Is Sarah Palin still around? Yes she is but here's what I believe Ms. Padlia has missed. Palin is spunky, sharp and is in so far over her head it isn't funny. If the Council for National Policy (look it up its frightening) has waited to bring her on the national stage after she matured a bit more, she might be a real force in 2016 or beyond. However the intelligence aspect that Camille gushes over fall apart for me in the simple fact that Sarah truely believes (ala George W) that she has been chosen by God (well Dobson anyway). What she fails to acknowledge is she isn't ready and its obvious. It really doesn't matter how smart she is. It really doesn't matter she can bring out 20,000 people to a rally ,what matters if the depth and breadth of all her attributes. She reeks of charisma but doesn't have a lick of experience. And if the Republicans are going to nominate a 72 year old guy with a pre existing cancer and make her a heartbeat away from the Presidency then they deserve neither respect nor power. Her placement on the ticket was an act of desperation to begin with. Since their convention, that desperation has completly colored the campaign. McCain looks lost and he is.

That is not to say Sarah isn't good. Her delivery and pumping up the days talking point are that of a true trooper. When she said she has foriegn policy experience because she can see Russia, that kind of shallow thinking will be remembered forever. Sarah as part of the machine isn't that formidable because the Repubilcan's are out of ideas, out of candidates (New Republic said this morning McCain isn't a real conservative) and the deregulated economy advoacted by "true" conservatives have established the largest socialist intervention in the history of the world. I disagree however with a previous post that this piece by Camille is Free Republic material. This doesn't every get to name calling, use the word Barry or quote the New Republic above. Sarah might have been more formidable in a different time. Today all she is shoring for the base, and actually alienates true feminists because of her lack of depth or honesty, either one would work.

Let me clear up the history of women's suffarage in Utah. While Utah was a territory ,in the 1870's ,on the advice of Brigham Young women were granted the right to vote in territorial elections. During the struggle over plural marriage the federal government took that right away. In 1896

When Utah became a state the right of women to vote was included in the Utah State Consttituion , long before less progressive states in the East did so. Women's Sufferage was supported at that time by the leaders of the Mormon Church with a few exceptions like B.H. Roberts.

If you visit the Susan B. Anthony house in Rochester New York when you go in one of the first things you will see is a dress made of black silk produced by Mormon women in Utah and other states and given to Anthony on her 80th birthday. You will also see a picture of Anthony with a number of Mormon women sufferage leaders.

I write this as an active 6th generation latter day saint whi has been troubled by the contemporay Church's attitude toward modern day feminism.

The "brawny" sybil in the Sistine ceiling is no more the Cunaean Sybil than Palin is an honest person, and Paglia as an art historian should know that. The Cumaean

Sybil (the story, IIRC, is retold in the Satyricon of Petronius) could only be represented as a wizened homunculus because the essence of her story is that she obtained from the gods the gift of immortality but had to go on aging--forever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VtMmTSHhlE&feature=related

It was a quickie, sans lipstick, sorry.

Underestimate? In the Age of Bush? How stupid do you think WE are?

Just because we think she is a vacuous caricature who has no inherent command of the issues beyond her provincial snow drift of a state doesn't mean that anyone is underestimating anyone.

Please stop feeding into this. You are imbuing her with legitimacy in a fashion that reminds me of how the rightwing legitimizes the overhyped power of Al Qaeda. The leftwing wasted NO time at all pounding the snot out of her image. I don't think I've ever seen so much motivation and energization when she was thrown in our faces. This was most certainly not an overestimation, it was a clear-eyed recognition and response to a very real threat.

I will not fear her, because to fear her is to respect her power and to legitimize it. She has not lulled anyone at all into a false sense of security. What has happened is that the GOP's favorite play of partisan divisiveness has blown up in their faces. They throw hate enforcers like Palin at us in the hopes that it will motivate their rabid, salivating horde of extremists.

But what they didn't expect and what you apparently miss is that they in turn have mobilized more on the opposite side, resulting in a net loss for her.

Doggone it, stop already.

Paglia's take on Palin is waaay over the top, to the point where it almost smells like a farce.

At very least, Paglia is over-doing the fawning, in an attempt at winning Palins friendship and attendence at some future lecture/interview/event.

But I suspect that Paglia is putting more lipstick on the pig - a set up for another joke on Palins behalf (like that movie Carie or mccains mockery of a pres campaign.)

Paglia debate Palin.

Does Paglia think Palin would win???? I don't think so.

Plenty of vicious posters here. When Obama accelerates the war in Afghanistan, you should all sign up for the military to defend his policies. With your obvious pent-up anger, we should be able to capture and kill Osama by February 20, 2009, guaranteed!

Take-charge feminism doesn't try to game the system or run to authority figures for protection.

And this is exactly why Sarah Palin is NOT a take-charge feminist. No amount of vitality can hide the fact that she has been sheltered by the McCain campaign. No press conferences and it's October? God forbid McCain is elected and something happens to him. If she can't face the American press unscripted, what's she going to do when she faces a real crisis?

Yes, limousine liberals are annoying and often destructive. That doesn't make Sarah Palin a new feminist icon.