"The university culture at Columbia and Harvard through which Obama passed has been drenched in a reflexive anti-Americanism for several decades"

What a load of bullshit. Paglia talks in cliches stereotypes about "the left". She doesn't know shit about this amorphous bogeyman she calls "the left." The notion that two of the country's most elite, establishment universities strongly connected to people like Henry Kissinger, AIPAC and establishment elite foreign policy think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations are hotbeds of "anti-American leftism" is loonytunes idiocy.

And what the hell is it with Paglia's perpetual orgasmic love-in with glamour girls who look good on stage? Is that her definition of feminism? Shallow, vapid camera-friendly (mostly white) women who are pretty and overtly sexy, who can offer a few glib lines and putdowns? Paglia is so deeply out of touch with the lives of real women all over the country and all over the world, she has nothing whatsoever to say to those of us struggling to make ends meet, those of us who don't look perfect on stage.

And oh my! heavens! So Obama actually DARES to consider talking to Iran without conditions! Who are these idiots who actually believe that Iran is the second coming of Nazi Germany?

and "traditional left wing" feminisms attempt to prohibit consensual prostitution and (until the internet made it physically impossible) pornography.

Hi Bill:

Here's the thing that pisses me off:

" I am an American, and I do not feel that I owe Mr. McCain "an incalculable debt of gratitude" for his participation in that stupid, unnecessary war."

More that mere disavowal, this is an inditement.

First, it might be germane to recall that two Democrats got us in that war --I almost said mess, but read below. They were the highly esteemed and magnetic JFK, and Johnson. Why do those most vocal about the "tragedy" of Vietnam continue to vote Democrat?

The left clings to their, ancient, self righteous denunciations of that war with a fervor that you could call religious. I smell desperation in this, as if any admission they were even partly wrong would destroy brittle, fragile egos.

However,we ought to consider the cost of abandoning what we had already committed ourselves to: What of the demoralization of our military and society and the self absorbed cynicism that followed?(remember disco, studio54, rampant sex and cocaine?) What of the collapse of international esteem? You know Bill, people the world over die when US esteem falls. Remember the Iran crises? And oh yes, by no means least of these, what of the Vietnamese--the ideological and ethnic cleansing as the jack boots descended? There are degrees of chaos. It's a good thing you can call yourself an American. You damned sure wouldn't like being Vietnamese.

Bill, can you assure me, and yourself, that these had no connection to our retreat? We washed our hands of this? Let's look under our fingernails.

At the very least, can't you finally credit the men and women who sacrificed so much in genuine conviction that they were securing the best interests of the world? Their idealism eclipses yours in retrospect. That idealism continues, and perhaps in final analysis this is what compels Bush's stubborn refusal to give up Iraq. You might question the wisdom of this idealism (as I do), but not the nobility of it.

Camille:

Recall Edmund from King Lear:

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess. To thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should I

Stand in the plague of custom and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines

Lag of a brother? Why 'bastard'? Wherefore 'base',

When my dimensions are as well compact,

My mind as generous, and my shape as true

As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us

With 'base', with 'baseness, bastardy--base, base'--

Who in the lusty stealth of nature take

More composition and fierce quality

Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed

Go to th'creating a whole tribe of fops

Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land....

No it's not Edmund's fault, but he's mad as Hell.

Consider Bill Clinton, a brilliant politician. Despite this, a thorough education garnering him with top credentials, and apparently stable marriage, and popularity, he proved an erratic and devious statesman.

Clinton's upbringing included no father, that is, unless you count his stepfather. Not that stepfathers can't father, sometimes they don't.

Barack Obama, like Clinton, had no consistent, reliable father. It seems this condition engenders a subliminal,even unconscious bitterness, projected on the larger social order.

This is not about fairness, it's about the wisdom of placing a man without father at the head of our government.

Flame on.

There is an interesting article on Jewish World Review by Samuel Silver that looks at the response to Sarah Palin in terms of the "gender neutrality" idea and ties in with your discussion of Sarah & Todd Palin. It is online at: http://jewishworldreview.com/1008/silver100708.php3

This is an excerpt:

The reaction to Governor Sarah Palin’s selection by Senator John McCain has been nothing short of epic. From the first moment people saw and heard her, most either hated her or loved her.

What made her instantaneously extraordinary to both sides of the political spectrum? It has to be more than the media-driven issues.

This election has turned into an unspoken referendum on human nature and the idea of “gender neutrality,” the poster child for the left taught to the past several generations as something real, instead of the imaginary nonsense it is.

Men and women are different – not better or worse, just different. Equal in political and legal rights, but still different. And the radical left doesn’t want you to believe this nor even hear it.

Ask scientist Steven Pinker, who was attacked after reviewing massive amounts of research and concluding that “…the theory of human nature coming out of the cognitive revolution has more in common with the Judeo-Christian theory of human nature …than with behaviorism, social constructionism, and other versions of the Blank Slate.”

Or ask Larry Summers about his firing as President of Harvard for just bringing up the issue. Just as the left made Summers “disappear” and tried to make Clarence Thomas “disappear,” they must make Sarah Palin “disappear.” If unsuccessful, their house of cards, built upon group victimization, collapses.

After Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the convention, her family joined her on stage. John McCain then made a surprise appearance. His first remarks are telling: “Don’t you think we made the right choice for the next Vice President of the United States? --- and what a beautiful family!”

While the left exploded in anger, screaming “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” the rest of America erupted in joy, with a sense of relief that maybe now the country can get back on the “right track.”

In Sarah Palin and Cindy McCain they saw real women. And in John McCain and Todd Palin they saw real men. Their God-given femininity and masculinity are part of who they are, and they embrace it without embarrassment or explanation.

These spontaneous reactions came from a subconscious realization that there is an alternative to the absurdity of “gender neutrality,” and all of its derivatives including the feminization of America and the nurturing of perpetually adolescent males. These “boy men” have neither the emotional nor intellectual maturity to support wives and/or the children of the women they impregnate and abandon. As part of the left’s strategy to destroy the traditional family structure, these abandoned women and children, seeking security, are driven into the open arms of a cold and impersonal government.

You gain a glimpse into the McCains’ and Palins’ view of gender by how they speak about each other.

Prior to her nomination, Sarah Palin discussed her husband Todd who works a week-on week-off schedule:

“My husband… grew up working with his hands and building things and learning how to weld and learning how to produce, and he landed a good job up on the North Slope where he is a blue collar oil field worker.”

“They are up there for the week producing for the State and the nation. They come home (and) in my husband’s case he is a commercial fisherman, so he can continue that. He is a snow machine racer… He is instrumental and effective as a father (of five children) and community member, and in our case as Alaska’s first dude.”

She admires this man because he is a producer!

When Cindy McCain speaks about her husband, she describes him as a hero, not the anti-hero so admired by the “gender neutral” left. Both women admire their husbands, not in spite of their masculinity, but because of it. Unlike Maureen Dowd, they think do not dream of a world without men.

And when John McCain selected Sarah Palin, he selected a “strong woman” similar to his wife. Mrs. McCain maintained her femininity as a wife, a mother of seven, a special ed teacher, a business woman, a hands-on philanthropist, and even a race car driver.

In contrast to the leftist stereotypes of these women as “Stepford Wives” and “Barbies,” they each chose to bring “different” children into their families: for Cindy McCain, her daughter Bridget whom she rescued as an infant from a Bangladesh orphanage; for Sarah Palin, her son Trig, born with Down Syndrome.

These are not ordinary people nor are they perfect, but we should not want ordinary people as leaders of our country, and no human is perfect. Instead we should want extra-ordinary people who share the same ordinary and traditional values that we try to live by.