Sarah. Oh so cute for a pit bull and soooo AMERICAN

One thing is obvious about this whole thing. Sarah Palin has got you liberals running scared. The heart of middle America can identify with her and her values...the values that liberals so disdain. She is a successful career woman with a husband and a family. Liberals hate nuclear families. Your heroes are unwed Hollywood types and single, husband-less ghetto moms or lesbian lovers. Middle America is made of hard working men and women raised in nuclear families...you know the ones with a mother and a father, both of whom usually have to work to support their families and...the unwed, single ghetto mothers you so admire. Sarah's daughter, pregnant and knowing who the baby's father is, will be wed soon, giving the child a traditional surname---the father's. A very un-liberal manifestation of traditional America---you can have sex for fun or love but you better be ready to pay the consequences----child support or marriage---somebody's gotta raise the baby.

-- xeniades

I'm not sure if your letter is sincere, but okay. Are Michelle and Barack not a nuclear family? You'll have to explain what you mean. Michelle Obama was called a "baby mama" although she was clearly married to her children's father. Her children have their father's name, Obama.

Is it a conservative value that country people and city people must hate one another and fight one another while the nation is in a crisis? George Bush won on exactly the same wedge arguments four and eight years ago.

I live in a city, but I've also lived in small towns. I have cousins who are rednecks, and also cousins who are not white. Isn't this the new "real" American family? The Palins kids are as cute as can be...and so are the Obama girls. The Obama girls are no less American and no less nuclear family.

The one thing you have right though is that my heroes are certainly hollywood types and lesbian lovers. When they are hollywood lesbian lovers, it's better. Some of these lesbian lovers also live in small towns and own guns and are voting for Obama. It must be frustrating for old fashioned Republicans that family values don't just include white, leave it to Cleaver families from the 1950's anymore. (And the old stereotypes about "liberals" don't hold anymore...) In 2008, even the lame duck Republican Vice President has a daughter who he loves and is proud of--who has a lesbian lover. Family values are a lot more complicated (and for that--hotter) than they used to be, regardless of your party affiliation.

I guess I'm coming to different conclusions. To me, McCain caving to the right is a sign of weakness not strength. He's been following that path for the last several years. And it's not mentioned here, but there are stories on Bloomberg and elsewhere that moderate Republicans feel left out in the cold. Again. So I wonder about his strength of will and leadership qualities.

And this VP decision seems reckless to me. The vetting appears to be a shoot from the hip affair. People can dismiss Obama's qualifications all they want, but we've had over a year and a half of kicking his tires. He managed to get over 17 million votes. Now we have 60 days to look at Palin. Only a few hundred delegates voted for her. She may or may not be a good pick, that's not the point. Is this what we can expect from a McCain Administration?

And I'm starting to wonder about McCain's relationship with the Military. His voting record on Vet's issues is not impressive to say the least. I'm not getting any sense of vision of where McCain will take this country beyond the neo-con fantasy.

And fantasy it is. Henry Kissinger once said that Americans never go to war for realpolitik reasons, we have to cloak the affair in moral overtones. It worked for Iraq, for awhile; but will it work again in Georgia? Will the Chinese and OPEC keep fronting us the dough to fight these wars? The Russians are already using gas and oil to take our allies in Europe and the Ukrainians off the table.

If you are rich, or at least have some assets, you can diversify out of this country and the USD. McCain will keep your taxes low whilst you make your getaway. Most of America, though will be left behind, stuck with the tab.

...is a bait. The campaign is waiting for someone to call her the associated pejorative and then whine about sexism.

You know it.

...and the truth is always so bloody painful.

Sarah Palin has got you liberals running scared.

First we'd have to take her seriously, but she doesn't have a position on any pressing national issues. Wedge-issue hypocrisies don't count.

Please explain why you neocons are so defensive about a little light criticism of a few of her more obvious failings? Honestly, if Palin's so fragile maybe you should send her back to Alaska and get somebody's who's up to it.

A very un-liberal manifestation of traditional America---you can have sex for fun or love but you better be ready to pay the consequences----child support or marriage---somebody's gotta raise the baby.

I thought we agreed not to bring up Palin's failed family life. Change your mind already?

Family values are a lot more complicated (and for that--hotter) than they used to be, regardless of your party affiliation.

Explaining away right-wing hypocrisy is certainly more complicated lately, isn't it?

The first part of my letter was quoting the person I was responding to, and the second part was me. Sorry, if that was confusing. Next time I'll remember to use emphasis tags...

Palin delivered a roc-em, soc-em speech (written by a Bush

speechwriter) full of red meat for the RNC oinkers.

But the Republicans rhetoricians can't seem to decide what they're

putting lipstick on--a moose-shootin' hockey mom--a barracuda--a

pitbull?

The animal they're putting lipstick on is a pig. But Palin is the

lipstick and John McCain is the pig.

The problem that the McCain campaign now faces is that John McCain is

still at the top of the ticket.

Choosing Palin as his trophy vice doesn't change that.

As far as the true-believers are concerned, McCain is a drag on the

Palin ticket. But they're suckers for cheap lipstick and bad drag.

"I am woman, hear me roar.

I am pitbull, hear me bark.

I am barracuda, watch me bite.

I am shark, watch me jump."