I hope your right. I still think Obama needs to focus on McCain. Their will be a Palin backlash, eventually. I'm just not sure its going to happen before November.

Obama should focus on a laser beam on the economy while rapidly responding to Republican smears. People are losing jobs and having a hard time finding new ones. It is an approach that worked for Bill Clinton in 2002.

In an election where I thought there was simply no way the Democrats could avoid winning the presidency, I have been surprised. It's no longer a sure thing. Articles such as "The dominatrix", and the full court press to find a chink in Palin's armor by throwing everything that can be found from every direction, without bothering to check whether it's worth throwing have built up a mediocre veep candidate into some Uber woman colossus. Other examples are the at least partially debunked Kilkenny email, and the supposed list of books Palin banned from the Wasilla library (in fact no books were banned, and a number of the books on the list were not even in print at the time Palin supposedly banned them). I like Obama, and thought he was running a marvelous campaign up to the convention. But the campaign certainly seems stalled now, and this obsession on Palin (just look at the subject of opinion pieces at Salon the past week) is doing him no good, and apparently some harm.

Five minutes of my life I will never get back.

Joan Walsh what were you thinking?!!!!

I am repulsed by Sarah Palin and everything she stands for, but this is a base attack based upon sexualized steroetypes of women. This is what the media did to Hillary and the pages of Salon did the honborable thing and cried foul.

I think that the answer to one of the most taboo questions the primary season brought us has become clear: Sexism is currently much more acceptable than racism is. If McCain had picked Bobby Jindal, would you have allowed a crude & cliched racial screed to appear in the pages of Salon? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Joan Walsh, I have had much respect for you as an editor, writer, and thinker, but you need to explain yourself.

NOW EVERYONE WANTS TO HAVE A SOPHISTICATED AND INTELLECTUAL DEBATE ABOUT ISSUES...

Yet, when the Republicans started running "over the top" negative campaigns years ago (just like the story that I am writing about now)....NO ONE SAID A WORD!!!

No one made the Republican party pay for that type of tripe by NOT voting for individuals who have done more damage to this country than testing the bomb in Nevada...

Everyone fell for the "hype"...you let the shiny, cheap goods catch your eyes and you bought it...

Which is why we have years of Bushes and why someone like Palin is even able to exist...

So, America didn't want to have a political landscape that reminded one of the fine theater...

You wanted cheaply made, grainy and gritty porn...

Well then...SUCK IT UP!!!

A common mistake made by readers here is that this type of attitude is an aberration in the Left. It is not: for the last fifty years, left-wing activists have "clung to" a comforting image of themselves as sexually and socially oppressed. The big bad is white women, dumb, evil, predatory things that they are -- always have been. This is merely Tuesday's articulation of the theme.

This is why, among other things, they can paint a woman as a sexual predator while believing that every real sexual predator is misunderstood, innocent, the victim of racism, or just a good poet. This is why they go to the ends of the earth seeking instances when women -- particularly white women -- commit acts of violence. Then it's five hundred images and stories and Susan Sontag whinging on about the transformationalism of imagery of horror. Never mind that such instances are statistically rare, that women are almost exclusively on the receiving end of predation, which they actively deny and deflect and conceal. They are fostering a sickness here, not practicing a politics. They can't stop thinking and talking about the sexual implications of this election -- and they cannot believe that the rest of us are not thinking about it, that the world long ago moved on, and it is their problem, not reality, they're projecting onto us.

But they believe it's a politics, and that is the problem. The problem is that they are racist and sexist, and they know it, but they also believe that their own racism and sexism is justified. Enlightened racism, enlightened sexism if you will. Unlike others, they don't consistently, if imperfectly, try to oppose racism and sexism: they selectively celebrate it. They believe they're engaging in racism and sexism in the name of justice, so they excuse themselves from the standards they are simultaneously trying to enforce in others. That's why it's perfectly routine to see an article in Salon where "white people" is used as a pejorative or "trailer trash" or "bitch" gleefully roll off the page in an article decrying "prejudice."

You need to think very carefully about what you are accepting when you accept this behavior. This article IS Salon.

This article should be removed, and Gary Kamiya should be reprimanded. It is blantantly sexist. Salon should remove the photoshopped picture at the very least, and offer a public apology.

Yes, we can just call Salon.com Sarah-love.com, because as you can see, Salon is becoming the site for Sarah Palin 24/7.

And why not?

Salon editor Joan Walsh has always known exactly what she wanted, and, brace yourself...it's NOT Barack Obama in the White House!

Find out why Joan Walsh wants to torpedo the Democrat's chances in 2008 now, at Salon: The Parody.

Because the image accompanying it was so sexist. I swear to god when was the last time any of us saw McCain or Obama illustrated as dressed up in S&M-wear for a news article. I thought Salon was better than this.

And I hate Sarah Palin! I wonder what those who like her must be thinking.