I just moved back to the lower 48 after having spent 7 years living in Alaska. I heard Palin speak in person at several oil & gas-related conferences and meetings up there, and I am here to tell you that she is quite able to make an articulate speech without putting on the female Gomer Pyle persona. The only thing she proved to me at that debate is that she is a great little actress. I have never heard her speak in that manner or do all the mugging she did. It was clearly an act and we all know who put her up to it. Sadly, I believe she will appeal to that segment of Americans who vote for the guy/gal they want to have a beer with. Palin is a dishonest faker who lacks even the substance necessary to be VP, never mind President. It scared me to death after that hick act she put on and all the inaccuracies and refusals to answer the questions that she had the nerve to say she wants to expand the VP powers. I would also like to point out to those who are not as familiar with current events in Alaska as I am that the company she "signed a pipeline deal with" is Trans Canada -a Canadian company, not an American company. And it wasn't a deal to build the pipeline, it was the granting of $500 million Alaska dollars to Trans Canada to perform a study on the feasibility and likelihood of success of building an "Alaska" gas pipeline. Notice how they love to tout that she signed a gas pipeline deal but they never say who it was signed with? Also please note that they never clarify just what the nature of the deal was. Palin has set Alaska back at least 2 years with her antics and stubborness related to the gas pipeline and the oil company negotiations. I believe she is a victim of blind ambition that clearly is not qualified to be VP or President. Also something we don't hear down here is that her approval ratings in Alaska have dropped 12 points since she was named as McCain's running mate. Even Alaskan's are finally figuring out who the real Sarah is.

America, land of Anti-intellectual Republicans and Pseudo-intellectual Democrats.

Of the two, I am beginning to find the Pseudo-intellectual variety the more annoying.

America had the opportunity to choose the best candidate in living memory in Ron Paul, and blew it completely, so now it will get whichever of the fools are still in the race.

Personally speaking, after having voted Libertarian for years, I decided to leave the U.S. for a small European country two years ago, and won't be voting in this election At this point I don't care which party wins.

The stupid war, the Christian fundamentalism, yes, those were factors in my emigration, but more to my point here, so were the smug attitudes displayed in this article by Joe Conason.

"Liberals" (so-called) in America inevitably assume that they are more intelligent than the "Conservatives" they love to hate. They are completely wrong in this, obviously. Does anyone think, on serious reflection, that if IQ tests were administered to the approximately 50% of the population who will vote Republican they would show any statistically significant difference from the approximately 50% of the population who will vote Democratic? If you really think so, please don't bother reading any further, just please move on...

I am sick of the sheer snobbery and blindness of the Democrats! The economic bankruptcy of the country is just as much their fault as the Republicans they sneer at. Democrats in general understand even less about economics than Republicans. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was the single most important cause of the the current crisis. Again, if you don't know what the Glass-Steagall Act was, don't bother reading any further. Who was responsible? The Clinton administration. The well-meaning, ever so NICE people who were also responsible for pressuring banks to give mortgages to poor (black) borrowers, on the grounds that it would be "fairer".

I'm just a "passer-by" at Salon, so I won't rant on about the gold standard, the war on drugs etc., but I want to remind the smug Democrats here that from a more enlightened point of view - a Libertarian one - you are as much stupid mutton as any fan of Sarah Palin.

And to my earlier point about IQ tests? The average IQ of Libertarians is quite a bit higher than average. Remember, we built the internet - not Al Gore!

Republicans? Democrats? Windows? Mac? Strictly for people of average intellect or lower. You can resume calling each other names now. Bye.

of a Sunday paper. It's about women hating other women and it begins with "Do Keira, Sienna, Victoria and the rest deserve the vitriol thrown at them? What happened to sisterhood?". Two of these are actresses and Victoria Beckham isn't exactly anything, although she'd love to be taken seriously. Female politicians are expected to be frumpish but when they aren't pleasing to the eye they are scorned too. I'm not, and never was, part of any Sisterhood but I think that Hillary Clinton and now Sarah Palin are harried and hounded by the media in a cruelly personal way. David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, has a son who's about three years old and the child was born with physical impairments which, I think, require him to use a wheelchair; Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, has two young children and the second boy has some medical condition. I can't be sure what's wrong with either child because the British media, craven and vindictive as it often is, has had the grace to stay almost mute on the matter.

People of my background and heritage would normally support the Democratic Party but the role of the American media in lashing Hillary Clinton, and the glee of Obama supporters, indicated to me a hideous coarsening in America. I don't believe that the US and/or the world would be well-served by any political party which sees no harm with fomenting hate. Yes, I know about Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove but I'd leave them to history. In the meantime, the American media needs to be tethered to some level of impartiality so that comments about "pimping out" a daughter would result in immediate sacking, no matter how well-educated or urbane that commentator might seem. American women will be scared to enter politics and to expect advancement if the media mastiffs are not brought to heel.

Maureen Dowd hammered Hillary Clinton week after week and drooled over Barack Obama. Now she's got another woman to impugn. They must seem threatening to her sense of self. I have to go now. Good night and, even if you're an agnostic, I hope it's alright to say God bless.