...in an interview when referring to Margaret Thatcher being in power, and her play Top Girls:

"There is no such thing as right-wing feminism."

While there have been two notable things Palin has done as governor in her short tenure (raise taxes by a small margin on oil companies, and pass some ethics legislation... though now she's embroiled in her own scandal), that does not stop her from being a right-wing extremist on crucial women's issues. Being complicit in policies that strip away not only women's rights but human rights - this is not a feminist. A woman who would stand up with a man who doesn't support laws that ensure equal pay for equal work - this is not a feminist. A woman who would drill for oil regardless of the environmental costs, who sued to try and get polar bears excluded from protection because they were in the way of oil companies - this is not a feminist.

No way, no how, no McCain, and NO Palin.

7 pieces about Sarah Palin today.

Nothing about Obama's speech.

This is a serious progressive forum?

I've noticed more of the good contibutors in the letters have disappeared. I'm wondering why I'm here.

If the former mayor of a town of 6000, who now as governor is under investigation for corruption, and yes... has a vagina.... is the best that John McCain can come up with for the position a heartbeat away from the presidency, then John McCain is finished. I can hardly believe for a second that Hillary supporters will swoon for a woman who is against everything that Hillary is for.

I can't wait for the Republican convention when they play their tear-jerker montage of Palin.... complete with the adorable Downs Syndrome child, who could have been aborted.... but wasn't!....

Now, unless she can get a oration transplant, she is going to be simple fodder for Joe Biden. And someone needs to tell the former beauty queen that the word is Nuclear, not Nucular... Wow.. just what we need... another candidate schooled in the non schooling of George W. Bush.

But... hey, if the McCain morons think this is their ticket to the white house.... then I'm all for it.... because it isn't.

As the Democrats chanted at the convention "Four more months! Four more months!".... I can hardly wait.

Now why would Governor Palin's record be so seriously underrepresented by this article and posters here, not to mention all the woman-bashing you show by suggesting she was picked by the Republicans because she's pretty.

I'm not entirely convinced that anti-abortion is anti-woman, although feminists tell me I'm dumb if I think so. And as for Palin's experience: it's all executive as mayor and then governor of the largest state in the freaking country. And you compare that to Obama's few years in the Senate where he spent half his time voting "present"?

Wasilla City Council, 1992-1996; Wasilla mayor, 1996-2002;

Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2003-2004; Governor 2006-present. She beat incumbents to do it.

Who gives a cr@p about "making history"? Obama could cut off his right hand and be the first one-handed candidate in history. This was a bad pick for McCain, a good pick for the rest of us. Unless, of course, you want to insult Hillary Clinton by positing that her supporters only wanted her because she doesn't have a dick? That any woman will do?

Read the letters. Fear of Bill Clinton is commonly cited as a reason not to select Hillary Clinton as VP candidate.

Why do I keep coming here? Salon was so great for so long ...

I CANNOT believe you are not focussing on Obama's great speech. But rather McCain's hail mary pass.

IDIOTS.

You are absolute proof of the failure of hardcore feminist ideology.

Thanks for less than nothing.

Sarah Palin is obviously not a good choice: her stances on most important issues make that quite clear. If, however, she gets some support and sighs even here at Broadsheet just because of being a woman... then I must say there's still some fight to be done in the hearts and minds of feminist women. To mention that she may become the first female vice-president, and that this is a historical fact, should not cloud liberals' perception. As Ms Traister points out, it was precisely to do that that McCain picked her. I wonder if the somewhat ambiguous feelings that even Ms Traister's article showed were not at least in part the kind of reaction that McCain was/is hoping to get. Yes, he was thinking: feminists will find it a bit harder to call themselves feminists and still vote against the first woman in history with a chance of becoming VPOTUS. Not to forget the fact that the Democrats will probably want to go light on her, since personal attacks during the campaign can be easily decried as "sexism" and "misogyny" and then backfire. Not a bad move, huh?

As for whether Obama should have picked a woman to win the same effects: up until now, the most important criticism on Obama was his difficulty in connecting with blue-collar White American workers. A woman candidate would have made that harder. Hillary wasn't a good choice, for all reasons we already mentioned. (Just imagine the anti-Hillary ads the McCain campaign could come up with...)

Ms. Traister, Broadsheet writers in general: let's please try to tell feminists not to get too dreamy-eyed about Ms. Palin. Or else we may face the real possibility of getting one step further to yet another Republican administration.

She would have been poison for Barack !!!!!

No, we're not chewing over Obama's speech. It was wonderful, it was inspirational and we want him as our president. What else is there to say? If our attention turns to McCain and his VP pick it's because we got burned in '04, we want to know who Obama is up against. What's mysterious about that?

I hope you are celebrating that McCain chose a woman for VP with all the right credentials. What a proud day for Republican women.

The door is open over here, you know....