggage weighing him down. Hillary might have won the nomination, but she showed weakness when asked about Elliot Spitzer’s proposal to require licenses to illegal immigrants; she waffled and showed mediocre political tact.

Sarah Palin would have been crushed in the Republican debates. Imagine Giuliani ripping her apart with his condescending tone, or Romney stunning her with his breadth of financial and administrative prowess, or McCain huffing about his POW status every chance he got.

Obama’s known now, and we’re comfortable with him. Sarah Palin still has skeletons in the closet, and she’s dodging interviews daily. Palin, start talking!

She and her old man don’t have a chance.

Woa. That was powerful.

What is so wrong with being normal. That is what you’re saying, her “bending to societal norms” is just a fancy way of saying that’s she’s a regular, normal American woman. This is something that makes her great, rather than people like Obama who claim to be right in there “with” the people when he’s nothing like us middle-class folk at all. This is exactly what’s wrong with feminism today, we’ve gone from “women can do anything they want” to a woman can only be successful if she only chooses the typically male position and forgets about family and loses her femininity. Now doesn’t that sound more like admitting that the “male role” is better and not a whole like celebrating being a woman which is what feminism should be about. There is absolutely nothing secondary or second rate about taking care of a family, especially is you can handle that while governing a state (which by the way is a little more than “a little governemnt participation”). So what if she’s not an expert on foreign policy, neither is Obama, although he may claim he is after his whirlwind trip through Europe and the Middle East. Maybe what we need right now is somebody who is going to focus a little on the home, and more importantly our home, rather than foreign affairs.
Msybe you should spend a little more time researching her experience with government participation and take a simple American government course to find out how much a governor and how much policy they do deal with. I think that your article should be offensive to every woman because by calling Sarah Palin second-class, you are calling every woman that desires both a career and a family second-class. If in your mind having children means being a second-class citizen then guess what, we will always be second-class because we are the only ones that can do that (maybe you should take a biology class as well).

What’s she doing wearing shoes? Shouldn’t she be pregnant?

The woman just don’t know her place I guess!

BAH - sauce for goose should be sauce for goose, left or right.

Wow! Some folks really ARE threatened by strong, competent women! Every Obama/Biden supporter should be, because Obama/Biden really look like the “good old boys club” to a lot of American women.

Elect a woman to the White House THIS year!

Si se puede!!!!!!!

You’re right, she sure would be a “Change” from what we are used to in a politician.

I’m sorry if the girls on this campus have no values. There are, however, real women out there who do. Those women applaud Gov. Palin for being able to balance both her family and her political career, concentrating first and foremost on what’s most important. The transparent girls on this campus would be wise to take a lesson from the next Vice President of the United States.

McCain-Palin ‘08!

hannah shtein is just JEALOUS.

There isn’t just one Bush Doctrine, thus why the question from Gibson wasn’t clear. The original context of the Bush Doctrine was in terms of withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, having nothing to do with dealing with terrorism or Iraq. But I’m sure you didn’t know that.

Right on!

Where does she get off thinking she can be vice president of the United States? Up against the one million years in the Senate her opponent, Joe Biden, has logged in between expensive rides at taxpayer expense on the Acela, what can she offer? Mayor of a town of six people and ten caribou [sneer]? Miss Congeniality [sneer, sneer]? Bastard-baby-grandma [sneer, sneer, sneer]? Poster chick for “family values” [sneer, sneer, sneer, sneer]?

Sorry, I’m running out of sneers.

But, seriously, just look at the negatives: she’s a popular first-term governor, she’s a woman, she’s happily married, she has five kids, one of them with Down’s syndrome, she’s a maverick, she’s from way beyond the Beltway, she’s taken on both the Republican Party and Big Oil, she shoots automatic weapons, she can kill a moose with a butter knife and fillet a sea lion with a smile, her husband’s a roustabout Eskimo snowmobile champ, she’s a hockey mom, she was Miss Wasilla, she looks like she should be playing Cecily, the saucy librarian, in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties, and she doesn’t wear pantsuits. Heck, she hasn’t even appeared yet on Meet the Press! I mean, who in his right mind would vote for her?

Sure, if she were one of ours, not only would we have nominated her by acclamation, since she fulfills every trope of feminism except for her unfortunate and inexplicable opposition to murdering unborn children, we would also have made at least two TV movies about her life, celebrating her choice to have her fifth child and the announcement yesterday that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant and is going to marry the teenage father of her child. That’s the kind of heartwarming, inclusive, empowering story we love — she’s like Juno come to life as Juneau, set in Mystery, Alaska.

But she’s not a Democrat, which despite her va-va-va-voom appearance, means she’s not really a woman, which is one of the reasons we’ve spent the past four days since McCain unveiled her trying to tear her limb from limb. Just because she’s the governor of a state sandwiched between two obscure and unimportant countries, Canada and Russia, and spent more time in her first five minutes visiting American troops in Iraq than Evita Barry did during his entire Rainbow Tour, what could she possibly know about foreign policy? It’s not like she’s John Edwards or something.

So that’s why we’re having our Wellstone Funeral Moment at the moment. We mean well; we promised ourselves we wouldn’t go over the top with our outright loathing of the Neanderthals who preach “Christian” values while practicing Wiccanism and child sacrifice and who hate black people and gay people and want to destroy the environment just because they can, and want to amass more money than even John Kerry or Jon Corzine or Herb Kohl or Jay Rockefeller or Dianne Feinstein — the five richest senators — or Ted Kennedy or John Edwards or Nancy Pelosi have. That, usually, is the Kos Kidz’s job. Along with speculating exactly how Bush got from My Pet Goat to planting the depth charges that blew up the levees in New Orleans.

But sometimes the mask slips and you can see — whoops! — how much we hate you. Normally we’re against hate in all its forms, and embrace tolerance as one of our defining moral attributes. But when it comes to you conservatives, well, with the best will in the world, we just can’t tolerate you. You’re elitist, you’re judgmental, you’re hypocritical, and we know that deep down you hate us even more than we hate you. Therefore, by any means necessary, we will defeat you this fall. Voter fraud, “walking around” money, legions of lawyers, as many recounts as it takes — bring it on!

Because we need to take back our country. We need to take it back from fascists like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and give it back to its rightful proprietors, patriots like Henry Wallace, Sidney Hillman, Norman Thomas, Gus Hall, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Saul Alinsky, William Kunstler, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Bobby Seale, and, yes, my guy, the Talking Parrot, you know who.

And Sarah Marshall Palin stands in the way of all that. After we sent Bill n’ Hill packing with their twin gold watches in Denver, we thought we had a clear playing field. The sunshine of the uplands was ours. Mother Gaia had opened wide her arms to embrace us, shunning the Orcs and the Uruk-hai of the Anti-Slavery, Anti-Segregation, Anti-Secularism, Anti-Sedition and Anti-Surrender Party. We were going up against Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, Herbert Hoover and Whoever, Daddy Bush and Dan Quayle, Gerald R. Ford and, well, Bob Dole.

Piece of cake, walk on the beach, a Renaissance Weekend in a non-denominational heaven for atheists. Until Sarah Marshall Palin showed up, bringing with her 10 million bucks for the bad guys in three days, a level of enthusiasm not seen since Ronnie was a pup, and a clear shot to Republican dominance with her and Bobby Jindal and whatever seduced and corrupted minority group is coming next for eons to come.

So that’s why we hate you, Sarah Marshall Palin. We hate you because you remind the other side of their wives, their girlfriends, their daughters, and make them want to fight for you against our sneers and our smears. We hate you because you’re smart and accomplished and didn’t make your bones on the back of Monica Lewinsky. We hate you because you’ve made us forget that our last two candidates for vice president were Joe Lieberman and John Edwards, whoever they were.

We hate you because you’re smart and beautiful and we wish we had women like you on our side.

We hate you.

John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate finally gave Republicans a reason to vote for him — a reason, that is, other than B. Hussein Obama.

The media are hopping mad about McCain’s vice presidential selection, but they’re really furious over at MSNBC. After drawing “Keith + Obama” hearts on their denim notebooks, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews stayed up all night last Thursday, writing jokes about Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the presumed vice presidential pick. Now they can’t use any of them.

So the media are taking it out on our brave Sarah and her 17-year-old daughter.

They claimed Palin was chosen only because she’s a woman. In fact, Palin was chosen because she’s pro-life, pro-gun, pro-drilling and pro-tax cuts. She’s fought both Republicans and Democrats on public corruption and does not have hair plugs like some other vice presidential candidate I could mention. In other words, she’s a “Republican.”

As a right-winger, Palin will appeal to the narrow 59 percent of Americans who voted for another former small-market sportscaster: Ronald Reagan. Our motto: Sarah Palin is only a heartbeat away!

If you’re going to say Palin was chosen because she’s a woman, you’re going to have to demonstrate that the runners-up were more qualified. Gov. Tim Pawlenty seems like a terrific fellow and fine governor, but he is not obviously more qualified than Palin.

As for former governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, the other also-rans, I can think of at least 40 million unborn reasons she’s better than either of them.

Within the first few hours after Palin’s name was announced, McCain raised $4 million in campaign donations online, reaching $10 million within the next two days. Which shortlist vice presidential pick could have beaten that?

The media hysterically denounced Palin as “inexperienced.” But then people started to notice that she has more executive experience than B. Hussein Obama — the guy at the top of the Democrats’ ticket.

They tried to create a “Troopergate” for Palin, indignantly demanding to know why she wanted to get her ex-brother-in-law removed as a state trooper. Again, public corruption is not a good issue for someone like Obama, Chicago pol and noted friend of Syrian National/convicted felon Antonin Rezko.

For the cherry on top, then we found out Palin’s ex-brother-in-law had Tasered his own 10-year-old stepson. Defend that, Democrats.

The bien-pensant criticized Palin, saying it’s irresponsible for a woman with five children to run for vice president. Liberals’ new talking point: Sarah Palin: Only five abortions away from the presidency.

They claimed her newborn wasn’t her child, but the child of her 17-year-old daughter. That turned out to be a lie.

Then they attacked her daughter, who actually is pregnant now, for being unmarried. When liberals start acting like they’re opposed to pre-marital sex and mothers having careers, you know McCain’s vice presidential choice has knocked them back on their heels.

But at least liberal reporters had finally found someone their own size to pick on: a 17-year-old girl.

Speaking of Democrats with newborn children, the media weren’t particularly concerned about John Edwards running for president despite his having a mistress with a newborn child.

While the difficult circumstances of Palin’s pregnant daughter are being covered like a terrorist attack on the nation, with leering accounts of the 18-year-old father, the media remain resolutely uninterested in the parentage of Edwards’ mistress’s love child. Except, that is, the hardworking reporters at the National Enquirer, who say Edwards is the father.

As this goes to press, the latest media-invented scandal about Palin is that McCain didn’t know her well before choosing her as his running mate. He knew her well enough, though admittedly, not as well as Obama knows William Ayers.

John F. Kennedy, who was — from what the media tell me — America’s most beloved president, detested his vice president, Lyndon Johnson.

Until Clinton interviewed Al Gore one time before choosing him as his vice presidential candidate, he had met Gore only one other time: when Gore was running for president in 1988 and flew to Little Rock seeking Clinton’s endorsement. Clinton turned him down.

To this day, there’s no proof that Bill Clinton ever met one-on-one with his CIA director, James Woolsey, other than a brief chat after midnight the night before Woolsey’s nomination was announced.

Barring some all-new, trivial and probably false story about Palin — her former hairdresser got a parking ticket in 1978! — the media apparently intend to keep being hysterical about McCain’s alleged failure to “vet” Palin properly. The problem with this argument is that it presupposes that everyone is asking: “HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”

No one’s saying that.

Attacks on McCain’s “vetting” process require the media to keep claiming that Palin has a lot of problems. But she doesn’t have any problems. Remember? Those were all blind alleys.

Unfortunately, for the ordinary TV viewer hearing nonstop hysteria about nonspecific “problems,” it takes a lot of effort to figure out that every attack liberals have launched against Palin turned out to be a lie.

It’s as if a basketball player made the winning shot in the last three seconds of the game and liberals demand that we have a week-long discussion about whether the player should have taken that shot. WHAT IF HE MISSED?

With Palin, McCain didn’t miss.

In the shadow of the blatant and truly stunning sexism launched against the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and as a pro-choice feminist, I wasn’t the only one thrilled to hear Republican John McCain announce Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the GOP, she bridges for conservatives and independents what I term “the enthusiasm gap” for the ticket. For Democrats, she offers something even more compelling - a chance to vote for a someone who is her own woman, and who represents a party that, while we don’t agree on all the issues, at least respects women enough to take them seriously.

Whether we have a D, R or an “i for independent” after our names, women share a different life experience from men, and we bring that difference to the choices we make and the decisions we come to. Having a woman in the White House, and not as The Spouse, is a change whose time has come, despite the fact that some Democratic Party leaders have decided otherwise. But with the Palin nomination, maybe they’ll realize it’s not up to them any longer.

Clinton voters, in particular, have received a political wake-up call they never expected. Having watched their candidate and their principles betrayed by the very people who are supposed to be the flame-holders for equal rights and fairness, they now look across the aisle and see a woman who represents everything the feminist movement claimed it stood for. Women can have a family and a career. We can be whatever we choose, on our own terms. For some, that might mean shooting a moose. For others, perhaps it’s about shooting a movie or shooting for a career as a teacher. However diverse our passions, we will vote for a system that allows us to make the choices that best suit us. It’s that simple.

The rank bullying of the Clinton candidacy during the primary season has the distinction of simply being the first revelation of how misogynistic the party has become. The media led the assault, then the Obama campaign continued it. Trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first Democratic vice presidential candidate, was so taken aback by the attacks that she publicly decried nominee Barack Obama as “terribly sexist” and openly criticized party chairman Howard Dean for his remarkable silence on the obvious sexism.

Concerned feminists noted, among other thinly veiled sexist remarks during the campaign, Obama quipping, “I understand that Sen. Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal,” and Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen in a television interview comparing Clinton to a spurned lover-turned-stalker in the film, “Fatal Attraction,” noting, “Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub, and Sen. Clinton has had a remarkable career…”. These attitudes, and more, define the tenor of the party leadership, and sent a message to the grassroots and media that it was “Bros Before Hoes,” to quote a popular Obama-supporter T-shirt.

The campaign’s chauvinistic attitude was reflected in the even more condescending Democratic National Convention. There, the Obama camp made it clear it thought a Super Special Women’s Night would be enough to quell the fervent support of the woman who had virtually tied him with votes and was on his heels with pledged delegates.

There was a lot of pandering and lip service to women’s rights, and evenings filled with anecdotes of how so many have been kept from achieving their dreams, or failed to be promoted, simply because they were women. Clinton’s “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” were mentioned a heck of a lot. More people began to wonder, though, how many cracks does it take to break the thing?

Ironically, all this at an event that was negotiated and twisted at every turn in an astounding effort not to promote a woman.

Virtually moments after the GOP announcement of Palin for vice president, pundits on both sides of the aisle began to wonder if Clinton supporters - pro-choice women and gays to be specific - would be attracted to the McCain-Palin ticket. The answer is, of course. There is a point where all of our issues, including abortion rights, are made safer not only if the people we vote for agree with us - but when those people and our society embrace a respect for women and promote policies that increase our personal wealth, power and political influence.

Make no mistake - the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party’s increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That’s why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.

They are deciding women’s rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.

Palin’s candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in.

It should be no surprise that the Democratic response to the McCain-Palin ticket was to immediately attack by playing the liberal trump card that keeps Democrats in line - the abortion card - where the party daily tells restless feminists the other side is going to police their wombs.

The power of that accusation is interesting, coming from the Democrats - a group that just told the world that if you have ovaries, then you don’t count.

Yes, both McCain and Palin identify as anti-abortion, but neither has led a political life with that belief, or their other religious principles, as their signature issue. Politicians act on their passions - the passion of McCain and Palin is reform. In her time in office, Palin’s focus has not been to kick the gays and make abortion illegal; it has been to kick the corrupt and make wasteful spending illegal. The Republicans are now making direct appeals to Clinton supporters, knowingly crafting a political base that would include pro-choice voters.

On the day McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Palin thanked Clinton and Ferraro for blazing her trail. A day later, Ferraro noted her shock at Palin’s comment. You see, none of her peers, no one, had ever publicly thanked her in the 24 years since her historic run for the White House. Ferraro has since refused to divulge for whom she’s voting. Many more now are realizing that it does indeed take a woman - who happens to be a Republican named Sarah Palin.

Charles Gibson, as has been now proven, is the one that did not really know the “Bush Doctrine”. Once he clarified that his question was concerning preemption, she nailed the answer…those who violently oppose her seem to have a problem with recognizing and acknowledging that their issue with Sarah Palin is that she doesn’t fit their model of a feminist.

Wow, Hannah, you are so good at parroting sterotypes!

Do YOU know what the Bush Doctrine is? And WHEN did you know it? I’ll bet not before that interview.

Keep putting her down—it’s doing wonders for the numbers!

McCain’s numbers that is!

Holy long-winded posts Batman!

BTW, who is this Palin person?

looks like someone got her ass handed to her on this article, better luck next time babe

Wow, these anonymous Republicans love to write. stop, no one here cares!

Wow, these anonymous Republicans love to write. stop, no one here cares!

Obviously YOU did, buckwheat

republicans keep saying that Clinton was voted down because she is a women. That’s not true. She is flip flopper politician that attacks below the belt. She just isn’t that respectable. And she was competing against one of the best presidential nominees to come along in a long time, Senator Obama. There seems to be a sect of Republicans that just can’t comprehend that a black person could make an amazing presidential nominee.

Anyway, thanks for the article. I mentioned the existence of this article to my mother, and it brought her a sigh of relief. It irritates her that a women who fits SO well into the male stereotype of being subordinate and stupid is being championed as a leader for our country. I’m forwarding the whole article now.

Thanks again, and keep up the good dialogue.