I can't believe they let you publish this crap. The picture alone is so offensive it's frightening. I could only imagine the furor if someone had posted the same picture of Mrs. Obama. The thing I don't get is Salon's obsession with denigrating and degrading strong women in politics. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

He is human debris. Salon has become a toilet of opinion.

After Palin's RNC speech, I heard a woman, a self-described independent voter say, that she felt like she had just watched MEAN GIRLS, THE 25TH REUNION.

She strikes me as a self-aggrandizing ego-maniac. Alaska is a good place for her, unless you're a wolf or a moose. Then she's death on a stick.

Is a sparsely educated, religious fanatic, second rate beauty queen with only the flimsiest resume´, both as a politician and a mother really the best that this country has to offer?

I sometimes wonder if this country doesn't have a death wish.

The good news is, after Palin, Hillary will never seem like a bitch again.

http://www.chopra.com/wordsfromdeepak

Re: the ridiculous charge that Obama allowed for rape-kits to be charged to the victim

Uh - brush up a little - Obama was part of the *minority* Democratic party when he was in the state legislature in Illinois. Since Obama wasn't governor but part of a larger collective Republican-controlled legislative body, that would mean - if your charges are true at all - that yep - the *Republicans* would be at fault for allowing such a situation to occur. The fact that Obama got the laws he pushed through at all in that type of partisan climate - things like mandatory videotaping of police in cop cars in order to diminish police brutality or infringement of citizen rights - actually speaks to his ability to get work done across the aisle.

You know what though? Guess who was *mayor* of the town that charged rape kits to the victim? Guess who hired the police chief who supported the charge of rape kits to the victim? If that's the kind of "executive experience" Palin has, then I'm sorry, thanks but no thanks.

How does this get printed? Oh right, you're a founder. Maybe you should take a look at your own Broadsheet from time to time. It's 2008 and "tasty female flavoring" is beyond inappropriate when "evaluating" female politicians, don't you think? Thank you for providing this week's first example of misogyny for my women's studies classroom. The "fantasy pin-up" or "dominatrix" (making her Hillary's GOP counterpart, I guess) to whom you're referring is a former mayor and now GOVERNOR. That's The Honorable Sarah Palin to you, Mr. Kamiya.

Gary Kamiya's piece is one of the most disgraceful articles that I've read on this site in a long time. Has Salon just given up any pretense of taste in favor of publishing any hit-piece against Palin that anyone is willing to scrawl?

The photo is blatantly sexist, and the text was a screed that could have been penned by a frustrated 12-year-old trying to prove his mastery of pop psychology.

If the author had bothered to do any research, he would have found that the shift in the polls is due largely to the movement of *women* over to McCain, specifically the white women who were Hillary's core demographic.

Why do I think Palin has become such a phenomenon? I think she owes it all to sites like Salon, Huffington Post, and DailyKos. The instant after McCain announced her as his vice presidential running mate, sites like this jeered and sneered, and they tried to turn her into a big joke--this all without having heard her out even once first.

So, there last Wednesday was Sarah Palin--standing alone on a stage facing down 36 million Democrats and a media who quite frankly thought she was a joke or some desperate gambit by the McCain camp, along with hostile Republicans (Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty supporters I suspect) all of whom expected (hoped?) to see a train wreck. In the face of all that, she gave THE speech of the convention, possibly of the campaign.

If nothing else, whether one likes her politics or not, Palin showed that night that she was as tough as nails, poised, and in possession of an impressive grace under fire. I don't know many (any?) politicians who could have pulled that speech off under those circumstances.

So, the Democrats shouldn't be surprised that she was able to move some voters. Ther task now (if they want to win) is to get those voters back by making the case that the voters' interests are incompatible with her--and McCain's (remember him?)--policies.

But my guess is that sites like this will post up more articles treating her like she was just some ditsy bimbo. If that's the case, well, at least the Democrats will still have control of Congress and 2012 isn't *that* far off...

p.s. $10 says Kamiya's article shows up as evidence that Obama supporters are just a bunch of misogynists at heart. Thanks, Gary.

i've run across this phenomenon a few times recently and suddenly, this piece coupled with something that Glenn Greenwald posted today, makes it clear what 'the bounce' is all about.

these are the phenomenon:

1. mass ignorance masquerading as knowledge

2. needing to be identified as cool

the Greenwald piece attributed politics to a statistic stating that more people now believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. i don't buy that explanation. i think it's just ignorance. the people who answer yes just do it because they have no clue. it's not some magical mastery of expert politico's it's just ignorance. there are only two choices and the yes answer seems the most likely for the most ignorant to choose.

the second item totally explains 'the bounce' similar to many american men who would gladly have been doing what Bill Clinton was doing in some of his spare time in a closet off the oval office a number of years ago, many people could not particularly see themselves identified with John McCain POW, young people male or female but now they have something to get attached to. sexy moose hunter, sarcastic, great public speaking skills, pit bull.

makes perfect sense now.