who think Paglia is bright, even brilliant, are all right-wingers who worship at the cult of Limbaugh and Palin. Enough said.

A $249 Dollar Maco paint job on your Chevy Camero does not turn it into a Corvette.

It is really sad when we hear all this talk about Palin being a potential presidential candidate. We have already had 8 years of a president with no curiosity about the world, little knowledge about the effects of his decisions and an inability to talk in a an understandable way. Do we need anpther dummy like Palin and Bush I think NOT!!!!!!

before the Drudgebots showed up.

You can tell alot about Camille's supporters, they praise her "intelect" and say she is their favorite Democrat, then are never to be heard from again. (notice all the "one-hit wonders" who show up in her letters.)

First she criticizes SP, and focuses on her style. She remains oblivious regarding how SP gets it and thus has a natural connection to the growing number of voters who hate government corruption and bullshit from our politicians.

Camille misses another opportunity when she stumbles into the subject of assassination. How could 0'bama avoid speaking a little truth to power on this subject during his visit to assassination central, Moscow, Russia, where murdering journalists and reformers is so "normal" there, it is a fundamental part of the political process?

Instead he drones on and on with platitudes and gives the Russian Mafia everything they want.

Camille, don't you realize you and people like you would not last a New York minute in Moscow or St. Petersburg?

Dear Camille,

As a newcomer to Salon, this is the first article of yours that I've read. What am I supposed to make of your statement that "Palin cleaned Biden's clock!" This is a huge stretch, even if you'ra a Palin fan. Forget about the media--the majority of Americans who watched the VP debate thought Biden won--check the polling numbers from multiple sources. I suggest that you qualify such a statement by saying "In my opinion, Palin cleaned Biden's clock" as opposed to stating it as though it were fact. Last I checked, the majority determines the winner, whether you agree with them or not.

...and figure out how to adapt to new times. Back in the 80s and 90s Paglia's shtick was new and fresh. In books like "Sexual Personae" she broke feminist and PC taboos, made outrageous and sometimes witty statements about pornography and other hot topics, elevated pop culture to a serious topic of discussion, and generally stirred up the pot at a time when the sauce was threatening to scorch. She served as a sort of semi-academic George Carlin, showing scorn where scorn was due. The trouble is, somewhere along the way she stopped adapting and has ended up saying outrageous things just for the sake of being outrageous, as if mere petulance ("I'm a fan of talk radio!") were still a coherently rebellious stand to take. Judging by today's offering, she is just a dittohead in drag and I don't see how any of her articles make a helpful contribution to Salon.

Does this mean that, as "a monster of the left," I want to see her removed? No, not at all. I hate to give up on another human being and I suspect she may still be able to scratch together something worth reading. But why give her four whole pages to do it in? Keillor (who genuinely does get off a good one every now and then) only gets one. It seems to me that less Paglia would be more. Why not give it a try (and give us a break)?

Screaming for the assassination of public figures is nothing new in our history.

Two of William Randolph Hearst's editors, one of them Ambrose Bierce, opined in favor of McKinley getting plugged. When he actually did get shot, the ensuing brouhaha ended Hearst's presidential ambitions.

That was a lot more blatant than anything we see today.

Time for your monthly hammering by vicious libs, Camille. Why do they keep her, they ask? Maybe cuz she attracts 600 letters, fools. Can you say advertising exposure?

Paglia's answer on Palin was terrrrrrrible.

5 paragraphs about how the media is mean, 2 little sentences tucked in the center about how Palin might need to hit the books.

Is that really the proper emphasis, Camille? 90% 'bad media', 10% 'dumb Palin'?

No offense, but that makes you just as media-centric and intellectually bankrupt as the culture you're decrying. And I know you're smart enough to see the irony.

This is sarcasm, right?

"Hey, wake up -- Palin cleaned Biden's clock! By the end, Biden was sighing and itching to split."

It is clear that reality and what passes for it in your head have never met. Someone should introduce them to eachother.

This was useless. Fortunate for you that you're in tenured academia, Camille, because you wouldn't make it in the real world. Of course, you probably discount all criticism because being narcissistic, you're always right.

You are full of shit.

When it dawned on Republicans that their biblical misogoney was undermining their electoral position they pushed Sarah Palin onto the national stage not as a candidate but as a diversion. This desperately dangerous improvised device blew up in their faces.

The fettid rot at the ideological core of the GOP is that being beguiled by Reagan's commitment to smaller government had produced a doubling of the size of government and a quadrupeling of its deficits. Voters after thirty years of this, want no more of it. The infrastructure of society was deliberately induced to decay by conservative policies serving conservative principles. The aim of this strategy was to alianate voters from the idea of government. What happened was the voters wised up. This self induced historical circumstance was never a problem that the GOP much less Sarah Palin could have ever been expected to address.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of a point-by-point rebuttal of Camille's absurd Palin analysis.

Gee-- you'd think Sarah was some kind of South American female pop star to hear Camille talk. Oh wait, I'm confusing her with another of Paglia's darlings.

The only thing I would add to your great post, kcar27, is that Camille needs to do some soul searching in terms of her evaluation of Palin's debate skills. For those who would defend her showing against Biden, I say imagine Hillary Clinton turning in a similar performance.

Had Hillary refused to answer the policy questions before her, regularly winked and flirted with the audience, or given a "shout out" to an elementary school, I seriously doubt Paglia --or anyone-- would have declared she cleaned her opponent's clock.

Palin is a beauty queen with a petulant temperament and a vaccuous mind. All of those characteristics are what give her currency with the far right.

And they apparently drive the devotion of a certain self-proclaimed Democrat.