The spouse of an elected official should stay at home and attend to domestic affairs.

...nice to see with the economic collapse of the union imminent, the escalation in Afghanistan, 20,000+ in dire need thanks to Hurricane Ike, the change of command in Iraq, a resurgent Russia, Bolivia and Venezuela expelling our ambassadors, Obama in money trouble, McCain inserting foot, the race to the end of MLB's season, the start of the NFL season, the beginning of the fall tv season, you still run with five, yes five, articles on Sarah Palin.

Are you kidding me?

And I don't even like her, I made another donation to Americans United for Separation of Church and State because of her, but feel now compelled to defend her to some extent as you have gone off the deep end, you're sinking to Drudge, Fox and WorldNetDaily levels.

Give it a rest.

What we see here is a lady who acts like an absolute monarch of earlier times in Europe - or of the kind that still rule many countries in Africa. She surrounds herself with people who are beholden only to her, the voters be damned. Don't we have a government of the people for the people? Doesn't that mean we elect those who make decisions that affect all and expect from them to act on behalf of the electorate? What authorizes somebody who is not beholden to the voters to make these decisions or to exert the type of influence apparently exercised by Todd Palin in Alaska? If he wants that type of influence then he should run for office and be held accountable for his decisions.

This is another nail in the coffin. Another reason not to vote for McCain. Once can only hope that the spin doctors who are creating the image of Palin that seems to attract so many voters don't succeed in selling her to the Nation.

It sure is interesting to see how these conservative and moralistic corruption fighters go about fighting corruption, by bathing in it...in a similar fashion they fight for fairness, transparency and small government by abusing the very power they claim to deplore...it's like all the televangelists who inundate the airwaves saying that people's love of wealth leads to sin while they're of course luxuriating in the contributions of their guilt ridden followers.

And yet it almost seems to make no difference to the majority of eligible voters who will toss their support behind those they know are no better at running things than themselves and then blame "gu'mint" for all their troubles.

In the words of the immortal Charlie Brown; "good grief". I sometimes think that the public spirited exhortation to "get out there and vote" has backfired and we should hope that fewer and fewer vote, those fewer being those who've followed the issues and have some insight.

with regressive beliefs on sex/gender roles, espousing "traditional" patriarchal view on marriage, the husband is the head of the wife, he makes the decisions, &c. I wonder why nobody has investigated this and her rise to power, which puts her outside the home and family, which is a sin, basically. Does anybody else think its odd that a conservative woman would think she has the right to enter the male public sphere? This is uppity, unfeminine behavior according to fundamentalism, and is the rightful place of her husband, her head and lord. I think she does it because Todd "approves" and gave her "permission" to be active politically, and he directs what she does politically, as her husband has the right to, according to their worldview. (Neither of them is anywhere near capable of leading this country, BTW, and in fact her selection is a joke, but a scary joke.) I'm not christian by the way, but have lived around these crazy fundamentalists in the south ...

Just a thought.

What a cute and snappy jab, eh? I use it once in a while myself in various conversations. "Drink the Kool Ade...." I get it. I like it. It's clever. But does anyone care to count how many times Hoot has used this term in this thread? ONCE IN A WHILE. VARIOUS CONVERSATIONS. Not every friggin' paragraph...not every 5 minutes to make a point. Let's mix it up a little, eh Hoot? You're starting to sound like a parrot with limited vocab.

What a dilemma … when a person is elected, what do we expect them to do about the involvement / influence of their spouse?

Franklin and Eleanor

John and Jackie

Lyndon and Lady Bird

Ronald and Nancy

Bill and Hillary

Where is the line to be drawn? And how do we do that? Any person reflects a composite of attributes/ideas/beliefs of family and friends. Having a spouse that you can trust and rely on for ideas and feedback is beautiful. And of course there is the history of the “Kitchen Cabinet.”

This is not to endorse the level of non-transparent involvement this article points out … but rather to open the discussion of “what DO we expect?” Maybe the vetting process for candidates needs to include the spouse’s past and viewpoints.

The First Dude was a member of the insanely rightwing Alaska Independence Party, a group whose founder faulted the John Birch Society for not being conservative enough. Does anyone here believe that Sarah Palin would not be influenced by her husband? She's already nuts, so Odd Todd will only make her a worse VP.

When Sarah

And Toddy retire

They will only have begun

The quest for fire...

Why not focus on Michele Obama with equal zeal? Her disdain for for middle class white Americans? Her request to Princeton that they not release her thesis on White Oppression in America "until after November 4, 2008".?

If Sarah Palin's nomination proves one thing - it's that Hillary Clinton was raped by the press. Bitch, Dominatrix, Fighter, spoiler. She was just winning like any other candidate. The Democrat Geriatric White Haried Boys Club finished her off on Super Tuesday. It was a gang bang.

Biden held his tongue through it all waiting for his chance to run as VP with either candidate. He's a player.

You people aren't journalists. You're hound dogs and sexist tabloid trash.

Sarah's husband - Hillary's husband. Why is Michelle Obama off limits? The black crap? Is Obama gonna beat you up. He has you all hoodwinked good. He's smirking and laughing in the back room with David Axelrod - with all the audacity he can muster. If he fails at being elected you will blame Hillary - or anyone else. If he fails at the Presidency - black American's will take the fall. And he will fail at one of those. Because he's a cheater and a liar - plays dirty and has everyone do everything for him. The Puppeteers.

One thing we can always say about Hillary Clinton is that she never once played dirty, never once lied, never once relied on other people to do her job.

God Bless Her. And screw the Democrat boys club plus Delay-Pelosi and media fool non-jounralists that have tried to hijack this Democracy in November. They are white trash.