I think she has an annoying energizer bunny quality and a perfectly hideous accent.

McCain's campaign is counting on these kinds of sexist attacks to remind women about Hillary Clinton's media gangrape which will deliver the women's vote to McCain in November.

It's over for Barack Dukakis.

just wondering

Can we please stop talking about Hillary. Hillary made a completely stupid statement, about McCain's chocie of Palin.

I thought Palin looked liked she just stepped out of Bob Jones University. If I still lived in the mid west, we would say she' rather corny.

She is an anit abortion extremist and is a member of the far right "Feminist for Life"(rather oxymoron). McCain's choice should fire up the pro-choice republican and independents.

I can tell you Obama supporters are deligthed with McCain's pick.

Not sure what McCain was thinking. Except he will be able to get the Jesus foot soldiers to work for him now. His choice shows a complete lack of respect for the VP office.

Everything is fair game except Palin's beauty pageant? What makes that so sacred?

I'm getting awfully tired of people finding predjudice where there is none.

They called Bill Clinton a racist for noting that 90% of African Americans, after adoring the Clintons for years, switched to the unknown Obama in three minutes. And no one was allowed to ask why.

And for your information, the media did not attack Hillary because she was a woman, but because the Clintons are the most knowledgeable leaders of our time. And corporate media prefer a power vacuum in government which they can fill.

Calling someone a bigot is a disgusting tactic, and it's been used more than enough in this campaign.

Pain's speech today sounded like a high school speech.

Please make it a point to defend Obama at every instance of racism (blatant or perceived) used in this campaign.

I think Sarah Palin's "beauty pageant training" is fair game at this early stage, while we're still wondering what her qualifications are. In many small towns (as in my own Bay Area small town north of San Francisco, which is about twice the size of Wisalla, Alaska), the positions of city council members and even mayor, while elected, are unpaid and not fulltime. It's fair to question whether Sarah Palin's resume with city government includes experience that would be comparable to Barack Obama's or any of the other Republican VP contenders. It's hard to shake the sense that her gender is her only appeal to John McCain and the evangelical base that is his utmost concern. And if she's good-looking, all the better, right?

You don't think that Governor Palin's beauty pageant training does not help her poise? Have you ever watch one of those pageants? Whether wallking in heels while in bathing suits or answer inane questions with vapid answers contestants seem to have a remarkable poise and an ability to deal with anything, however superficial.

The fact she was in a beauty pagent and they are fine, or the fact that one shouldn't point out she was in a beauty pagent because they aren't fine?

Or do you think he was just wrong, and she wasn't beauty-pagent poised just politician-poised?

I mean, if it was a guy, he couldn't point out "he talked like a soldier due to his military training" or something like that?

Is everyone supposed to lay off the beauty pagent...from the same campaign that brought us a commerical with Obama, Paris and Britney?

And she has a big brunette beehive on top of her head.

She must be retro-repub

you can be a beauty queen...

This is absurd.

Of course much of her poise comes from beauty pageant training, how could it not and why is it sexist to say so?

And how could the participation in a narrow-defining, beauty-objectifying pony show not be demeaning, anachronistic and worthy of discussion...

...another discussion (from this thread) altogether.

Whether or not Paul Begala got it right?

Is it like, bringing up one's dark past that is better left behind? Has she repudiated it?

Joan,

Please quit, immediately.

You do not get it.

Fundamentally.

We are living in a country that bloodlessly, for us, killed 1M people over the past 5 years.

We are living in a country that is in deep denial about global warming, and the DEATHS that this will inflict on millions as millions are forced to migrate for drinking water.

We are living in a country that is in deep denial of the fact that we have adopted torture and constant surveillance as standard policy -- every American is photographed over 200 times a day.

This is not some stupid foolishness over gender politics.

This is survival of the planet -- and you CAN'T get it, or choose not to.

Right on the money, Joan.

The last few weeks on the blogosphere have been quite taxing, and the comments below--as well as those I've received for other remarks on Open Salon--reflect that.

It's painfully apparent that many on the left have such an ax to grind with the Republican Party that we don't seem even to pretend any longer to be fair to the dignity of our opponents.

You're right here, Joan, because you're trying to be a bit level-headed about it. I fear, however, that many of us on the Left find it terribly hard to quit while we're ahead. We've resorted to playing all sorts of nasty--yes, nasty, not dirty--games to undercut our obviously lacking opponents whilst ignoring how dismaying it is to find those same tactics employed against us. (Would we have been so keen to do the same were a female Democrat our nominee? Would it be right to do so?)

Governor Palin has many contemptible positions and a decidedly thin curriculum. We should concentrate our criticisms on those weaknesses, with precisely the fairness that we'd expect our candidate to be treated with--male or female, black or white.

Anything less shames our progressive cause.

http://wonkette.com/assets/resources/2006/12/Miss%20Wasilla%201984.jpg

I don't see anything wrong with that. Mentioning that she may have acquired poise by being a beauty contestant in not of itself sexist. Clearly Begala loves and is proud of his wife and doesn't see anything wrong with mentioning that facet of beauty contests.

However, Obama supporters will make a big mistake if they make Palin's gender a big issue.

John McCain is praying that you do that.

In small towns all over our nation Miss Cantaloupe, Rodeo Queen, Little Miss contests, and other beauty pageants are an annual part of an "exciting" celebration and social life.

Holly Hunter starred in a movie called "Miss Firecracker." Rent it to understand what I mean.

Democrats need to pick their battles. (Yes, I do prefer that they win.) They will lose if they focus upon the feminist view that beauty pageants are evil and beauty contestants are airheads. That is a nothing issue,

However, the fact that Sarah Palin wants to force victims of rape and incest to bear children who are the result of that victimization -- now that's an issue!