Put Lipstick on Sarah Palin...And she's still Sarah Palin.
Which is to say: She still opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest but as governor cut funding for groups providing support to teen mothers. She still thinks it's OK to pretend she's always been a foe of earmarks and the famed "bridge to nowhere," though she liked both until it became convenient to dislike them. She still favors teaching creationism in the schools. She still doesn't think that global warming has anything to do with human activity. She's still confused about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. She's still someone who, until recently, hadn't "really focused much on the war in Iraq." (Though before the McCain campaign handed her a new script in late August, she, like most Americans, worried about "not knowing what the plan is to ever end the war we are engaged in.") She's still under investigation by an Alaska state ethics committee for misusing her official position to push for the firing of a state trooper who had divorced her sister (and she seems to have thought it was OK to trash her former brother-in-law in front of his child, to the point where an Alaska judge warned that such disparagement of a parent was "emotional child abuse.") She still took a state travel per diem during days she stayed in her own home. She still flirted for years with the Alaska Independence Party, a group with creepy links to Southern secessionist groups (and a group with a founder, Joe Vogler, whose anti-American comments leave Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the dust: "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. ... And I won't be buried under their damn flag.")
Oh, right, and her major qualification to be a heartbeat away from the presidency is still her two terms as mayor of a town smaller than many U.S. high schools, followed by 18 months as governor of a state with a population smaller than that of Memphis.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/10/put-lipstick-on-sarah-palin.aspx
Just a word about the usual excrescence from Karl Rove this morning. Obama knows this lipstick thing is a cynical, knowingly dishonest attempt to push the news cycle one more day into triviality before Palin has to actually face real scrutiny, and we have our first chance to see whether she is who she says she is. It's a desperate tactic to run out the clock or to find a way to navigate the now-tsunami of evidence that Sarah Palin is unfit for the vice-presidency on account of her total lack of knowledge or expertise in foreign affairs, the thinnness and extremism and recklessness of her public record as mayor and governor, and the obvious and most important fact that she clearly cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/youre-sane-bara.html
Palin is basically Rick Santorum cloned- but it's so much more fun to talk about her as meta-feminine symbol...According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, coverage of Palin's family outstripped coverage of her record by a factor of almost two to one: "Together, media narratives about McCain and the convention--including the proceedings themselves, Hurricane Gustav's impact, McCain's speech, and George Bush's role--accounted for 43% of the campaign newshole. Palin themes, including reaction to her selection, her public record, her personal and family life, and the question of sexism--accounted for 45%." From Hillary Clinton in the primary to Michelle Obama's patriotism to Palin now..there's too much at stake to get lost again in the gender wars, no matter how validating it feels to have our opinions asked. Palin's symbolism takes over from her dangerous reality.
As MomsRising said, "So far Gov. Palin has been silent on the issues which are important to mothers. We want to hear about how she and Sen. McCain will deal with the fact that over 40 million people in our nation don't have healthcare; about how they'll address the fact that too few parents have access to affordable early learning/child care for their children. We want to know what they are going to do to make sure mothers stop getting paid less for the same work as men just because they have children."
I'll close with a quote from the inimitable Judy Blume:
"I don't know about you, but I'm making my decisions based on the issues. There are no "do overs" here. We have to choose a leader whose judgment we respect. One who doesn't make important decisions based on gut feelings. That's why I want the calm, thoughtful, intelligent, knowledgeable candidate who will surround himself with the best and the brightest. That's why I'm supporting Barack Obama.
What I don't need is some sarcastic hockey mom who describes herself as a pit bull, who flaunts her pregnant teenager and her new special needs infant, a heartbeat away from the presidency."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morra-aaronsmele/the-palin-trap-meta-symbo_b_125159.html
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