Funny how much attention and sympathy Gov. Palin is getting when she bawls about the "sexist" media. All the wingnuts b***'n'moan in chorus with her, a grand yowl of indignant victimization. And Palin is just getting the "factual investigation" treatment, not anything like the offhand denigration that Candidate Clinton received.

Funny how virtually nobody on the left had a word of sympathy, much less outrage, when Sen. Clinton was being told to "iron my shirts", her ankles mocked, and all the rest. Most of the left (not to mention the middle and right) denied there was any sexism involved at all, and it came close to dividing the Democratic Party.

Well, maybe it's not actually very funny. Unless you're a Republican. They'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

"It must take so much energy to maintain that level of anger."

Actually, anger is highly energizing. It's also addictive. Once you start getting your rage on, you want to do it all the time. It's much like nicotine.

The right wing realized the potential of rage many decades ago, and they've been riding it to victory ever since.

It worries me how so many of you insist that Gov Palin needs to "stay at home" with her baby, or "stay at home" with her preggers seventeen-yr old, or "a sick child always comes first."

Come on! As Governor or Veep, she would have People who would do those things for her. Just like any man would. Have you never heard of Day Care? Nannies? Au paires? Geeze, women have been taking advantage of these services for decades now; actually, for millenia.

If Gov Palin were a waitress at the local coffee shop, would you tell her that she needed to stay home with her young children? (Sans paycheck - of course!) Or stay at home to "be with" her 17-year old daughter throughout all nine months of the girl's pregnancy? Get real! Her daughter ought to be in school, and there's little medical reason that she can't.

After all the years of fighting for women's equality and enabling women to handle family responsibilities along with work outside the home, coming up with these lame excuses for Palin being a bad choice for Vice President is just embarrassing.

Attack her on issues of substance: her documented corruption, her lies and misrepresentations, her vicious and combative attitude towards governing.

Just don't say "her family has to come first" because THAT's sexist.

You must not have bothered to read the innumerable letters, as I did.

And why aren't Democrats better at casting things in the best possible light? After all, the truth has a liberal bias.

Seriously - they approved unauthorized mass spying on Americans as a "lesser" activity. What would have been unthinkable - were they targeting executives? Looking into bank transactions? How about data mining stock transactions?

In short, was the program touching the untouchables? Their actual philosophical and financial base of the Republican Party?

Former Senator Phil Gramm, McCain's economic advisor, bears the primary responsibility for slipping through the legislation that caused the credit collapse and home mortgage collapse. Earlier, he bore major responsibility for pushing through the legislation that gave us Enron etc.

Remember Phil Gramm? He called Americans "whiners" (pronounced "hwaaaners" - on the BBC, when Gramm speaks, BBC provides English-language subtitles). He's the guy who looks like a turtle and speaks as if he's got a mouth full of grits. The McCain campaign put him under wraps after the whiners remark, but he's still there.

McCain continually assures us that he hmself has no economic smarts. So if McCain is elected, Phil Gramm will be The Man as far as economic policy and regulation are concerned.

Be nice if McCain's opponent would point this out.

Reportedly, back in the early 1970s - late sixties, Richard Nixon told one of his supporters "Watch what we do, not what we say." What followed was many stirring speeches and statements about the environment, civil rights, yada yada - the whole Democratic package, coming out of the mouths of Republicans. What Americans actually got was hard core Republican policies and actions. But all the quotes from Nixon and his men were golden.

Ever since then, Republicans have been saying anything it takes to get elected. Then they do as they always intended. Those in the know aren't fooled by the liberal-sounding rhetoric. Those who aren't desert the Democrats and vote GOP.

Quotes are easy to report - they get handed out to reporters, who then print them. Reporting on what happens - in Congress, the regulatory agencies, enforcement - well, that takes real reporting, and for many reasons, that's become in increasingly short supply.

Americans tend to believe what they hear - one of the commenters in this thread observed that Bob Barr was sounding like a real Republican. But talk is cheap - you need to find out what the person really does/did. Somehow.

So, now they've got a secret plan to rescue the economy. Devised, one assumes, by Phil Gramm, the father of the crises of the last 8 years. Lots of luck figuring that out - reporters are even worse at reporting anything having to do with money - too complicated.

It'll have to be up to the Obama campaign.

Because

1. We haven't yet excavated all the dirt in her record
2. The public needs to get sick of her

So far, Sarah Palin has been a ray of sunshine to the stumbling McCain campaign. By keeping the spotlight on her, just to find out things the public actually needs to know, she'll eventually be transformed into a painful sunburn. (sorry)

There's no compelling need to dig deeply into her dysfunctional family dynamics, although I see the National Enquirer has an article about her druggie son and why he "chose" Iraq. Just get at the facts of her government service, from village councilman to Mayor of Alaska - sorry, that's "Governor" of Alaska.

If you're already tired of Palin, you may not be listening closely enough.