Camille Paglia: "One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is "dumb." Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles?"

So it's stupid that Palin is considered stupid?

Well, I think you're stupid for saying it's stupid that she's considered stupid.

You know why?

Because she's stupid.

When I say "stupid," I mean "ignorant" plus "averse to the use of sound reasoning" plus "superstitious."

That's compounded stupidity.

And you're a half-wit for failing to see it, Camille.

Or, in other parlance: Stupid.

Camille, you have me puzzled by your drooling over this woman-you as a woman of language how can you accept her hostility to the press, to articulate, discuss anything (wise since sentence formation is not her forte)-intellence is an elitist conspiracy? her common denominator, rule of the mediocre= democracy? If I hear maverick six-pack,hockey mom one more time ! winks and code words pandering to a vile white supremacy and darkness hidden within. (read Brigitte Bardot´s take on her "feminisim"). She doesn´t know these people are using her in a craven way to a power end game- Do you think they give a shit about her? Her scary, witchcraft,end of days Christ-as Taliban religion? you confuse manipulation and lying with smarts. I could go on- but if I were a woman I would be insulted by confusing her with a smart independent empowered woman?

and funny as hell too. More Camille please! It brings out GREAT, superior counterpoint.

Salon.com would greatly improve if it were to openly make clear that Mrs. Paglia's column (a Matt Drudge favorite) is printed regularly only as a form of comic relief, not serious comment.

Thank you.

underestimate Americas stupidity at your peril

You neglect to mention that Palin's non-stop lies, even when confronted about what she has just misstated, qualify her less as a gifted speaker than as a backwoods gangster who just wants to kneecap her opponents.

Sarah the Wolfslayer may be a cute throwback to Paul Bunyan myths, but Sarah the Candidate is a disturbing echo of the Know Nothings.

Dishonest, cynical men put forward Sarah Palin for national office, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about.

By Garrison Keillor

It makes no sense to say that Palin won the debate from a TV perspective. The polls said she lost, and the people were answering were no doubt watching on ... TV.

Does Paglia really have a Yale PhD?

'Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin's performance on the national stage... I laughed heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event.' (See below..)

I, also, saw immediately, the force of the Sarah Palin phenomenon, almost the minute she began speaking at the convention. I didn't know what it was, or what it was about, or why it worked so well, but I knew we were in for it. Since then, after a period of panting, no-thought hangers-on-her-tit-dom, she has gone way down in many people's thinking. Witness yesterday's (the 6th's) hate-rallying, in which she incited cries of 'Kill him!' (Obama) and 'Terrorist!!' (Obama) and incited the crowd to turn to the journalist section and taunt and threaten them, one guy yelling at a black camerman, 'Hey, (N....!), get down from there, boy!' This is what she brings out in people. -- And, I gather, she didn't say a word to curb this kind of 'enthusiasm'.

Yes, her energy is what it is. It is maybe all there is. But it reaches out and captures and enhances people's deepest, tawdriest bad sides.

Your quote above, that you ENJOY Sarah Palin's performance, confuses me. From the start I recognized her as dangerous, but didn't know how dangerous; now it becomes obvious: as dangerous as KKK ralliers, as dangerous as Nazi hate-mongers. She may well get Obama killed. AND NO ONE STOPS HER.

Instead some people, like you, Paglia -- I don't know what needs to be missing in someone to 'enjoy' a performance which should be chilling you to the bone, what definition of feminism, what needed-to-be-human value or outlook, to be able to enjoy a dangerous woman's sudden rise to fame.

Palin's 'strength' comes from her borderline personality traits: willingness to be loud no matter what boundaries of civility she crosses; a certain sputtering, hate-filled alter or persona which she takes no responsibility for unleashing; a mixture of little girl (no feminist in my book), off-the-scale stereotypical sex/femininity with language and demeanor of the 'good mom, will take care of you mom' with Hitler, with frank, fuck-you/fuck-me shoes and other pretty packaging. The Mixture makes it so confusing that men, and women, are cowed in a trance, fucked, lost, and vulnerable to whatever messages she spews out. [See Milton Erickson, M.D.'s description of 'the confusion technique' of hypnosis, a method designed, as it verbally confuses, to so overwhelm its listener that she/he lets go of attention and falls into a state in which anything can be done to the subject, including to convince, evoke, incite, whatever. I saw Senator Leahy fall under this spell when Supreme Court Justice-to-be Roberts used the confusion technique on him: Leahy had hard questions, but in face of Roberts' empty, confusing, digressing, prettily-put answers, charming smile, Leahy suddenly changed his tack to COMPLIMENTING him....and leaving it at that.]

Her complete lack of empathy or any semblance of empathy should warn you off. Palin's inappropriate, getting-under-your-clothes assumption of intimacy, with her winking, use of 'ya', etc., should make you wary.

Your 'enjoying' her antics, as if they mean anything approaching 'strength' and are not a mask for inner weakness and inner confusion and fear, make me shocked, and forced to see you as someone lost in the past, perhaps, missing her

'strong' relatives, no doubt great women as they admirably asserted their opinions and needs, but some, no doubt, pushing it past to the extreme in reaction to their experience of Italian women's having to live under threat, threat for going outside irrationally-stringent sexual boundaries, even the threat of being killed by their own relatives; this would make anyone crazy-loud, hard, insensitive, but this is not necessarily inner strength.

I like the image of the little Italian woman, plowing through a crowd to make her needs known; what WASP, California girl, good-girl, nice-girl, vulnerable to macho-bully-men's-barking girl wouldn't?

No, I don't underestimate Palin's basic intelligence and talent, but I don't admire, or like, or enjoy what I see as her extreme psychopathology, let loose upon the whole populace, ultimately for the very worst ends. [And no one stops her!]