It amuses me that the fine people in the northeast media establishment are so fired up about Sara Palin. If she was a democrat you would be touched by her folksy ways, but since she is republican, you are repulsed. Somehow Joe Biden gets a free ride with his folksy ways and the fact that he is physically unable to tell the truth. What about his brother and son being sued for tens of millions in a fraud trial? I hear crickets out there. What about his daughter snorting coke on video? More crickets. If that was Palin's daughter or god forbid Dick Chaney's, you would be tar and feathering both parents for their failures in raising their children but the free ride continues for your side.

Talk about timing! I just read the above title and post re Joe Biden's lies at another blog.

Excerpt:

Ok, we get it Biden is going to be allowed to fib (zero coverage) and Hillary will be burned at the stake for it (full-court-press coverage, heavy doses of outrage added).

But then came the vice presidential debates and I watched in horror as Joe Biden pretty much lied his way through the thing. ( Palin had her lies as well, but they were nuttn' compared to Joe’s whoppers!) I waited, hoping the media would cover Joe’s bucket o’ lies, expose him for his blunders and lies....but instead the pundits growled at Palin and patted Joe on the head and handed him milk bones and a chew toy. Reporters stayed silent or buried Joe's lies in back page items.

Here, from Politics Daily, via Carl. M Cannon, is a list of Biden’s debate lies:"

http://www.femisex.com/content/lies-damn-lies-biden-gets-a-pass-hillary-and-palin-not-so-much

The site lists all of Biden's lies told during the debate.

Joan get a clue: they all lie. Obama is vying for G.W. in most lies told by POTUS.

Why do you HATE this woman so much? She is like the popular girl you hated in high-school right. Time to get over it. Marie Cocco has called you out for sexist coverage. Femisex and The New Agenda have called you out for your sexism. Oh wait: Can we talk bout how fuckable Palin is again? You need some serious CBT and meds before talking about female pols.

Obama's LIES are the ones that count now! He's in power. Pay attention, that is what you should do. Oh, And remember America is going to cease to exist if Obama doesn't get his way. Laughable, yep! They all lie, Joan, but women are to be KILLED for it. See list of Joe's MASSIVE lies!

"Polarization" didn't stop a lot of us from supporting Hillary Clinton last year.

The liberal-hatred of Palin is oddly a mirror of the conservative's hatred of Clinton.

Kinda interestin'.

The best satire I have seen to date on Palin was by Maureen Dowd, "Sarah's Secret Diary",NYT, Wed, July 8. Very funny.

Maureen presentation of Sarah's 'Palinglish" was right on.

Having said that. Let's give this woman a break. Let Palin fade away, and stop guessing why she really resigned. There are more important issues and people in the world.

If we stopped reading, listening, watching about the woman, she'd disappear back into local Alaskan politics and her husband could get busy again with the secession organization he loved. People complain about the sexism in covering her, but it's also sexism that keeps her in the limelight. I wonder--were she not attractive, would Republicans care about her either? I doubt it. So attack me for that comment folks. I won't be back on this thread anyway. She is "arrogant in her ignorance." Hmmm... sounds like our last President to me. Sarah's brilliant at using the media, using her own "tough gal, hockey mom" image combined with a strong fashion sense to her benefit. She's shockingly and dismayingly ignorant when it comes to national and international matters. As others say, though, she will do well on Fox or stumping to stir up the knee-jerk far right. I hope she disappears from everyone's radar soon. One thing the republican guy said to Lawrence made sense. We have serious issues to debate, to work out--Palin's political life ain't one of them. PLEASE, Joan et al, move ON!

If that's the case, Joan, then as Editor-in-Chief and as a "feminist" -- how do you reconcile Salon's blatant misogyny against Sarah Palin in articles like these:

Gary Kamiya depicts Palin as a dominatrix here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/09/09/mistress_palin/

Cintra Wilson calls Palin a fuckable Christian Stepford wife here:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/10/palin_feminism/index.html?source=rss&aim=/mwt/feature

Tracy Clark-Flory on the Salon "broadsheet” posts "Sneak Peek: The Palin Porno" here:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2008/10/20/palin_porn/index.html

Thoughts? Or are you really Salon's Missogynist-in-Chief?

Ms. Walsh,

A large part of my (previous) amazement and incredulity in dealing with Governor Palin was my mistaken assumption that I was dealing with an authentic pioneer, a "hockey mom" with a hard-bitten personal philosophy that would inevitably clash with modern media-driven politics.

However, when I questioned that assumption, what became brutally clear was that Palin is the ultimate political operative, a 21st-Century version of Lenin's "useful idiot". She is the latest spokesperson for an inchoate, angry segment of primarily white, lower-class Americans who have become the base of the Republican Party. And that base is, by itself, incapable of political domination. But with a little help in the form of issues-oriented marketing, (and wealthy connections), then that base can frame the debate in an election.

A cursory examination of Palin's speeches reveal their content to consist of barely connected bromides and slogans. In this latest case, the use of the word "frivolous" is most illuminating.

For years, the Republican right-- or more accurately, the Republican Front of the neoconservative movement-- has railed against "frivolous" lawsuits, "excessive" awards, and the crying need for "tort reform". Likewise, this same amalgam was the source of the concept of "terrorists" as being the standard bearers of anyone not agreeing with their agenda. Further, one is "hounded from office" by the "liberal media", (or the updated meme, "Mainstream Media), despite one's efforts to do "the people's business". Why do these people "hate America"?

I cite these in order to demonstrate that Palin uses phrases and words that she can grasp, identify with, and use to bludgeon her opponents. She's perfect in this role, as her mentors needn't worry about any self-doubt or curiosity she may possess. Her academic and political record paint a fairly accurate picture of a woman completely flummoxed by nuance, uneasy with academics, and suspicious of the motives behind any criticism. Seeing herself as a woman of action and bold strokes, this frees her from the burden of self-examination. She believes in the athletic axiom: don't ponder, perform.

Her fallback position, effectively, is to lie. Not always an outright falsehood; rather, a mandala of inaccuracies, half-truths, omissions, misstatements, and distortions. She's done nothing wrong; she's a fighter for the people of Alaska; she's being hounded by an elitist media; she's not quitting, it's simply a case of being more effective away from the Governor's office.

She is simply the latest in a very long list of politicians-- and certainly, not all Republicans-- who have perservered by sheer dint of will and lack of scruples.

In this context, Palin appears as a very canny political operative. Nothing succeeds in politics quite like an ironclad belief in one's self. And Palin possesses that in spades.