By: Susan Estrich

I really hate defending Sarah Palin. I mean, I don't agree with her on anything. Seeing a woman at her level saying and doing some of the things she says and does is like nails screeching against a blackboard for me. And while she ultimately helps Democrats in any partisan contest, her brand of polarizing politics and efforts to annihilate the moderate wing of the Republican Party ultimately aren't very good for her own party (not my problem) or the country (everyone's problem). And while I'm at it, it drives me crazy when she goes around blaming the McCain campaign for her mistakes instead of taking responsibility. The list goes on. The problem is that the media can't seem to figure out that she deserves to be treated like *** Armey or Newt Gingrich or *** Cheney. Disagree with her. Point out that she's wrong more often than she's right, and that she doesn't know what she's talking about on key issues. Call her a quitter, by all means, and a sore sport and a bad loser. Ask her hard questions, or even medium-hard questions, and see if she can answer. Push her on whether she's more interested in fame and glory than making change happen. Just don't put her on the cover in running shorts. I'm talking, of course, about the Newsweek cover, which took a picture Palin posed for as part of a spread in Runner's World magazine about how she loves running and used it to turn her into a pinup girl. She is not a girl, and she is not a pinup. Palin criticized the cover as "sexist and oh-so-expected." She's right. But too many liberals are being quoted praising it. How soon they forget. Calling Gov. Palin the "Caribou Barbie" and "Governor Gidget" actually pushed her numbers higher among women. It's both sexist and stupid. It was only when Palin fell on her face with Katie Couric that many women felt free to abandon her. The irony is that the cover, far from skewering Palin, as was its clear intent, helps her. The picture overwhelms the words -- "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah? She's Bad News for the GOP and Everyone Else, Too" -- and reduces it to a hit piece. It makes Palin a heroine to the people who hate the liberal media, reinforcing the view that the media are biased against conservatives. It makes women like me horrendously uncomfortable, because sexism is not OK under any circumstances. And it makes nonpolitical, moderate women (you know, the kind who decide every election) more sympathetic to a woman who, on most issues (not just abortion, but healthcare, for instance, and stem cell research), is on the opposite side of them. Oh, yes, and for sure it will sell books. Magazines, too. Everybody wins except women, who are still eye candy, even if they get to the point of being their party's nominee for vice president. That's the message, and it applies to all of us. It's not a liberal versus conservative issue: I've seen just as bad and worse done to Hillary Clinton. It's about sexism and powerful women and how they can be trivialized. And this is why, once again, I have to defend Sarah Palin.

Couric interview had no impact on me. 

 It was the Pants On Fire Lies that did it for me.

If Palin was more honest I could vote for her.  

She did some good things for Alaska like raising the taxes on the big oil companies and giving the money to the people.

A token female without a brain.  If McCain was going to go that route he should have at least picked a blonde. 

Carrie Prejean on 2012.  Go Republicans!!! (nobody will question her age, will they?)

 

my problem with sarah palin: she is a joe six pack. she is a hockey mom. she is your regular every day conservative housewife who happens to like rush limbaugh so much she imitates what he says. but the president of the united states is not and will never again be a joe six pack. we went through that with dubya. it brought us to our knees. Presidents are not and were never intended to be everyday people of average intelligence. if our country was founded by average people, it'd have failed miserably 200 years ago.

I guess we know where that leaves you, Jewda.

Jewdakris:

 if our country was founded by average people, it'd have failed miserably 200 years ago.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't know about that, seems to me the less average the President is/was, the more messed up things get/got.

 

=]

I agree jewdarkis.  Her intellect is just way too average.  Even a bit on the dopey side.

Well said Jewdakris.

 

Jewdakris:

my problem with sarah palin: she is a joe six pack. she is a hockey mom. she is your regular every day conservative housewife who happens to like rush limbaugh so much she imitates what he says. but the president of the united states is not and will never again be a joe six pack. we went through that with dubya. it brought us to our knees. Presidents are not and were never intended to be everyday people of average intelligence. if our country was founded by average people, it'd have failed miserably 200 years ago.

I think you're all missing the point of the article. I even pasted the picture of the newsweek magazine cover to make sure you know what it's about.

I agree with the author of the article in the sense that Newsweek people were trying to hurt Palin by posting that picture but they are helping her. lol

Nah, we didn't miss the point.   It is just that is all fluff to many of us. 

What would really help Palin is if she made the effort to be more truthful with here statements.

What really hurts Palin is when she IS truthful. She was a viable political candidate until she opened her mouth. As the New York Times pointed out, Palin's poor grammar is on a level with Bush, and he was another eye-roller. She's a Barbie doll with the media, not a bulldog... and even when she tries to be a bulldog, such as having a snit with David Letterman and his reference to teenage moms at hockey games, she comes across as personally insulted and snippy rather than as a champion for a national cause.

BTW, Tom Ridge has also come out with a book this past year, "The Test of Our Times". He's served as a congressman, a governor, and as the first head of Homeland Security. He was one of the people interviewed by McCain for vice president, but they couldn't agree on the abortion issue. Tom Ridge is a moderate republican. 

Stand Sarah Palin's credentials beside Tom Ridge's credentials in running for president, and you'll understand why Palin makes me laugh so hard. 

Palin Comes Out Swinging in Book Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:43 PM By: Ronald Kessler When Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska, I wrote that she seemed to have lost what many of us admired about her: her nerve. Now with publication of her book “Going Rogue: An American Life,” Palin has come out swinging, reminding us of everything we like about her. That favorable reaction is only enhanced by the media’s attacks on her. The New York Times’ faux conservative columnist David Brooks called her a “joke.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Brooks said, “The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host.” That kind of condescension only underscores the fact that, in contrast to candidate Barack Obama, Palin has real accomplishments to show for herself. As a mayor, Palin cut property taxes 40 percent and reduced her own salary. Just before being appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003, Palin led an ethics probe of the commission’s chairman, Randy Ruedrich, who was also the state GOP chairman. Facing conflict-of interest allegations, Ruedrich admitted ethics violations and resigned. As governor, Palin ultimately opposed a federal earmark for the $400 million so-called bridge to nowhere. She used her veto power to cut nearly $2 billion from the state budget. She was successful in enacting ethics reform legislation. While pushing to develop more energy resources, she increased taxes on oil production, saying the companies had bribed legislators to keep taxes low. That enabled her to deliver a rebate of $1,200 to each state resident. In contrast, Obama had virtually no accomplishments beyond getting himself elected. Although he often talked about his work as a community organizer, he never achieved his one goal of eliminating asbestos from a single housing project in Chicago. But the swooning mainstream media never pointed that out. For a year, the media ignored the fact that Obama’s pastor and mentor was a bigot. Although Palin has no foreign policy experience, neither did Ronald Reagan. Yet most now recognize him as one of the great presidents for being instrumental in ending the Cold War. Like Reagan, Palin projects optimism, pride in America, and determination to reform the government and vanquish our enemies — exactly the opposite of our current apologist-in-chief. In retrospect, Palin’s underwhelming performance before the withering stares of Katie Couric and Charles Gibson seems of little consequence. Although her decision to resign as governor remains troubling, it is understandable in view of the millions of dollars in legal fees she faced as a result of bogus ethics complaints. As book reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote in the New York Times, “The self-portrait created in these pages recalls the early profiles of Ms. Palin that appeared just after her debut on the national stage: a self-reliant frontierswoman who knows how to field dress a moose; a feisty gal with lots of moxie and pep; a former beauty queen with a George W. Bush-like aptitude for mangling the English language.” In fact, the book was written with a collaborator. If Bush were as articulate as Palin, he would have been a far more successful president. In the end, people make their decisions on how to vote based in large part on character. They want to know whether the candidate is the genuine article. In the case of the gun-toting, diaper-changing former governor, there is no doubt she is. Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. She must be doing something right to get all the card carrying commies so riled up!!!!

 LOL

I don't understand the fuss about Sarah Palin. She resigned her job after promising to fulfill her responsibilities. The first time things got rough, or turned out not as she liked would she quit the white house? I could never vote for her.

What is missing in politics? Integrity and character. She seems to have both. Pretty scary proposition to incumbants.

Sarah Palin's Integrity: Firing a Police Officer without just cause (resulting in ethics probe). Lying about "thanks, but no thanks on the bridge to nowhere." Lying about "death panels."  

Sarah Palin's Character: Quitting her job as governor not even half way through her term. Inability to complete 4 years of college at the institution she committed to. Blaming everyone but herself for her political loss. Publicly humiliating coworkers.

anyone who would like to add points about Palin's lack of integrity and character (which there are several more examples of) is welcomed to.

 To say Palin has integrity with all her Pants on Fire lies is like saying Charles Manson has integrity.  Delusional, blinded, rose-colored glasses, drinking koolaid, sheeple maybe could say that.

Character yes,  Palin has lot's of character.

After all she does watch them Russians daily who live right in her back door,  and Alaska is not the ends of the earth they do get magazines there.  you bethcha.

Sagamore:

I don't understand the fuss about Sarah Palin. She resigned her job after promising to fulfill her responsibilities. The first time things got rough, or turned out not as she liked would she quit the white house? I could never vote for her.

GOOD point Sag, lucky then that obamesiah and Saint biden were unemployed when they got elected....NICE TRY!!

 Last time I checked Palin did not quit the governor's job because she was elected for anything Iceman.  

 She was being investigated for unethical practices is why she quit.

try reading up on it for a change pants on fire girl, all charges were dropped as unsubstantiated, but you knew that and just had to get in a little propaganda dintcha?