Wow. Defending the value of Palin.

Palin may have some kind of smarts, but she is willfully ignorant. She has exhibited zero interest in really understanding the history, context or details of anything she espouses or rails against. All she needs to know is that God sent her.

Smart is also very different from wise. A wise woman would not have attached herself to the venomous McCain. Nor would she have allowed herself to be catapulted into an arena she is woefully unprepared for. Nor would she have launched herself into Alaska's State House by calling out corruption, only to use her office for a personal vendetta, accept $25,000 in gifts and have her staff report to her un-elected husband.

She lacks integrity. Something that requires more than being smart. It requires real intelligence.

because she does not kill babies, hate men, or blame others for her life?

Palin is MORE of a feminist that the oh so vocal pretenders could imagine ever being.

This is why they are white hot mad.

Palin does not expose her crotch to the cameras, nor does she wink at debate moderators knowingly. This must be what pisses off the left.

Is it really progress for women to have someone who flirts, giggles, winks and wiggles her way to success? Marilyn Monroe was a lucious sexy woman, but in the end, no one took her seriously. According to Paglia's logic, someone like Matthew McConnehay (sp?) or some other male bimbo should run for president. I enjoy your mythological reading of history and the arts, but symbolism is interpretive and should never be taken literally. People who do that are called FUNDAMENTALIST and most of them are, well, NUTS!

Please see Linda Jean's letter (pg. 32).

You seem compassionate for the most part, so I can't understand why you would declare "Roe v. Wade has been a plague on our country" knowing it would have been physically impossible to endure the situation firsthand (assuming you are indeed a man). You have never faced this kind of choice, and wrongly assume it's a walk in the park, or a basket of puppies.

Sometimes compassion involves the support of decisions you can't understand. Linda Jean's grandmother was pro-life, yet:

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.

Men who believe they have the right to determine what I ought to do with my reproductive parts in a given situation just don't get it (I'm referring to public policy, as opposed to a decision made by two potential parents). Unfortunately, you have no idea how hostile you and some other men appear to me when you try to dictate what would be a very personal choice. Do I have the right to force you to make a decision that would affect your life and body profoundly?

Let's keep remembering that if a woman was violently raped and a pregnancy was one result, Palin would not support the victim's right to terminate the pregnancy. All Palin supporters need to write, "Palin does not make exceptions for rape or incest" a thousand times. How can ANYONE in their right minds feel the same??

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.

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!

Paglia debate Palin.

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

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.)

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.

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

It was a quickie, sans lipstick, sorry.