First of all the problem with the whole Sarah Palin "phenom" is that everyone wants to frame it as an unfair piling on against poor Ms Palin and then crying "foul" to avoid discussing the real issues about her ability to step into the role of VP. Make no mistake, this is a purposeful stategy in order to paint her as a fighter and to make it appear as if she is taking the high road when in fact her whole candidacy is predicated on the surprise element by throwing a virtual unknown into the fray at the last minute.

Secondly, she is a politician who promotes her pro-family values and abstinancy education and was put on the ticket, (against the will of McCain it now appears), in order to shore up that whole right-wing Christian base that hold themselves up as paradigms of virtuousness. Some of these questions and indeed criticisms are valid but they need to be put in that context and dismissed as such in order to move on to the real business of truly vetting her and she deserves to be questioned unequivocally and without apology. No one gets a free pass because they have special needs children and a pregnant daughter because, let's not kid ourselves, that IS part of the strategy.

Also, let's not pretend for one minute that any of these questions about family wouldn't be leveled against Obama or Hillary or any democrat in a similar situation. Pretending that Barack is a terrorist/muslim isn't as galling? Of course those assertions are always made by surrogates, but because of the quarterback sneak they pulled with her nomination, these discussions are happening out in the open within the media at large. She deserves to be vilified but let's up the ante by calling their bluff and demand in no uncertain terms a real vetting by the press because vetting by republican standards only means how good/appealing she looks on camera and having the correct conservative pedigree while delivering the proper talking points. This is a garbage discussion with a purpose; obscurring the record of the governor from Alaska.

This is the best they can do? I thought they were looking for something innovative. If all they were looking for was a republican serviceman to say he was voting for Obama they could have skipped the "contest" and hit the street with a camcorder. This highlights the problems that I have with MoveOn and their tactics in general. Shortsighted and myopic.

Keep it up, Glenn.

These are the actual stories behind the war effort. More and more it appears that the real "crimes" were the ones committed by those personages masquerading as journalists in our popular media. Brian Williams may look good in a suit and have an affable personality but he has been given a free pass overall. Possibly the worse aspect of the rush to war was the amount of media personalities that were created in order to fill the needs of the administration and the media outlets that were willing to bypass any sense of journalistic ethics in order to stand by the wayside and wave the flag instead. One of the reasons it is so hard to get an objective notion of how this played out overall is because of the people who stood to profit from a "look-the-other-way" approach to journalism. We need a national movement to go after the media darlings who hold court nightly over the framing of public opinion.

The one thing that has kept me from jumping full-force onto the Obama bandwagon has been the egregious amount of contempt hurled at Hillary, most of it born of nothing more than unexamined prejudice against the Clintons but much of it seems to come from a serious double standard regarding female politicians in general. Face it, there may have been missteps here and there, but Hillary is damned no matter what she does and her every utterance, facial tic, mannerism is looked at through a microscopic lens not used on either of the male candidates. For all the self-congratulatory buzz surrounding Obama's candidacy , there still seems to me to be a reluctance to seriously consider the possibility of a woman president. Since when where considerations about a male candidate's personality, pantsuits and thick ankles fodder for discussions about credibility? (Yes, things at times do sink to THAT level.) Personality isn't the actual issue either because McCain has all the personal warmth of a porcupine. At this moment in time it really seems to me that it would be a bigger evolutionary step as a country for us to elect a woman president than a male of african-american descent no matter how appealing.

I am amazed that some of these people can look themselves in the mirror in the morning and not whither at the thought of their abject complicity in fomenting these fake stories in order to gin up all the ersatz outrage that they seem to need in order to energize their shriveling, fragmenting base. Stand tall, Glenn. These people know no shame.