Hi, Kate Tex -

I'm the ?dinosaur? around here (about to change my Salon name to "Tilting at Windmills"). But if you're still following this thread and would have a moment to respond to my post, a couple of comments and questions:

You wrote (in part): "Obama is our first People Magazine president".... "Yes the press liked JFK but there was something to work with there ... something original and far more substantive than ... Obama".

Please, if you have a moment, could you explain to me a little more about this perception of yours? My own impression ... way back then during the days before during and after the election of JFK was that he was a similarly media-marketed candidate. "Original and substantive" ... unlike Obama? Speaking as an expatriate East Coaster perhaps mildly ?"elite"?: what was it about JFK that was so "original and substantive"; vs. what is it about Obama that is not?

It seems to me that although the names and styles of the media have changed over these years, the media images for, against, and purportedly "about" the two of them are remarkably similar.

salonmarte

You've got to hand it to the Salonistas! They really know how to take it away with one hand and lard it out with the other! For some reason Palin qualifies as a dangerous nut job but McCain, an idiot from a long line of unemployable idiots, gets nothing but respect! By the bizzaro logic of the military, someone who fails to accomplish his assigned mission is due our eternal gratitude and worship as a hero while the soldier who silently succeeds gets a ticket to the VA hospital and a white cross stuck above his grave overlooking San Francisco Bay after they finally pull the plug! To be sure, McCain is the trophy husband of an aristocratic wife with a trust fund, so maybe that explains it: it's easier to visualize the McCains shopping in Union Square than the middle-class and no doubt middle-brow Palins who were just trying to build a local political franchise in Alaska à la the example set by the Salonistas' objects of eternal veneration, the Clintons of feudal Arkansas. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds but maybe some minds are too big for their own good!

You are clearly confused. There are very few of us Palin detractors who think John McCain is just swell. He was the clown that selected Palin in the first place. And I have never seen a more irresponsible, cynical, and reckless decision on a running mate from any politician, ever. Any lingering respect I might have had for the man was lost on that day.

"Lingering respect" contradicts your profession of innocence! (You should have never had any in the first place!) Nice try, though, for a Salonista!

You're quite right that some, although not all, of Palin's critics crossed the line into personal ridicule and even more objectionably into attacks on her children, despite Obama's statement that he thought families should be off limits. But how does that make her different from any other national candidate, Democratic or Republican, in the last two decades?

Remember the relentless personal ridicule of Al Gore, the quotes out of context, the misrepresentations (he "hired Naomi Wolfe to tutor him on manhood" for example), and the flat-out lies? There were viral e-mails making the rounds that attributed a number of remarks to him, some of which had actually been made by Dan Quayle, some of which were apocryphal.

Then there were John Kerry and John Edwards. Personal attacks? Both were relentlessly attacked for being effeminate, not only by right wingers but by the loathsome Maureen Dowd. And were their families considered off limits? Hardly! Kerry's wife came in for relentless attack, and even the sincerity of the couple's affections were publicly challenged. Limbaugh called Kerry a gigolo who had married for money. Theresa Heinz Kerry's continuing expressions of affection for her late husband were taken as proof that she didn't really love John.

Hillary Clinton? You remember how viciously she was trashed, and again, nominal "liberals" like Dowd and the even viler Paglia were in the forefront of the lynch mob. Edwards was publicly called a "faggot" by a woman who constantly gets invited onto TV talk shows and speaks at official conventions, always for hefty honoraria. And Obama -- you heard the smears and hate-filled epithets hurled at both him and his wife. Palin's religion was mocked and undoubtedly distorted, but his was flat-out misrepresented by many people who refused to believe that he was a Christian rather than a Muslim.

What all of this says to me is not just that politics is a vicious blood-sport, but that the culture of celebrity gossip has infected and poisoned our political process to an appalling degree. Maybe it was always like this; I know that Andrew Jackson's wife was maligned, and that opponents tried to make a big issue out of Grover Cleveland's illegitimate son. But don't tell me that the advent of our cult of celebrity hasn't made it much, much worse.

If the Clintons were Republicans in Democratic drag, why did the Repubtards hate them so much? That's an easy question to answer! Because the spoils of political office were going to the wrong set of kleptocrats! That's the worst outcome of all!

In the future he will be seen as curious as phenomenon as Hula Hoop.

guess that means I'm not one of the "we." (Also hate lazy rhetorical constructions.)

I could not have stated it better. I have no use for Palin at all. When she was first declared McCain's running mate, it was hard to believe the GOP could be that desperate for a candidate.

Palin is an example of everything the women of my generation fought so hard not to be. My generation, which includes Hillary Clinton, also comprised educated feminists who opened the path for inferior throwbacks like Palin, who just don't understand how much effort and time it took for our gender to be considered as serious, bright, educated, hard-working political material. Once that door was opened for her, instead of being grateful for the opportunity to set an example for young women--including her own daughters--she showed the country and the world just how ditsy and thin-skinned a woman can be and that perhaps biology really is a drawback for women who have political aspirations. It's an embarrassment further aggravated by the fact that she just won't fade away into the oblivion she came from to count her blessings for the 15 minutes of fame she received.

Thank goodness she never got close to being VP; if she couldn't stand the heat in the governor's Alaskan kitchen, how long could she have endured the stress of the vice presidency?

Good thing the election turned out as it did so American women don't have to endure that humiliation on a global scale.