Ah,so now that there are "pretty" anti-government demonstrators wearing headscarves, we are longer required to condemn these headcoverings as signs of female oppression. Hilarious.

Although I think Clark-Flory's analysis is more nuanced than we've read from the left (or right) since at least 9/11 (if not centuries), we can't really avoid oversimplification until we understand why our own culture is so vocally obsessed with what Muslim women wear on their heads.

It's interesting that it's fair game on the left to dissect and condemn the symbolism of the chador, but not OK to discuss Orthodox Jewish women wearing wigs, Mennonite women wearing the covering, or even African American women wearing hats in church (a custom, btw, most white women followed well into the sixties). And that doesn't get into why it's mostly Muslim women's headgear that draws attention, and not men's. Why is women's headgear "oppression" and men's headgear "menace." Why isn't the left interested in "liberating" Sikh men from their long hair and turbans? By god, shouldn't those sardarjis shave their heads and don a p.c. cadet cap?

Here's a better question: why have American women AND men's choices in headgear narrowed so much over the years? Why can't Americans wear a nice functional straw summer hat without being mocked? Why are we all bareheaded in the sun? Why organic sunscreen and not a boater? But I digress.

The West's obsession with the chador is a sort of unconscious reflex, part age-old anti-Muslim bigotry, part re-fighting of Christian/Jewish internal battles (see Corinthians),part hippie headband residue, part corporate-fashion xenophobism, part neo-conservative apologetics for American expansionism, and only a small portion feminism. Headgames. I think there's considerably less concern for the plight of Muslim women than posing.

Put a lid on the posing. I'd recommend a vintage resistol.

And if you want to posture, try a pork pie.

I had to catch up on one week's news in one hour and it's become a bit of a muddle.

I have to say that it would be unusual for a politician to resign because of an investigation into financial improprieties. Just the opposite: retaining office is a good defense strategy. She'd be more exposed to liability by quitting, not less. She about said as much.

I doubt whether Palin has given deep serious thought to a Presidential bid (or anything at all), but I think any Alaskan governor who wanted to run for President might want to quit. It's a no-win. Quit and be called a quitter. Stay in office and be accused of not paying attention to her state, what with all the long travel times keeping her in the lower 48. An Alaskan candidate would need play by different rules than the Washington/NY-centric press cares to admit. But all that's beside the point.

Nah, this whole deal is closer to Palin's entertainingly expressed version than most of us care to admit. She was bugged donchaknow, and quitting is her version of Diprivan. Just make it all stop!

I'm not saying she's not corrupt in a parochial cozy sort of way. As the Ted Stevens case showed, Alaska appears to be a small town with small town politics, albeit a small town spread over a half million square miles. Palin has always been a village mayor tarted up in fancy East Coast skirts. She thought she was a big fish, but discovered she was fooled by her small pond. It's as if Susan Boyle opened her mouth and discovered she couldn't sing. Or as if Michael Jackson had been all loon talk and no moon walk.

She resigned because her political career is over.

She's a humbug! She knows it! She knows her humbuggery is not a secret!

I think the media and Dems and Republicans (and everyone here) are misreading the causation and are off hunting snipes together.

Palin checked off a lot of boxes for McCain: young(er), female, beautiful, from the West, etc. But there was nothing of substance INSIDE those boxes.

Palin didn't get tougher treatment because she was a female, she got more deferential treatment. A male humbug would have been exposed and resigned long before Palin.

Palin plays a sort of parody of the kind of tough-ass Alaskan woman that may well someday be President. Maybe Piper or Willow or Mugwort or whatever she calls those girls will school Gov. MILF on how politics should be done. Palin is just a pretty cheechako from Idaho.

Next.