like governing a state. Is she dreaming of becoming a community organizer?

It is pretty obvious.

Either Palin is trying to duck an impending scandal, or she is aiming at hosting a show on one of the cable networks (most likely on one of those religion channels that no one watches, or Fox NEWS).

Former English grad student here. LOVE your moniker! "We . . . Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace the lineaments of a plummet-measured face."

Well, yeah, I figure she's headed for Fox. (Dear God, that voice and that craziness in the morning????) But, I'm trying to understand readerreader's perspective. He, and Bill Kristol, apparently are the only 2 non-palins who view this as a brilliant political move. I'm trying to unwind that tangled logic. I can't expect a sane person to explain it to me!

Without a doubt, you are THE most thoughtful and articulate defender of Palin posting, pretty much anywhere as far as I can see. I thank you for that, as I'm sure do others here. I don't agree with you at all about her - I think she's just solidified her base and lost almost everyone else - but it's good to see someone who isn't a mere idolator coming to her rescue.

I think a lot of people are as puzzled about her methods as appalled. And you gamely try to explain your side, rather than just hissing as some of the conservative (and liberal) posters do. I appreciate your fortitude and civility - you absolutely make for better quality Salon.

Sometimes you have good points.

Yes, there was misogyny directed at Palin here at Salon. XH is certainly no expert on misogynist language since he defines misogyny very narrowly to suit his own purposes. However, misogyny directed at Palin seems to have very little to do with her current very strange resignation speech. It was pressured speech if I ever heard pressured speech -- and believe me, I have. It was also quite rambling. Unless it was meant to obscure rather than to inform, there is no way that it could succeed politically. What Palin's supporters never seem to question is whether her personality and intellect make her qualified for national leadership. I guess GWB set the bar too low for them.

As to your comments about Vietnam vets not being sorry they served, that is a strange blanket statement. My ex-husband was quite sorry he served. (Of course, he also said that killing there was the "ultimate high." Hmm.... Maybe he had mixed feelings. He didn't like serving his country. He did like violence.) You seem to forget that many Vietnam vets were drafted. They didn't want to go.

Even McNamara said it was a mistake ... finally.

What a shock that Maureen Dowd devoted her New York Times column Sunday to attack Sarah Palin. It did not so much criticize Alaska's governor for prematurely stepping down from her official duties as to finish off what sister snipers Katie Couric and Tina Fey began last fall.

The assassination of Sarah Palin - by media.

For those who didn't pay attention, Mrs. Palin's unexpected stratospheric rise as a national political figure threatened the media's preordained presidency of Barack Obama.

In light of how the Obama machine took down Hillary Clinton, which unsettled many feminists who believed 2008 was their time, many who saw sexism at play - the destruction of an ascendant Republican female icon was an urgent imperative for the Democratic Party.

In conjunction with the laws of political correctness as perfected by the Democratic Media Complex, it would take prominent women to take down an unlikely and unexpected conservative feminist symbol that threatened to steal away Mrs. Clinton's votes from the Chosen One.

While the vanquished then-senator from New York conspicuously removed herself from this task - going so far as praising Sen. John McCain's running mate as "a very composed and effective debater" - a trio of media partisans, each with a unique skill set, rose to the task of tearing down Sarah Palin.

Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey - Obama's Angels (featuring Joy Behar in the role of "Bosley") - used a potent mix of mockery, snobbery and vitriol to undermine Mrs. Palin's feminist bona fides.

They are what my wife calls "pad throwers," an allusion to the shower room scene in the Stephen King film "Carrie," in which the popular girls throw sanitary napkins and tampons at the film's namesake.

Simply put, they are bullies. And female bullies - "Mean Girls" as Miss Fey's film calls them - are the cruelest kind.

Primarily motivated by a desire to keep abortion "safe, legal and rare," female liberals in the media have carte blanche to do and say anything.

But since Mrs. Palin, a mother of five including a boy who was known to have Down syndrome before he was born, is a potent symbol of the pro-life movement, she is considered an enemy of the sisterhood.

Miss Dowd's attempted takedown of Mrs. Palin is less skillful surgery than it is name calling using fun noun and adjective pairings. Think "Mad Libs." And, that's exactly what Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey are. Once the ladies did their job, liberal men like Jon Stewart and David Letterman had the cover to join the hate campaign.

While Mrs. Palin is at ease with her gender, as well as her place in the workplace and at home, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey convey a base insecurity in their feminine skin. Their rage is fueled by liberalism's false feminist dogma and they take it out on a woman who chose not to join their angry sorority.

The governor of Alaska's compelling narrative - athlete, beauty queen, wife, mother, hunter, successful politician - shows adherents of narrow leftist dogma that, perhaps, women really can have it all. Most importantly: freedom of thought.

In calling Alaska's governor "Caribou Barbie," Miss Dowd used beauty as a weapon to diminish Mrs. Palin's achievements. A man would be reprimanded for this, but Miss Dowd is a Pulitzer Prize-winning pad thrower and is licensed for such vindictive pettiness.

"Caribou," of course, is a stab at Mrs. Palin's backwater, Red State ways, attacks on which an Upper Westside liberal snob can never get enough. Miss Dowd goes on to ridicule "Sarah's country-music melodramas." This is her barely veiled attempt to call Mrs. Palin "white trash." And this has been the loathsome subtext of all media criticism of the Palins. They even went after their children. Mercilessly.

And Mrs. Palin during the Letterman saga finally cried, "Enough!"

Exposed in the relentless Palin attacks is not just political bias, but unmitigated class bias. The American mainstream media in its current free-fall is begging for more comeuppance when it continues to berate the values and lifestyles of the folks in flyover country who in simpler times used to be considered valued customers.

While "empathy" and "tolerance" may be liberalism's highest values, Miss Dowd offers her conservative victims none. They are caricatured, demeaned and dehumanized. They are to be mocked and ridiculed to the point where the other students point and laugh. The MoDo template is so simple and repetitive it could be written into a software program.

Perhaps resigning from her first term in office may hurt Mrs. Palin's attempts to run for higher office. Even I, a Palin supporter, now have qualms about her seeking higher office. But politics is not the most important way to influence our country, and reinforce conservatism's relevancy in the current global disorder. Media is.

Sarah Palin may best serve her country by entering the media fray. In the pursuit of taking her down, Misses Dowd, Couric and Fey have created the person who burns the liberal media prom down.

Hopefully, when she leaves office Mrs. Palin starts to work on her telekinetic powers.