she chose not to abort her fifth child, now four months old, even after she discovered he had Down's syndrome (the fact that decision is newsworthy creates a weird implication that a Democratic woman would make a different decision.)

What no one is mentioning in all of this is that current law gave her the ability to make a decision, rather than having it made for her by the state.

Which, of course, she would apparently have preferred.

I doubt she'll bring any of Hillary's supporters to the booth.

Sarah Palin -- what a contemptuously cynical selection -- as cynical as was replacing Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas -- a puppet who can be counted on to parrot the party line:

"Hey you Hillary fans -- she's a woman, right? Look, breasts, vulva -- what more do you want? So what if she's against a woman's right to choose? So what if she's obsessive about drilling in ANWR and everywhere else? So what if her "reform" of the oil laws and "opposition to big oil" was no more than a demand that the state of Alaska gets a bigger piece of the oil pie, increasing taxes on the companies drilling in the state? SHE'S A WOMAN and a Hockey MOM and her husband is a union man so what more do you bitches want?"

I always thought the worst of the Karl Roving of McCain in the year 2000, the most vicious and egregious slander was that he was brave and all but the torture in the POW camp unhinged him and made him really kind of insane .. can't trust his mind any more...

But after months of hearing him speak, hearing reports of his insane short temper, such things as (verified by reporters) calling his wife a "cunt" who was "painted up like a trollop" in front of a group he was addressing... I'm actually starting to think that was the ONE attack that actually had a basis in fact...

I agree that Sarah Palin is someone that can be admired and respected by women for what she's accomplished without being someone a liberal would vote for.

I'm a little bit freaked out, though, by the rampant misogyny posted on a lot of liberal comment board in the last couple of hours. Some beauties I've seen:

"dan quayle with tits"

"MILF"

"token ovaries"

along with folks exorciating her for working with young kids at home and saying things like "her husband is more qualified than she is." Misogyny from the Clinton-hating republicans was something I grudgingly accepted, but I find it disheartening to see this attacks now being used by democrats.

It's a desperation move, and a mark of how thin the GOP bench has become.

Calling her a "one-term governor" is really not fair to the experience of one-term governors, since she has actually been governor only a year and half. Before that her experience was as a small-town mayor.

I can't believe that any thinking American would feel comfortable with having someone with that resume -- male or female -- the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency. Particularly when her president would be a 72-year-old.

She will have a lot to prove. I think we're back in Dan Quayle territory.

why can't we just judge people by their qualifications and positions and what they've done?

Sarah Palin comes up short in all of these categories. It certainly doesn't make the race "much more interesting" to me. I would really not want a person with her lack of experience, who is in the midst of a scandal, who believes in creationism and is against a woman's right to choose to have such position of power in our government.

You write that the implication about her choosing to keep the down syndrome baby implies that a democrat would choose differently. Actually, almost everyone chooses differently.

A few years ago, after some time, my wife got pregnant with what would be our first baby. It turned out to have down syndrome, and we decided to terminate. I talked with the geneticist about it while we were thinking about what to do, and she observed that well over 90% of down syndrome fetuses are aborted.

I don't think the mirror is a democratic woman; I think it's a pro life woman who suddenly is forced with a very hard decision. The vast majority of them decide to terminate. Palin is different, according to the narrative, because she had the courage of her convictions.

Not only is she all of the above as you mentioned, a gun-toting, Christian conservative zealot but one who is a Creationist. This highlights her inability to understand the scientific method, to reason logically. This woman holds a pre-scientific perspective of the world, an inability to grasp the concepts of continuity, probability, dialectics . Truly appalling.

I guess McCain wanted to pick a running mate with exactly the same foreign policy credentials as Obama.

Message to Hillary supporters: Hop aboard and make history!

"Is this 44-year-old one-term governor with no foreign policy credentials really ready to be president if something were to happen to McCain? We don't know yet."

Actually Joan, we do. Read your own sentence: No. Foreign. Policy. Experience. We are in two wars right now and Palin's only experience is partaking in bridge-to-nowhere Alaskan politics and overseeing the iditerod. You have got to be joking with this editorial.

Can there be any doubt that if she were a man with the same level of experience, she would have come anywhere near being selected as McCain's VP? Of course not. McCain's choice is pure political cynicism at its finest--the PRIMARY reason Palin was chosen was because of her gender. Her appeal to the wingnut element of the Republican party was the secondary reason. The third was to reinforce McCain's credibility as The Maverick (TM).

Pure politics anyway you slice it.

Let's see, before today she had been the part-time mayor of a small town in Alaska, then that state's governor for LESS than one term (she's still the incumbent), she has NO policy experience on a national, let alone international, level, has been attached to a few scandals in Alaska, and, oh yeah, she was a beauty queen in the mid-80s. Very reassuring bona fides for a VP candidate. Yeah, good, sober, reasoned thought for McCain, the oldest man to run for president, to place her a 'heartbeat away.' She's anti-choice, pro-drilling, and an extreme Christian conservative. That should really entice disappointed Clintonistas, especially after HRC's admonition to them the other night. I think what we have here is a candidate who is completely out of touch who just selected 'Dan Quayle with a vagina' as his running mate.