Her voice is like fingernails on a blackboard. How can her husband listen to that every day? Her "gotcha" statements are smug and vicious. I predict she's going to bring McCain down from here on out as long as dems aren't afraid to fire back. Once the country gets over their GOP manufactured puppy love, she'll be seen for the unqualified (yup, yup) mistake that she is.

"Is there any functional difference between a "maverick" and a "loose cannon"?"

Yes, they are similar but different

A "loose cannon" is an unpredictable but VERY DANGEROUS person or thing.

A "maverick" is just an unclaimed steer, or wild unclaimed thing of some sort. A maverick is also a slightly unusual thing, but it really means more of a "odd duck" or the like.

The loose cannon has the connotation of danger.

Personally, I don't give a whit what Spy Magazine publishes. I don't read that magazine. I read this magazine. And when you consider the righteous indignity that Joan Walsh displayed on behalf of Hillary Clinton, I expect something different. But we'll see what happens. Chances are we'll all be sorely disappointed yet again.

"This article and every other one like it will be the reason we lost the election. If you people in the press can't stop with all the sexist crap, the lies, generalizations and half-truths about this candidate, how in the hell are we going to win?"

Ok - you can take on 'the press'.

You have 60 days.

We can win by hiring our own "Turd Blossom'.

Once again, proof that the male gender primarily processes all information through the groin. It's no wonder the world is in this sorry state. Looks what has been in charge for all these eons. ...it's about to change....She's female, she's good lookin' and she's in charge and she doesn't give a fig about your penis.

No, her appeal is not totally rooted in her attractiveness - but, it is a factor.

Just as in Kennedy vs. Nixon

Just as when Kerry 'looked French'

Note that Kennedy and Kerry were at the top of their respective tickets. Did Bush beat Dukakis because Quayle was cuter than Lloyd Bentsen? But let's concede that her looks have something to do with her appeal, and that her appeal may translate into a few more votes for McCain. (I say a few - I see no reason to think that McCain's improved polls aren't just the typical convention bounce, as opposed to a Palin bounce.) That being conceded, was the dominatrix nonsense called for? The idea seems to be that you can't hurl a little invective at your political opponents and be a woman without looking like a sadomasochistic dominatrix. That seems very sexist to me. If there was any sexual valence to her speech, I thought it was the opposite. It seemed to me that a lot of her remarks about McCain were tinged by this creepy, schoolgirl crush vibe, e.g. the "that's the kind of MAN I want to be Commander-in-Chief" remarks.

You're waxin' fast here Gary. And I think you're missing the point. The lipstick and booties are the frosting on the cake. The filling is Mr. Dobson--the first person the new couple met to receive his blessing.

If she's the dominatrix, he's the slavemaster, the prophet in his tower, the Saint of the New Order, the Protector of All that is Decent and Moral. (If you're gonna go for it, go for it.)

At this point, Palin's best enemy is herself if she blows. The boys in Analville are doing everything they can to prevent that. Nobody knows whether she's a quick study or not. It's a long way from Alaska to Washington, almost as long as Hawaii, but we mostly have an untried and untested new she-wolf on the reservation and she's been given permission to hunt.

That's the biggest story to come out of the conventions. Who does Palin have to convince who aren't already--on either side of the land mass? It's too easy to fall into glib attacks. There may actually still be genuine ambivalence. The greatest cultural referendum since the 60's and America still doesn't know who or what it is!

The frustration is getting hard to take, I admit it. Where are all those so-called "liberal" assholes who walked away from America in the 60's and have hardly been heard from since?

I have little argument with the Republican base. It is a done deal. I'm concerned about my own kind. The ones who held their anti-war sign a few days and then walked away in disgust. Can their children carry this election alone? Can those teachers and grandsons who stayed loyal to the labor movement do it alone?

Who is a friend and who is a foe will have to be re-defined for this one. What if "we" stopped preaching to the choir and found out who else is out there--and whether or not they finally want to get off their high horse before it's too late.

I think Gary has just told us more than we need to know about one of his favorite male fantasies.

It doesn't resemble the Palin I saw in her speeches but does seem designed to create a lack of seriousness with her candidacy.

I guess the Left is going to try to tackle the Palin problem with another set of fresh attacks.

You guys never give up!

I wish I could find it now, but back in 2004 someone like Dan Savage was quoting a sex worker in NY who was looking forward to making lots of money off the RNC. She said that the most conservative clients always wanted the kinkiest BDSM-type stuff.

You might have thought I was being merely snide about that footage of the prostitute buses getting confiscated at the St. Paul convention.

Anybody who doubts the conservative Republican tendency towards weird and especially criminal sex should definitely see this site, just for the extensive documentation. It's not just their political policies that are really out there:

STOP REPUBLICAN PEDOPHILIA

http://www.armchairsubversive.com/