Palin 150K in Clothing or the Obama Styrofoam Columns that cost as much. WHO was Bashed ?

Yes, but "strength of will and commitment to principle" are exactly what were entirely lacking in Palin's recent performance, where she didn't even bother to use the word "resign" when announcing she was abandoning her solemn commitment to serve the State of Alaska for an undefined "higher calling." Paglia and many of the letter writers here fail to analyse this performance and are instead willing to take Palin entirely on faith and not at "face value," as Palin herself said she expects the media to do. That's the sum of my argument against both Palin and Paglia - they simply lack substance and neither says anything worth listening to. This isn't a surprise with Palin, who apparently isn't even qualified to serve as a one-term state governor, let alone anything higher, but it's sad for Paglia, who used to be a fresh and challenging voice. The only challenge she presents now is reading one of her columns to the end - a challenge I have failed to meet many a time.

I agree with some of the Paglia supporters/sympathizers writing here that there are far too many ad hominem, rude, immature comments.

What I CAN'T agree with is any assertion that Ms. Paglia is "intellectually honest," as a few letter writers have maintained. Paglia is a contrarian. There is nothing intelligent about contrarianism, per se. Just as there is nothing necessarily intelligent about using complex vocabulary; nor does one's statement of a belief you share automatically make it "intelligent" -- talk about elitist and arrogant!

Paglia states things she may or may not actually believe primarily to provoke a response, to pose as a "free-thinker." This is not "honesty." It's a game. Were she to back up her assertions with true evidence, with logical support, many readers here (myself included) might brook her monthly essays at Salon.

-- 30+ posts disagreeing about Palin "cleaning Biden's clock"

-- 0 conservatives/Drudgebots attempting to defend that claim

His link is bringing in the mouth breathers...

I was a long time paying member of Salon since the early days. I even persuaded several friends to join as well to help support a good journalistic cause. A couple of years ago I simply let my membership lapse. The editorial content had begun to meander and I didn't feel the "good journalistic cause" was there anymore.

Two events this week highlight what's wrong with Salon.

FIRST - Dan Froomkin was recently let go from the Washington Post and was a "free agent." Salon could have picked him up, but instead, The Huffington Post signed him up.

SECOND - This pathetic piece of tripe from Camille Paglia. This latest in a series of crapaglia pieces not only does not help Salon and its readership numbers, it is a net loss as it is an embarrassment (or should be) to be associated with such a political moron as Paglia. The level of "intellectual prowess" exhibited by Paglia on Salon can easily be found in the Comments section of Little Green Footballs. How can you take anyone seriously who repeatedly claims to understand what the "grassroots" is thinking by virtue of having listened to Rush Limbaugh and talk radio? That's about as logical as claiming to know how the average American family spends it's free time by virtue of having watched The Porn Channel on cable TV.

Froomkin would have been a great fit for Salon, and a good complement to Glenn Greenwald. I wonder how long Greenwald's contract with Salon is? I think he'd get much higher readership at HuffPo.

From the comments it is clear that Paglia is not appreciated at Salon. She should go to LGF, or its cousin, the National Review where she'd feel more comfortable.

Paglia is a poor man's Peggy Noonan, and that is truly a pitiable state.

I'll take Froomkin over Paglia ANY day.

TBogg points out Paglia's stunted political perspective, and has an appropriately snarky commentary on Paglia here:

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2009/07/08/camille-of-the-common-clay/

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"Ms Varga even went on FOX News with Bill O'Reilly, Nov 19, 2004, to promote this idea."

Yes, because, despite the actual court verdicts, Elizabeth Vargas, whose piece about Matthew Shepard relied mainly on jailhouse interviews with Shepard's murderers, the murderers' friends, and girlfriends, was the height of journalistic integrity, particularly since she rushed to Fox News to crow about it ('cause murderers have, like, no self-interest...)

...And, BTW, among many other suspicious and shoddy details in Vargas' report, Kristen Price, one of the murderers' girlfriends, who was one of Vargas' primary sources on the 20/20 piece, just happened to contradict even what she'd previously told ABC News, since, before, she had said "They just wanted to beat him bad enough to teach him a lesson, not to come on to straight people, and don’t be aggressive about it anymore," but now suddenly, when there was a slim snowball's chance that it might in some way mitigate her boyfriend's sentence, changed her mind, go figure. But Vargas and ABC's 20/20, under the leadership of far-right conservative John Stossel et al, considered Price's newfound "take" on Shepard's murder "news."

Here's some of the main people Vargas and 20/20 interviewed for that piece: Russel Henderson and Aaaron McKinney, Shepard's murderers-- McKinney, from jail, was presented as essentially the center-piece of the report, and the piece gave the convicted murderer a lengthy segment in which to comment on and justify his crime. How many times, exactly, do you see the news allow a convicted criminal this extensive a forum? Vargas' piece also relied extensively, as I noted, on Kristen Price, McKinney's girlfriend, and Tom O'Connor, a friend and former landlord of McKinney, who made the claim, presented by 20/20 without verification, that Matthew Shepard was HIV-positive. Get that now, 20/20 allowed a friend of a convicted murderer to comment on what he believed the HIV status of the murder victim was, and let it stand as a conjecture in their report. Think about that for a second.

ABC also presented the "this was just a drug case, not a hate crime" argument as though it were a new argument they'd just discovered, and not one that had been aired openly in court long before. And somehow, in the midst of their report, ABC "forgot" to mention McKinney's calling Shepard "f*gg*t" and "qu**r" in his initial testimony to police. Whoops!

We might note (or at least hope) that it isn't a regular practice by ABC News to give lengthy forums to convicted criminals, the convicted criminal's friends, and those criminal's lovers, to downplay those criminal's actions and cast various aspersions at the victims of their crimes. One might immediately notice why this might not be good journalistic practice. But somehow the Matthew Shepard case marked an exception for ABC News. Stossel, Vargas, and the crew were more than happy to lend McKinney and Henderson a national forum. Perhaps they'll also look up the boyfriend or girlfriend of other murderers and, like, give them a shot at a public forum to hash out their various feelings and opinions about what happened to other victims, 'cause that's like real solid reporting, eh?

Matthew Shepard's parents were really upset with the report-- Judy Shepard, in particular, noted that ABC's 20/20 had chopped up and slanted her interview segments in the report: "My remarks were reduced to a few very personal maternal comments taken out of context to make it appear as if I agreed with 20/20’s theories,” she said at the time. Get that, again: 20/20 selectively edited a murder victim's mother, but gave a murderer, his friends, and his girlfriend, plenty of room to make conjectures about the victim. Yeah, sure, it was the gays who had an "agenda" here. Besides ABC's 20/20, Fox News, and the far-right-wing blogosphere, no credible news organization picked up Vargas' "news" revelation that Shepard's murderers wanted everybody to blame the victim.

Thanks again to Joan Walsh and Salon, however, for letting Camille Paglia drag us all through this particular swamp again (Shepard was murdered over a decade ago, But Camille's still regularly picking at his bones). Perhaps we could have a regular column: "Paglia Ponders the Psychology of Murder Victims."

What a hoot, eh, Joan Walsh? Remind me again: How do you sleep?