"Yes, but specifically, which publications did you read?"

"Oh you know...all of them"

I think we've assessed her intelligence just fine thank you.

Palin is an inveterate dummy if for no other reason than she is cultivating a culture of hate that may well rebound on her and McSame in the remote chance they are elected. (Or selected?)

Palin is a dummy by any measure. A former beauty queen and sportscaster who - in one demonstration in a Wasilla school 3 yrs. ago- was not even able to solve the eqn.:

x - 2x = 5

She has no business being anywhere near those missile codes, and we won't even get into her witchcraft "exorcism".

to hear evidence of Palin's intelligence or smarts, and I had to read through the whole stupid thing. Isn't that what people said about George Bush? No, really! He's intelligent! We swear!

The only statement remotely related to her intellect, rather than her energy and attractiveness is, that she is "ready to be filled with a deeper policy knowledge". ICK. Let's see what happens if she ever actually forms an opinion by herself, that will be a one-way ticket to being treated like Hillary.

Did all those frontier women participate in beauty pageants? Did they go to college and grow up middle class? So, how does this apply to Palin?

And then there is this gem. Paglia states "Nature has ordained that the female reproductive system, ...is far more complex and fragile than male sexuality". Oops, where did all the muscular frontier and immigrant grannies go? Paglia needs to go back to Yale and head over to the Biology department this time.

Organicas wrote a better letter than mine altogether, but this working class girl loves to dissect Paglia's writing. Paglia would admire a charismatic cult leader and not get the difference. Her main principle is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and/or "I'm making this crap up!".

"Surely the standard, prudent diplomatic protocols would kick into action. "

This has to be the stupidest Paglia statement of the piece, though there are so many candidates, my eyes are swimming. Camille, have you been so indifferent to reality, so mired in the labyrinthine convolutions of your own ego-driven pathological need to be "the cleverest one at the party" that you failed to notice: Bush has decimated the state department as a an effective instrument? WHAT standard, prudent ANYTHING? Kicked OUT of the tool kit for 8 years, re-populated with neo-con bullshitters, the state department must be re-built in order to be be effective again.

"...he would jump more readily toward war in order to prove his toughness". Prove this. Be brave and true, now: find the quotes, make your case. Last night's debate was most certainly this: a steady, thoughtful, brilliant thinker schooling a pompous plebe on how nuance counts, big time. His correcting McSlime on the right circumstances for going after Bin Laden on Pakistani soil is clear evidence that he intends to be shrewd and exact, but aggressive, against the REAL terrorist threats.

Thank you for the point regarding the oblique, at best, relevance of McCain's time as a POW. You then reference Obama's "sober, deliberative temperament" -- huh? See last point: are you so in love with your situational syntheses that you don't even see your self-contradictions on the same page? Which is it: he's an antsy pantywaist who will grab a stick and run at the enemy without thinking to impress us, or a prudent, sober planner? I am trying to imagine these qualities in the same person and I believe it is physically impossible to be both, Like "screaming sullenly", there are some behaviors and traits that are beyond human physiology. Except on PagliaPlanet.

"powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism". I take it back. THIS is the stupidest thing ANYONE has ever thought or said about Palin, and your all-time most insipid, provocateur/poseur, I'll-say-anything-to-make-people-pay-attention-to me remark. This is not about class, not from the elite snobbery towards working class POV, nor from the native wisdom of the average joe POV.

This is about character, and intelligence, and integrity, all of which this dreadful family lack, a Mount Everest size hole that anyone watching the news can see. Her son goes to Irag to avoid drug dealing prison time and she calls him a hero. Her daughter doesn't know how to buy, carry, use or insist on a condom, yet she exemplifies "family values". She lies about her previous life as an America-hating fringe group member. Her children give the finger to each other from the campaign stage. She believes in WITCHES, for crying out loud, and she doesn't have one single clue about feminist issues or history. She is a symbol of no-nothingism, cronyism, darn-tootin we want more strip malls, let's go kill something, my reactionary gut is better than your educated plans, and lies are not lies if I believe them.

She's the mom the rest of us, Right and Left, move away from on the bench at our kids' basketball games. She isn't a feminist anything, and neither are you: she's a would-be Theocrat and a lousy mom, who would screw our rights to the outhouse door, and you are a preening starschtupper who desperately wants a place at the intellectually bankrupt table of the REAL elites. If Palin's ignorance and illiteracy means she is really a "poet", and not a lying wingnut, then grits ain't cornmeal.

Poetry has layers of meaning, fragments of evanescent truths, startling slices of inner human realities, compelling observations, delivered with real attention to, and respect for, language. Palin is a slick hack echo chamber of her handlers' talking points. When quietly and directly asked to reveal her knowledge can't help but reveal she has none. You can't possibly be trying to say her diamond-in-the-rough, invisible "feminism" should prevent her from being asked what she reads? that the question is one only a "viper" would ask? REALLY?

Rousseau was wrong: primitivism is not noble per se, its just poor education, ignorance, and superstition, improved by un-glamourous, plodding study, and good hygiene. Wait -- un-glamourous. Therein lies the kryptonite for Paglia. You aren't attracted to her raw "feminism", methinks, you just see a kindred soul: ambitious glamour hound.

Force of nature my ass.