Camille, you do not know Idaho culture. Stop the mythology; get a grip.

I am fourth generation Idahoan. I can't fully explain my geneology, but horse-theives and carpet-baggers line the paternal family tree. There are good reasons why the early settlers came to hide out in the mountains of Idaho. And you can romanticize the Native American features in Sarah Palin face, but please understand Native Americans have never been treated well in Idaho. If there are Native Americans in the family, they very well might not be mentioned. (I once brought a Native American friend home with me on a weekend trip. My dad drove us that night to her mother's home. She didn't get to stay the night.)

Idaho women come in many stripes. But the defining issue is the narrow path that we all had to follow. This has changed in the last few decades, but I am in my 50s. Some women could walk that narrow path. They went on to lead good Christian lives. Many fell off. Some of us just jumped the path, and got on with our lives.

My paternal grandmother found her own way. She married a divorced man, a no-no in her time. But by every other measure, she was beautiful in her own deeply Christian way. During the depression she worked for the local doctor in our small rural town. She witnessed the suffering of women who attempted to illegally abort their children one way or another, for one reason or another. At the end of her very long life, she still would talk about how that changed her views on choice. She never drank or cussed. She never missed church. She was an amazing gardener. And she voted pro-choice.

I do not believe my grandmother would have ever had an abortion herself, but she would always support safe abortions for others. My grandmother would have never shot animals from a helicopter. She nurtured life, protected those less fortunate, and was humbled by suffering. Hobos came to her backdoor, because it was known that she would offer them work and food.

That my grandfather never deserved such a good and fine woman is just the way it goes. She loved him to the end. But Sarah Palin is nothing like my Idaho grandmother.

You can champion this new feminist from the mountain states, but gunning down animals from a helicopter is not my idea of feminism. And a disregard for the environment is really old hat for many in these states. Nothing new about that. Sarah Palin is nothing new in Idaho or Alaska. That is why the fundamentalist love her. Same old, same old.

If there's an office pool going on out there on how many enraged responses Paglia will garner with this post, put me down for 1000. We all know that she's the official Salon Freak Show--ooh, let's all go watch Camille bite the heads off chickens--so who couldn't see her geeking on Palin coming a mile away? So effin' predictable.

Ms. Paglia, you are almost as morally repugnant as the "no knowthing" example of rural idiocy your comments promote. Abraham Lincoln was a representative of the opposite pole of rural society and society in general. Compare his mind and the expression of his mind in words, to see the dramatic difference.

Palin is an ignorant demagogue whose role is to incite the mob. Her campaign appearances are designed to do just that; and that is what is occurring. Is that what you see as a good thing? Is her inability to think and speak coherently a new prerequisite in your mind, for aspiring to the highest offices in the country?

Paglia is thoroughly basted in her own narcissism. Reading her is like following a clearly marked trail deep into the woods that suddenly branches off into multiple directions, all of them either winding back upon themselves or leading to a dead end or over a cliff. Eventually you have to be evacuated by helicopter out of her deranged wilderness before you succumb to the overwhelming illogic of it all.

I'll admit, her ramblings can sometimes be interesting, in the same way that watching someone publicly humiliating themselves can be (see Palin's interviews), but in the end her "liberal gadfly" schtick just feels like more self-worship.

It cannot be hard to recognize the fact that this person has never served his nation, he has absolutely no knowledge of what it is to serve in the military.But it is extremely easy to see by his statements he also has no knowledge of world affairs in the Viet Nam era.He should read true history, and educate himself before running his mouth.

Carl Rice

"Your concern about the foreign-policy world-view of liberal Democrats is certainly justified. The university culture at Columbia and Harvard through which Obama passed has been drenched in a reflexive anti-Americanism for several decades. Armchair blame-America-first leftism is the default mode. Disdain for the military is rampant, and conservative voices are rarely heard."

sounds like Philadelphia folk - another gone-to-seed, one-party-rule Democratic stronghold of corruption, indifference, and political machinery where new born babies' parents check a box on the birth certificate, "Activist," like it really stands for something other than narcissistic navel gazing anymore!

Oh yeah, Obama was an "activist." Um hum.

You rock Camille!!!

I know in my soul : Obama is the man.

He speaks with conviction-he speaks with promise-he speaks of truly changing the tone of politics - for ALL of us! He speaks of making things more fair and just, he speaks of schools, health care for our elderly, pensions, taxes, reform - BUT most of all he speaks of PEACE.

He speaks of PEACE throughout the world - and the one word we should all be screaming is PEACE.

Obama has tried and tried to keep us talking about the issues. All Palin/McCain keep saying are really ignorant things.

It’s really shameful.

And WE, the American public, we deserve better!

We Deserve Presidential and Vice Presidential Nominees who are charismatic, intelligent, sober, dignified and above all, honest.

McCain left his wife, who was quite ill at the time, to marry his mistress. He was almost ejected from the Congress for his complicity in the Keating 5 Affair, and MOSTLY because he did NOT stop Bush from entering into this god awful war.

Palin believes dinosaurs and man walked the earth together. Her church believes in speaking in tongues. Her Husband was a member of a right wing secessionist group for 7 (SEVEN) years, which still seeks to secede from the Union. She’s tried to ban books out of a library, she was for the bridge before she was against it. She is under investigation and could be impeached in Alaska, by the REPUBLICAN party - in her own state! (It was not the Democrats who called for the special investigation!) She knows nothing of foreign affairs or domestic policy. She only received her passport last year! She believes in teaching Abstinence, and yet she must not have been home for the lessons too often, because it didn’t work in her own family.

Don’t you feel the anger/fear which comes from Republicans? Any of them? Just look at Ann Coulter and Babe Buchannan!

We can see this anger in John McCains face. He’s angry about something. I think he’s angry his country lied to him about the war in Vietnam? - and yet, he’s turned around and done the same thing - ALL FOR POWER!

Invading Iraq will be recorded as the worst mistake America has made in the past 80 years(the other was to believe in Reaganomics!)

But this is essential to understand, The Republicans have held a majority of Power for the past 20 years of our lives.

And it was the Republican led congress, White House and Senate which slam dunked us, in our fear, after September 11, into a false war with a country which posed absolutely NO threat to America.

Not one terrorist on those planes which hit the world trade center on that awful day was from Iraq.

In fact, they were all from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

The reason we invaded Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was THREATENING (and actually negotiating with France) to trade his oil in Euros! and George Bush could NEVER let this happen, because they all knew if he did in fact begin trading in Euros then this “current” economic mess we are in now would have bubbled up much earlier! Further, the vast oil pipelines which his father was brokering thru the Carlisle group would have been wiped out - and the second more profitable pipeline - running thru Afghanistan, ( why did we pull out of Afghanistan?

Dwight D. Eisenhour warned our nation on his departure from office to BEWARE THE INDUSTRIAL MILITARY MACHINE! Well, the Bushes and McCain have their hands red with blood. Their fathers and their grandfathers were instrumental in setting up of this “industrial machine”

John McCain said last night in the Debate, “he knew how to win a war, he knew how to catch Bin Laden, I will do it” Well, he’s a Republican and the President is a Republican, so why didn’t he call a meeting 4 years ago and tell the President this secret. And if he’s the Maverick who keeps breaking from his party, then why didn’t he go scream it from the White House Rooftop when Bush ignored him…???. Why is he waiting until now to do it when for the past umpteen years he’s been one of the most accessible Senators in Washington? Granting more interviews than ANY other Senator besides Hillary Clinton.

And yet for the past year, he’s been closed lipped. And so the story goes, that now, the person whom he’s chosen to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office has/can’t/won’t - tell the American Public her “philosophy “ of how we are to be governed.

THIS SHOULD MAKE US ALL SHAKE IN OUR SHOES!

Barak Obama may lack some experience ( but he’s got Biden behind him, with lots of experience in Foreign knowledge ), and in less than 2 years, he’s managed to change the tone of our talking. He’s speaking of Health Care, Pensions, Schools, Peace and Hope - in less than 2 years!

John McCain has had 28 YEARS - and look where we are, and, if “the Maverick”, as he’s now labeled himself, knows the answers and knew about all this economic mess long back (after all, Phil Graham is the architect of this mess and is his Economic Advisor!!!), why did it take Barak Obama, to bring the Maverick to the podium to tell us he knows how to change Washington?

Sounds like a sack full of shit………and Sarah Palin is just the rank smell as the sack collapses.

It’s a shame that for all his wanting and desiring of the highest office in our Nation, John McCain is sinking to the lowest possible terms and loosing the integrity of which he speaks so highly.

Everyone should Pause and think about the consequences of voting Republican on November 4th……