French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévi is back to explain why Roman Polanski ought to be released from prison already. Add this one to the long list of Polanski defenses: Polanski is a human!

Lévi writes for the Huffington Post:

Time is passing. And Roman Polanski is still in prison, goes to bed and wakes up in prison, sees his wife one hour a week in the visiting room of a prison—all while his 11 and 16-year-old children, when they have the courage to go to school, have to confront the gaze of friends who have heard at home that the dad of the little Polanskis, the man everyone fluttered around vicariously via their children, the parent of a student that they were exhilarated to recognize on TV the night of the Césars, was ultimately a criminal, a rapist, a sodomite, a pedophile.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/for-roman-polanksi_b_336126.html

Roman Polanski, the argument goes, is just like you and me. He has a life! A wife! Children! A César award! Okay—maybe Roman Polanski isn’t the ideal stand-in for the Rapist Everyman. But film accolades aside, Lévi’s point is that Polanski has been a very visible and productive member of society in both his professional and personal life. The implication is that happily married men can’t simultaneously be criminals, good fathers can’t also be rapists, and international award-winners can’t find the time to prey on children.

Our tendency to strictly separate the categories of “rapist” and “human” is something we’re going to have to deal with again and again once we really start dealing with sexual assaults and the people who commit most of them—people with lives, wives, and children, if not Polanski’s fame and fortune. It’s not going to be easy to expand our idea of “rapist” to encompass otherwise upstanding members of society, but I think the continued media attention on Polanski’s case will help us get there. If the public is willing to believe that one of the most celebrated film directors in the world is capable of rape, maybe they’ll also be willing to consider less sensationalized rape cases with an open mind.

Photo via Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary, Wikipedia Commons

At first, the Huffington Post was content to objectify women whose décolletage, nipples, and other breast parts are a main fixture of their work—actresses, models, and reality television stars. Then, it moved on to objectifying female news anchors. With its cache of famous people with boobs running low, the Huffington Post has recently expanded the category of women it’s willing to exploit. This time, it’s chosen women married to baseball players. Or as I like to call them, “normal people whose bodies are none of your business!”

In order to stir up the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, the Huffington Post has assembled a photo gallery of each team’s “wives and girlfriends” and instructed its readers to “PICK YOUR FAVORITE YANKEES AND RED SOX HOTTIES AND VOTE ON WHICH TEAM’S GOT THE GOODS, AND WHICH TEAM IS STRIKING OUT.” The women are then ranked on a scale of zero (”Stee-rike!”) to ten (”Grand slam!”).

On the surface, ranking the significant others of baseball players isn’t much of a stretch from rating Hollywood breasts from “gross” to “gorgeous” (ugh). I can understand the widespread appeal of checking out Salma Hayek’s boobs:

But I can’t understand why readers would take the time to click through a slideshow of normal women who are pretty much just sitting around. There’s no overflowing cleavage or nipple slips to be seen here, just some skirt suits, baseball caps, and a few dresses. These women, who happen to be in relationships with athletes, are only one celebrity step above street ogling, and yet they’re deemed deserving of the sexual scrutiny of thousands of pathetic desk jockeys. In this case, the couple of famous faces—like major-league girlfriends Kate Hudson and Minka Kellie—only serve to provide unfair comparison to the collection of regular women, like Kellie Pedroia, Tiffany Ortiz, and Kristen Bay, who are all pretty attractive and are all rated around the “Meh” mark.

But the readers aren’t actually rating the women. In this contest, the men compete to have the hottest wife. That’s the most offensive aspect of this little slide-show—to the Huffington Post, these women aren’t even worth enough to be ranked based on their looks (a dubious honor, I’ll admit). Instead, the women function solely as a mechanism for assigning value to a baseball player.

When a reader marks a woman as a “stee-rike,” he’s not just saying he thinks she’s ugly—he’s saying she’s not worthy to be married to a guy who plays baseball. And when he grants her a “grand slam,” he graciously deems her worthy of dating the guy. Nobody gets a grand slam, by the way—in this game, even the famous, talented and beautiful Kate Hudson is only a 6.5. That means she’s just barely worthy of dating Alex Rodriguez. In what sort of fucked-up ranking system is that phrase even possible?

The Huffington Post’s latest foray into celebrity eye-candy linkbait, “Iconic Swimsuit Movie Moments,” comes in two flavors: Male and Female.

The Huffington Post, it seems, has tired of just fetishizing female bodies, and has moved onto more equal-opportunity objectification. Since it’s too much to ask for a Web site to refrain from objectifying any humans, is this a cause for celebration?

Blogger Echidne of the Snakes, for one, isn’t convinced by the Web site’s newfound gender-neutrality. The effort falls short of equal exploitation, she writes, as HuffPo’s readership appears to decisively prefer one set of skin-baring pics over the other. So while Phoebe Cates, Ali Larter, and Bo Derek are currently workin’ it to the top of the Web site’s “Popular Stories” slots . . .

. . . Daniel Craig, Patrick Swayze, and Sacha Baron Cohen are being boxed out of the top spots by such decidedly nonsexual fare as this:

That’s right: Huffington Post readers are more interested in discovering the key to happiness than checking out semi-naked dudes. Say it ain’t so!

Echidne’s got her theories: “Huffington Post wants to make money and advertising money is in clicks. And what gets clicked is bodies of chicks. By dicks? I’m getting carried away here, but let me just add that I would have thought Huffington Post has female readers, too. I guess their clicks don’t have the power.”

So, is the Huffington Post engineering some sort of mass sexist conspiracy to push naked ladies onto the front-page while subjugating the male bodies to barely-linked territory? Not exactly. HuffPo is just cashing in on that same old mass sexist conspiracy—the one that’s been around long before blogs figured out how to make money off of it.

Here’s a refresher on that old thing: Young, thin, hairless, and female bodies are for being sexy. Aged, hairy, fat, and male bodies are for making jokes about how un-sexy they are.

By adding the “Male” gallery—and encouraging readers to click through for the hot swimsuit moments—the Huffington Post isn’t making an honest attempt to expand the definition of what’s sexy, or to ease the objectification of women by objectifying men alongside them. What the Huffington Post is doing, I think, is responding to some recent criticism by turning the heat on its readers, not its editors.

Once HuffPo offers up the naked girls and the naked boys, it’s not up to the site’s editors anymore to determine which bodies are click-worthy—”you” decide for them.

Unlike Echidne, I don’t think the popularity of the female body on HuffPo’s site necessarily means that the site’s female “clicks don’t have the power” of its male readers. I just think that we haven’t been taught to objectify male bodies like we have female ones. Cosmo’s valiant efforts aside, the objectification of women is a mainstream entertainment standard—and both women and men grow up taking it all in. It’s telling that HuffPo’s male beefcake gallery has to be filled out with a couple of joke entries—Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat, Eddie Murphy in Norbit—in order to meet sexy slideshow quota. Women—even heterosexual women—are more likely to check out photos of bikini-bedecked females than Speedo-clad males. This trend doesn’t let purveyors of female flesh off the hook, of course. Offering men photos of girls in swimsuits helps men see women as objects. Offering women photos of girls in swimsuits helps women feel bad for not looking like them.

Is the Huffington Post’s focus on scantily-clad women still sexist? Sure, but it’s a sexist view that comes with the support of at least 2,890,011 male and female viewers. Would HuffPo print a sexist op-ed, even if it were of interest to millions of Internet trolls? Probably not—HuffPo readers are usually self-aware enough to shun clear sexism when it’s written in black-and-white. But when it’s written in tits and ass? Click click.

If the Huffington Post decides to keeps up its gender-neutral exploitation efforts—despite the poor page-views for the male portion—I have just one request. When you’re objectifying male bodies, can you try not to ridicule female bodies while you’re doing it?

But as a consumer of nipple shots, such versatility can become confusing. It’s often difficult to know the socially acceptable reaction to every stray projection of skin that catches your eye. Should you high-five your buddy or vomit discreetly into your hands? I’m here to help.

Taking a page from our friends at the Huffington Post, I’ve compiled some photos of famously exposed nipples—complete with “NSFW Zoom” (Not Janet Jackson, she’s too obvious). First, review the Guidelines For Socially Acceptable Reactions to Nipples. Then, check out some Famously Exposed Nipples (NSFW-Zoomed into focus) and see if your gut response to each biological structure is in line with society’s nipple norms.

Guidelines For Socially Acceptable Reactions to Nipples:

* All of a woman’s breast revealed except for the nipple, which may be obscured by clothing, hair, or paint: sexy.

* All of a woman’s breast revealed including the nipple: sexy; obscene.

* Renaissance-era artistic rendering of a woman’s breast including the nipple: art.

* All of a man’s chest revealed including the nipple: null. Unlike female nipples, which are either HOT or TOTALLY GROSS, male nipples are just there.

* All of a woman’s breast revealed including the nipple while breastfeeding: not sexy; not obscene; to some, however, still totally fucking gross, far more disgusting than a normal female nipple, whose only reproductive function ought to be arousing you on-sight (Note: it is not yet socially acceptable to take photos of women breastfeeding in public in order to engineer “gotcha” nipple slip headlines).

* All of a woman’s breast including the nipple, which the woman inadvertently flashes for the camera (also known as a “nipple slip”): sexy; obscene; still, manages to maintain the relative innocence of the woman who has inadvertently revealed the nipple, making the it that much sexier; unless of course it is Pamela Anderson’s nipple, in which case the nipple slip is simply very obscene and not sexy at all, because Pam Anderson is agreed to be too slutty to pull off the treasured nipple slip dynamic.

—

Famously Exposed Nipples:

A. B.

C. D.

E. F.

G. H.

—

Socially Acceptable Reactions to These Nipples, Revealed:

A. Natalie Portman’s nipple slip: sexier. SUITABLE REACTION: High-five.

B. Pamela Anderson’s nipple slip: obscene; not sexy. SUITABLE REACTION: Vomit discreetly into hands.

C. Lindsay Lohan’s nipple, obscured by hair: sexy. SUITABLE REACTION: Retweet.

D. Ian McKellen’s nipple (male): null. SUITABLE REACTION: Curse your “celebrity nipple” google search for leading you astray.

E. Lady Gaga’s nipple: sexy; obscene. SUITABLE REACTION: High-five.

F. Beyonce’s nipple slip: sexier. SUITABLE REACTION: High-five.

G. A Real Housewife’s nipple slip, obscured by clothing: sexy. SUITABLE REACTION: High-five.

H. Mona Lisa’s nipple (rumored): art. SUITABLE REACTION: Scratch chin.

“Sarah Palin, in spandex, discusses her ‘throbbing thighs,’” is the classic ladymag linkbait-and-switch:

A. Write about an issue of great interest to the American public. Ex. Sarah Palin; tight-fitting clothing; throbbing body parts; the portion of a woman’s leg nearest to the vagina.

B. Present the story as a feminist critique on the political ramifications of said topic; in other words, issues of lesser interest to the American public. Ex. “Anyone who still thinks Sarah Palin isn’t trying to use her enviable physique to her political advantage should read this Runner’s World profile in which Palin says, ‘I knew my thighs were going to just throb.’ The throbbing thighs are accompanied by a slew of cheesecake shots of Palin in close-fitting running gear” (courtesy of DoubleXer Jessica Grose)

C. Write headlines and teasers for the story that are indistinguishable from the T&A treatment. Hey, I clicked on it!

I happen to disagree with Grose’s post. I see nothing particularly exploitative about Palin discussing her running techniques and wearing running gear in a magazine photo. On Runner’s World’s end, you could say that the full slideshow was overkill—though this short-shorts photo of David Paterson shows that Palin isn’t the only victim of the magazine’s political cheesecake.

That being said, I understand why the the piece was packaged in the strange way that it was—pull in the readers interested in Palin’s “throbbing thighs,” only to criticize Palin for showing them off.

DoubleX has needs. We all do. It’s no secret why my critique of local media sex writing, “Teen Sex Scandal!,” is consistently one of the most-clicked blog posts on the Sexist. Sure, I could have titled it something a little more to the point—and a lot less sexier—but that would have meant sacrificing the slew of impulse google clicks from readers that are certainly more interested in porn than whatever feminist critique I have to offer.

Are these ladymag link tactics any better than Web sites which deal in fleshy linkbait, only to offer real flesh on display, and not a feminist critique of the same? Probably not. But there is one upside to the T&A bait-and-switch: The pleasure in knowing that Web surfers searching for Sarah Palin cameltoe are unsuspectingly clicking through to a big dose of feminist theory. Sometimes they even stick around to write long-winded negative comments—another reliable source of linkbait!

Observe:

Pictured: Not Megan Fox’s boobs

Pictured: Not Megan Fox’s thigh

Pictured: Not Megan Fox’s ass

Pictured: Not Lindsay Lohan’s nipple

Pictured: Not Lindsay Lohan’s side-boob

Pictured: Not an interactive slideshow comparing Megan Fox’s side-boob to Lindsay Lohan’s nipples

In fact, the closest we come to lady-flesh on HuffPo today is this:

Pictured: Just a bare upper back.

Oh, when will the world stop mourning!

Every single business reporter selected for HuffPo’s latest parade of sexism interactive slideshow is a woman. While I love to see women succeeding in business, this particular feature isn’t exactly what I had in mind. Let’s take a look.

* Where the dudes at? HuffPo chose to only place women on its list. It must be because, as Pukeimmediately points out, men don’t have to be attractive to be respected as reporters. And so, Eric Bolling’s camera-ready tan and Cody Willard’s glorious mane have gone un-dissected by the Internet sexy police:

* Meow! Why not just put a few guys into the mix in order to create the facade of gender-equality? That would ruin the whole Fox vs. CNBC girl-on-girl cat-fight scenario HuffPo has constructed here. Throwing a Cody Willard may boost HuffPo’s progressive cred, but progressive cred can be a real boner shrinker.

* Experience bad. In the real world, the more years a reporter has slaved away at a beat, the more valued they are as a journalist. When HuffPo wonders if Maria Bartiromo has “lost some of her hotness to her younger colleagues,” however, we see the limits of experience: it’s valuable only until you’re too old to be hot anymore.

* Boobs good! When it’s not knocking FOX Business for low-ratings, HuffPo is commending it for its steady stream of “buxom women.” (I wonder where they found that business model?) Some FOX business reporters are so good at their jobs, they actually have the power to make business viewers not give a shit about business. On Rebecca Diamond: “She recently conducted a well-researched interview about commercial real estate, but it was hard to pay attention. She was wearing a turquoise mini-dress with a deep V that nearly reached her belly button.” In other words, women must be attractive in order to become journalists, but they still won’t be respected in the field, because they are attractive.

* Newsflash: Pretty girl not dumb! HuffPo doesn’t entirely ignore these female reporters’ professional accomplishments—it just lists them as some sort of surprise twist to their hotness. Tracy Byrnes is hot, and wrote a book! Melissa Francis is hot, and attended Harvard! Trish Regan is hot, and wrote about pot once! Jenna Lee is hot, and looks American! Okay, so HuffPo couldn’t dig up a career accomplishment for all of these women.

* And while we’re at it: We get it, HuffPo: “Hard-hitting” means more than just “serious journalism.” It also means you guys have a boner. Using this double-entendre twice in this slide-show alone is more than enough.

The Huffington Post has finally discovered the porthole through which its sexist entertainment content can jump off of the Entertainment page and onto more explicitly political verticals. What is this valuable new discovery which suddenly makes sexy naked women so politically relevant? It starts with a P, ends with an Eople For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and it has been pulling this liberal sexist bullshit for years.

Well, PETA and HuffPo are together at last, with two super-sexy animal protection stories making their way onto the site’s “Green” page this week. After the photo-accompanied “Lydia Guevarra, Che’s Daughter, Poses Semi-Nude for PETA” made a semi-nude splash in the Web site’s Popular Stories last week, HuffPo cashed in on the theme with the full slide-show: “The Sexiest PETA Ads of All Time.” Click on it for the environment!

To HuffPo—and PETA’s—credit, the collection of PETA’s notoriously naked ads includes its share of topless dudes alongside the unclothed women. But as the interactive poll feature demonstrates, Huffington Post readers are not so down with this nudity-for-all tactic.

Readers are allowed to rate each PETA rep’s naked ad on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 signifying “Rather have meat” and 10 “Pass the produce!” Here are the current rankings, from hottest to not-est:

Charlotte Ross 8
Alicia Silverstone 7.6
Annalise Braakensiek 7.6
Sophie Monk & Maggie Q 7
Dita Von Teese 6.9
Jenna Jameson 6.7
Pam Anderson 4.7
Kathy Najimy 3.7
Jamie Bamber 3.7
Two male models making out 3.4
Tommy Lee 2.2

Let’s take a look at the hierarchy here. The nine women on the list all score higher than the four men. The women lose points as they get closer to the porn spectrum, with the exception of Kathy Najimy, who is un-young and un-skinny enough to rank just above the men. At the bottom, we have the four guys: The dude from Battlestar Gallactica ranks above the overt display of male homosexuality, but the kissing guys still beat out the universally reviled Tommy Lee. In my opinion, Tommy Lee’s low-ranked bare chest alone is enough to debunk HuffPo’s “sometimes a nipple is just a nipple” theory. Nobody wants to see that shit.

The Huffington Post brushes off the idea that the female nudity focus on its Entertainment page has any impact on its progressive political cred. In passing off interactive nude slide-shows as environmentalism, however, HuffPo wades into explicitly political sexist territory. PETA paved the way here by exploiting women in the hopes of ending the exploitation of animals. HuffPo joins the fray not by presenting a counterpoint to PETA’s sexist tactics, but by reveling in it—asking its readers to rank the “hottest print promotions.”

I have to wonder if PETA’s T&A has ever convinced a soft-core porn enthusiast to stop eating beef. I bet the naked stuff is actually used more of a peace offering to the general public—they may be annoyed by PETA’s radical vegetarianism, but at least there are naked chicks.

But unlike PETA, the Huffington Post is not a one-issue newspaper. PETA objectifies women in order to save the lives of the poor, helpless bunny rabbits, but it never professed to care about women. HuffPo objectifies women in order to save its entire politically progressive business model. Why not pull a fast one on PETA and stick to objectifying wallabies instead?

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Last week, I suggested that the Huffington Post was sexist for devoting much of its Entertainment page to obsessively posting accidental female nipple slips caught on camera. Arianna Huffington responded via a Howard Kurtz column by saying:

“As Freud said, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’—and a nipple slip is just a nipple slip.”

Well, I’ve been mulling over Huffington’s retort for about 24 hours now, and I’ve finally figured out what is so fucking strange about this response. Let’s start with Freud.

Sigmund probably never actually said “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” but theories abound as to the source of the attributed phrasing.

Here’s the best guess of any: “Sigmund Freud was once asked about the psychoanalytic significance of his smoking a cigar, to which he replied that a good cigar was merely a smoke.” So, Freud is sitting around having a cigar, and some student thinks it would be clever to ask Freud why he likes to put phallic objects in his mouth all the time. And Freud is like, ha, ha, you got me, but seriously, I am not gay. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

Nipples, meanwhile are not stand-ins for sexualized female body parts—they are actually sexualized female body parts. It’s true, I’m not kidding. HuffPo confirms its peculiar interest in the female nipple by regularly posting intensely zoomed-in “nipple slips” on its Web site, while sparing male nipples—regularly exposed on beaches everywhere, even by smokin’ hot American presidents—the same “NSFW zoom” treatment and “check out these nipples, we found more somehow” headlines.

What might be a more apt comparison here? How about this: So, Freud is sitting around with a man’s penis in his mouth, and some student thinks it would be clever to ask Freud why he likes to put men’s penises in his mouth all the time. And Freud is like, ha, ha, you got me, but seriously, I am not gay. Sometimes, a man’s penis in my mouth is just a man’s penis in my mouth.

In other words, an Internet “newspaper” can feature sexist entertainment all it wants without actually being sexist, as long as it insists that its actions are meaningless, and can source that meaninglessness back to an unsourceable quote from Sigmund Freud, of all people. You’re good, Huffington Post. You’re really good.

Photo by RyAwesome

Moore’s point here is that “Sarah Palin’s “Outrage” is Misplaced and A Little Late,” since she’s seemingly ignored a host of inappropriate sexual jokes about her family (and other political families) before finally speaking out against Letterman. To me, Moore’s list proves that the outrage has been a long time coming.

Moore writes:

The National Organization for Women named David Letterman to their Hall of Shame. Will Letterman be joining Jay Leno? Conan O’Brien? Craig Ferguson? Seth Myers? Rush Limbaugh? Or John McCain? Of course not! I guess N.O.W. didn’t bother checking Sarah Palin’s “feminist” credentials.

Actually, Limbaugh is a repeat offender in NOW’s media Hall of Shame. As for other notable sexists who have so far escaped direct criticism from the Palin camp in the past: Sexism in comedy and politics is so wide-spread that it would take up all of NOW’s—and Palin’s—resources to dutifully record every instance of it. Imagine if Palin responded to every sexist attack hurled at her from anyone ever—it would be a debilitating task, one which would totally derail her life, her family, and probably the entire state of Alaska.

That being said, Palin happened to hear a joke that was particularly inappropriate, Matt Lauer asked her about it, and she responded. Palin’s lack of public reaction to these past jokes does not rob her of her right to react now. There are too many sexist jokes. Palin’s acceptance of the Republican vice presidential nomination does not rob her of the right to speak out against sexism. There are too many sexist politicians.

And when Rush Limbaugh or John McCain or yes—Sarah Palin—makes their next sexist comment or enacts their next sexist policy, I hope that liberal commentators don’t hold back just because they chose not to defend Sarah Palin now.

Moore thinks Palin’s outrage is “late.” Better late than never.

Huffington Post’s Vice President for Communications, Mario Ruiz, responded to my inquiry by copy-pasting Kurtz’ column into an e-mail, adding: “There’s nothing much we can add to what she already emailed Howie.”

Huffington to Kurtz:

Huffington dismisses this argument by e-mail, calling it “silly and highly limiting to assume that all progressives can’t wait to get to the orgy and all conservatives have a chastity belt in their drawer. . . . As the Washington City Paper’s blogger herself points out, we have a wide range of news and opinion on all our sections — including our Entertainment section.

“Looking for hidden political agendas in every article and every photo on HuffPost will lead to some very convoluted conclusions. As Freud said, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’ — and a nipple slip is just a nipple slip.”

Huffington misses the point here. This isn’t about valuing promiscuity or chastity. It’s not about whether liberals or conservatives should or shouldn’t like sex. This is about objectifying women by reducing them to their nipples, which is, in my opinion, anti-feminist. And personally, I would hope that progressives would make very basic women’s issues like this a priority.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a woman is just a nipple.

UPDATE: Ruiz has written back with an expanded version of Huffington’s statement:

At The Huffington Post we feel that trying to analyze everything in life by looking through a right vs left political prism — including Entertainment and celebrity coverage — will lead to a very distorted view of the world. In fact, we feel that looking at politics in that tired way will lead to a distorted view of the world (compare Dick Cheney’s view on gay marriage to Barack Obama’s and get back to me about right vs left). It is silly and highly limiting to assume that all progressives can’t wait to get to the orgy and all conservatives have a chastity belt in their drawer. History has proven otherwise again and again and again.

[As you pointed out last week], we have a wide range of news and opinion on all our secctions — including our Entertainment section. Looking for hidden political agendas in every article and photo on HuffPost will lead to some very convoluted arguments. As Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” – and a nipple slip is just a nipple slip.

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I don’t think much of Sarah Palin as a feminist, but the Alaska Governor has emerged as an interesting figure in the movement for one reason: she has encouraged conservatives to unwittingly defend women’s rights, and liberals to deny them. This MSNBC clip, featuring the Huffington Post’s Katharine Zaleski and the Washington Times‘ Amanda Carpenter, is a perfect example.

Let’s find out how easily women’s issues fall to the side in the interest of ideological posturing. The stage is set: you’ve got your liberal pundit, courtesy of HuffPo; your conservative pundit, courtesy of WaTi; and your encouragement for the two to disagree on everything no matter what, courtesy of MSNBC. Let’s throw a feminist issue in there—making light of rape—and see what happens.

Here, Zaleski and Carpenter are asked to face off on David Letterman’s recent Late Show joke. Letterman said this about Palin and her 14-year-old daughter Willow’s recent Yankees game outing: “During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” Letterman later took the statement back in a joke-filled apology claiming that he had meant to make the comment about 18-year-old Bristol Palin, not Willow.

Here’s what Palin had to say about it: “I found out later the comment that was made about the statutory rape of my 14-year-old daughter Willow … that crossed the line. Then others, chiming in on other comments Letterman has made. It’s quite a sad commentary on where we are as a culture and a society … He doesn’t have to apologize to me. I would like to see him apologize to young women across the country for contributing to that thread that is throughout our culture that makes it sound like it’s okay to talk about young girls in that way.”

Carpenter, of course, took Palin’s side, arguing that the comment was unacceptable, and further, that Sarah Palin had bolstered her women’s issues cred by taking a stand over the comments. “It’s hard for women in general when accusations like this are made, dirty jokes and things. There’s always a conflict of—do you turn your head, or do you make a statement about it and push back? And even when you make a statement, you’re accused of manufacturing outrage,” Carpenter said. “She took that risk. She said, this isn’t acceptable. And I think women are happy to hear that message. I’m certainly one of them.”

Zaleski, of course, took the anti-Palin side. Let’s check out her argument here:

“Sarah Palin basically ran the hate-speak express during the campaign. She stood there and watched people as they screamed ‘kill him’ at Obama and ‘terrorist.’ If she really wants to rise above this, she’ll talk about irresponsible speech in general, irresponsible speech that many of her cohorts on national networks are using, irresponsible speech that’s leading to things like what happened on Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum. If she really wants to make this an issue, she won’t make this about herself and her family all the time, her family who she persistently trots out there, and her daughter who she made a statement about on Thursday. . . . I challenge people like Sarah Palin, like people you talk to on Fox News, to really condemn the language that’s greater, this really reprehensible language, that’s not just about Bristol Palin but that’s about hate speech that’s basically leading to actions which happened on Wednesday. That’s what’s disgusting.

Again, I don’t buy Palin as a feminist figure. I, too, think she too often uses her personal life—growing up fishing and hunting with the boys, and then finding great personal success in the Republican Party—as a stand-in for female empowerment, while simultaneously ignoring women’s issues as candidate and Governor.

Still, there’s something about Zaleski’s arguments here that I find particularly anti-feminist. Let’s break them down:

1. Obama’s girls are off-limits, but Palin’s are fair game: “If she really wants to make this an issue, she won’t make this about herself and her family all the time, her family who she persistently trots out there, and her daughter who she made a statement about on Thursday.”

Read: “Some girls deserve it.”

2. Palin started it by making comments about Barack Obama (who is also off-limits), which is why her daughter especially deserves it. “She stood there and watched people as they screamed ‘kill him’ at Obama and ‘terrorist.’”

Read: “She was asking for it.”

3. “I challenge people like Sarah Palin, like people you talk to on Fox News, to really condemn the language that’s greater, this really reprehensible language, that’s not just about Bristol Palin but that’s about hate speech that’s basically leading to actions which happened on Wednesday. That’s what’s disgusting.”

Read: “Rape is not a real problem. You’re exaggerating.”

4. Letterman claims he had intended to make the joke about Bristol Palin, and we take Letterman at his word.

Read: “Officer, I didn’t know she was under 18.”

My beef with HuffPo’s nipple slip coverage, Huffington Post: Liberal Politics, Sexist Entertainment, inspired a range of responses this week. One commenter was peeved that I appear to “take no joy” in my work—an assertion that I roundly deny. Another sees rogue nipples throughout HuffPo’s political coverage, as well: “They couldn’t find Hillary’s nipple, but they got as close as they could.” And the Huffington Post chimed in, too—though not about the nipple thing.

The best of the rest are after the jump.

Theo Goodwin:

Having been on campus since the 1960’s and having shared my life with all those on the Left, let me tell you that the Left’s objectification of women is no secret, not even on the Left. Self aware members of the Left have said for decades that if abuse of women were to become a serious topic of conversation then all the leading men on the Left would have to line up and take their medicine.

tim33ny:

i read huffpost everyday at work, lots of good reads. judging from your article, it would appear as if you are a conservative. try this, stop focusing your energy on trashing liberal entertainment media and propaganda, and start to focus on how to take back the lost dignity of the right wing. if you try that you may actually get something done. also thanks for letting me kno that huffpost has nipple shots, i never knew that, ill be sure to check them out. btw dont bother replying to this comment because i will not be back to this website to check it. peace.

a liberal democrat from new york named tim

ps. dont forget to hail to the chief!!!

jason:

hahahaha. tim33ny is a prime example of huffpoop’s readership.

-libby mcliburul

Right on, Siskind. I’m right with you on that one!

Let’s see what popular story HuffPo invites you to go clicky-clicky on right next to Siskind’s post:

Sexism on a liberal Web site is still sexism.

On Tuesday, I wrote a post criticizing the Huffington Post for espousing progressivism in its political coverage while exploiting women in its entertainment pages.

I’m still waiting to hear back from HuffPo on how ritual public outings of women whose clothing accidentally slips a couple centimeters keys into their liberal political identity—though it looks like somebody over there, at least, has read the piece. In the meantime, HuffPo continues to plug away at the nipple beat. Three stories on the Entertainment page today make news out of accidental nipple:

Here we have a barely-a-celebrity in a barely-there dress. The commentary on the photo insists, “Her show may be off the air till next year, but the ‘Real Housewives of New York’ single lady and ‘Skinny Girl‘ embodiment Bethenny Frankel is making news.” Is Frankel really making news, or is the Huffington Post making the news, out of her nipples? Chicken, egg, etc.

Heather Graham’s breasts double as weather report. I like this, because it reminds women that if they ever make a mistake by misjudging the temperature, or not realizing that their dress would go sheer under bright camera lights, or underestimating the power of HuffPo’s “NSFW zoom,” they will be held accountable for their crimes. In case you’re curious, the poll asks, “Who would you most want to be in this picture?” The guy holding her butt is winning.

That old stand-by.

Of course, not all the entertainment stories are about nipples:

It’s no secret that The Huffington Post fancies itself a left-leaning Web rag. Wikipedia describes Arianna Huffington’s aggregatorial monster as “an American liberal news website.” Conservapedia’s definition, however, might be more helpful: “The site is an extreme mouthpiece for liberals,” it reads. “The Huffington Post calls itself an internet newspaper of blogs, news and video but often is referred to as a hate site where its one-sided news cannot be trusted.”

But even HuffPo’s liberal readership gets tired of hating on conservatives sometimes, guys. Sometimes, they just want to sit back, relax, and look at accidentally bare nipples—just like the rest of America. This one-sided liberal hate site has one fatal weakness—boobs. Let’s check out some recent stories from the Huffington Post’s entertainment section:

* Here are some photos of Natalie Portman’s nipple.

* Here are some photos of Beyonce’s nipple, complete with HuffPo-provided “NSFW zoom.”

* Here are some photos of Pamela Anderson’s nipple (hardly news, but a boob’s a boob).

* Here is an entire page devoted to recently naked women (and Barack Obama).

* Here is a collection of zoomed-in photos of 23 celebrities’ breasts, made into a fun game called “Guess the Celebrity Breast Implants?”

Pretty standard entertainment-section blog fare here—though HuffPo does go above and beyond with the “NSFW zoom.” You don’t see a Beyonce nipple that close just anywhere.

So, what do nipple slips and boob jobs have to do with liberal politics?

The obvious answer, of course, would be nothing. People—even progressive, conservative-hating, liberal-minded people—will click on nipple slip slideshows and boob jobs guessing games, and that’s a big part of the Huffington Post’s model.

But look past the nipples, if you can, and you will find a clear liberal bent in HuffPo’s non-boob Entertainment stories. Yesterday, the top three links on the Entertainment page could be considered GLBT interest stories: “Adam Lambert Confirms Rolling Stone To Address His Sexuality“; “WATCH: Neil Patrick Harris’ FANTASTIC Tonys Closing Song“; “Gordon Ramsay Shocks Audience With ‘Lesbian’ Rant About Journalist.” Also on the page yesterday was blogger Jackson Katz’s post directly addressing the objectification of women in entertainment, titled “Eminem, Misogyny and the Sounds of Silence.” Even “Guess the Celebrity Breast Implants” was inspired by a progressive premise: the Carrie Prejean controversy, which the Huffington Post began following as a homophobia-shaming story, before turning around and covering it as a topless-photograph-shaming story.

Here’s the lib logic on that one: How dare this professional spokesmodel both hate gay people and take revealing modeling photographs? Our only choice is to shame her by posting them on our Web site. It is the only thing that will finally reveal her hypocrisy (and reel in the pageviews)!

This same Prejean logic is used by the Huffington Post to justify its other women-as-object pieces, as well. Though Senior Features editor Katherine Thomson didn’t immediately return my request for comment yesterday, HuffPo has, in the past, addressed stray nipples directly. Cenk Uygur, host of “The Young Turks,” took this position on the Janet Jackson flap:

CBS was fined $550,000 for showing Janet Jackson’s right nipple on live television. Coal mines that endanger the lives of their workers are commonly fined $60 per violation. . . . How do you like those priorities?

Uygur has a point—who cares? It’s just a nipple! Only a religious conservative would bother to make a stink out of a body part which most men, women, and children have in sets of two. It’s almost enough to make fetishizing nipples on your Web site sound like a liberal position. If it pisses off the religious conservatives, that means it’s a good thing, right? After all, this is just “entertainment,” anyway—who cares if it’s progressive or not when we’re all just staring at nipples and having a good time? As Harry Shearer points out on HuffPo, everybody’s doing it!

The problem is that people really do care about nipples. They care so much about nipples that the Huffington Post devotes pages and pages of photographs to them when women accidentally (or, you know, against their will) reveal them to the public. In that way, there’s no difference between the religious conservative who is scandalized by a bare breast popping up in the middle of his football game and a liberal Web site which devotes its resources to naked chicks. A woman’s body part is a priority. Real women’s issues, not so much.

The Prejean logic, while tenuous, is at least accompanied by her blatant homophobia; how items like “Rihanna’s Battered Face (PHOTO)” and “Valerie Bertinelli Gets Back In Her Bikini” key into HuffPo’s liberal identity remains a mystery to me. But I’m confident that any item that reaps a lot of pageviews can some way, somehow, be justified as “liberal.”

Since Arthur Delaney has already produced the definitive narration of the Coachella tasered wizard video (above), I will take a page from the Huffington Post manual and aggregate his brilliant retelling here:

The police officers beg and plead for the man to put on his robes, but all the Naked Wizard wants to do is be free of his wizard sleeves and hang in the breeze. He throws his colorful garb onto the grass.

“It doesn’t have to stop,” the Naked Wizard says.

“I’ll tell you what,” the cop says. “You can have a great time — but you can have an even better time if you put your clothes on…Can I get them for you?”

The officer grabs the gown and tosses to the Naked Wizard, but he casts it away again. Then the cops put on their rubber gloves, and things get ugly.

But oh, it was funny while it lasted. Let’s relive the jokes, shall we?

Anderson Cooper: “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.”

Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox (haha, “Cox”).

Huffington Post commenter: “Did the women who protested wear ‘pearl necklaces’ to the ‘tea bagging?’

But some unsuspectingly pervy grocery store cashier takes the cake. Blogger “Jenny the bloggess” reports:

Then when I was checking out the bagger asked me if I was “going to any teabagging parties today”.  Like, WTF? And the cashier was just looking at me waiting for my response and I was all “Uh…no” because I was too shocked to say anything else and then I got home and thought maybe teabagging means something else now but no, I googled it and it still totally means the same thing.

Like, I don’t even have a witty ending here to wrap things up.  I’m *that* freaked out.  Teabagging. I am never going back to HEB.

Only later does Jenny realize that it does mean something else now.

UPDATED: Hi.  I’m an idiot.  Apparently “teabagging” is a truly horribly named Republican rally going on around America today to protest taxes or tea or something.  Teabagging. Good one, Republicans.  You totally got me.

Last week, “Bonnie Fuller Media” founder Bonnie Fuller wrote an essay for the Huffington Post declaring, “It’s official! Age is irrelevant… when it comes to women and beauty that is.” Fuller then proceeds to write 700 words proving that age is still very much relevant when it comes to women and beauty.

How does Fuller manage to both disprove her own thesis while simultaneously marginalizing women of all ages? Let me count the ways!

1. All younger women are “bland,” regardless of their accomplishments. Not hot to Fuller are the following “bland 20-somethings”: “Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, Heidi Montag, Natalie Portman, Anne Hathaway, Blake Lively, Audrina Patridge, Jessica Biel, and even Kim Kardashian.”

Fuller groups two Oscar-nominated actresses with a “slew” of Maxim coverladies, reality show inhabitants, and amateur porn stars. Why? Because they happen to have been born in the same decade. She then asserts that all these women are dumb and uninteresting by posing the inexpliable rhetorical: “Do they honestly have even the depth of deep hotness and complexity as our 40-somethings?”

Did Fuller honestly just write “depth of deep hotness”?

—

2. Older women are hot, and boring, too! In Fuller’s world, 20-somethings are bland because they’re young. But older women aren’t hotter because they’re more experienced, accomplished, worldy, intelligent, or wise. No, Fuller continues to judge older women on the same criteria as the younger ones: how thin and young they look. Valerie Bertinelli gains Fuller’s appreciation for having “THE HOTTEST bikini-clad hard body” on the cover of People, while Demi Moore scores for having “un-plastic-surgery-looking looks”—the product of very extensive plastic surgery.

Most insulting of all is Fuller’s pick for “astounding evidence of our national love affair with the 40-plus woman”: Sarah Palin, who could also serve as “astounding evidence of our national love affair with the ditz.”

—

3. She judges a woman’s hotness by the age of the men she’s with. Hotness! It knows no age, unless you are a man. Fuller holds up Moore and Madonna as examples of the most deepestly hot older ladies—the ones who can snag younger men:

Demi, for her sexy, un-plastic-surgery-looking looks and devoted 15 years-younger, GORGEOUS husband, Ashton Kutcher, 31 . . . and Madonna for her rock hard body and years younger lovers, A-Rod, 33, and Jesus Luz, 22.

Calista Flockhart, on the other hand, is congratulated for “finally bringing Harrison Ford to his knees” in marriage. Demi Moore is hot because her husband is 15 years younger than she; the 44-year-old Flockhart is still considered an old-timer, even though her husband is 20 years her senior.

—

4. She extends the objectification of women to 40, 50, 60 and beyond! The terms Fuller employs, like “cougar” and “MILF,” aren’t empowering—they’re helping to further objectify women of all ages. Women don’t only need to live up to a physical standard through their 20s—they also need to look like they’re in their 20s when they’re in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Fuller is pleased that middle-aged TV star Courtney Cox is prepared to stage her comeback in a new show titled “Cougarville.” I think it’s sad. Celebrating those older women who look like younger women isn’t a sign of greater acceptance in Hollywood—it’s just a new way to marginalize women based on their appearance. I hope that 20 years from now, I’ve accomplished more than just managing to look the same.

Photo via Wikipedia

PALIN RESPONDS to Barry Obama’s quip that he bowls like he belongs in the Special Olympics.

“This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world,” said Palin, whose son Trig has Down syndrome. “These athletes overcome more challenges, discrimination and adversity than most of us ever will.”

Kolan McConiughey, a 35-year-old Special Olympics bowler “who has bowled five perfect games since 2005,” was more forgiving: “He’s a cool guy. He’s an awesome President and he has a very nice wife.”

MORE ON SARAH VS. BARACK: Palin calls the stimulus money offered to Alaska “a bribe” and turns down 45 percent of the funds, some of which would go toward special education in the state. (Huh?)

Asks Alaska Dispatch: “What does that make stimulus money she took, and all the other federal money woven into the state?  What does it make the energy relief money Alaskans received last year? How does this name calling make federal leaders more likely to help Alaska in the future? In these unusually trying circumstances, the governor was wrong not to accept the stimulus money, and she compounded her mistake by injecting divisive inflammatory rhetoric into the discussion.”

OTHER ALASKANS would prefer to keep the cash: They staged a rally in Anchorage over the weekend.

COMPETITION FOR SARAH? “Conservatives size up Sanford for 2012.”

ARE THE PALINS KEEPING BRISTOL AND LEVI APART? Who cares, but maybe, writes Immortal Majority: “I have confirmation that Todd Palin and Levi Johnston had a HUGE argument in Wasilla after Bristol snuck out of the house to see Levi after being told not to. This directly contradicts everything the Palins said about Bristol and Levi’s relationship.”

MORE ON WOLVES: Todd Palmer and Rob Pringle at Huffington Post write long, boring, only tangentially Palin-related defense of wolves. HuffPo tags it “Sarah Palin Killing Wolves.” Spicy!

Photo by aka Kath

FINALLY, SOMEBODY MAKES SENSE: Levi Johnston, 19-year-old ex-fiancee of Bristol Palin, told Good Morning America that he’s not yet mature enough to get married. “It’s just us not—me not—being mature enough,” he said. “We were in a fight. And trying to see if we can make things work. But this is what it kind of ended up turning into. But we’ll see what happens.”

Johnston said he and Bristol broke up “about two months” after the birth of their son, Tripp. The two are open to reconciliation—when they’re more mature.

COMMENCE THE SHAMING PROCESS! “Excuse me?” writes Kevin D. of Dean’s World. “You’re mature enough to have sex with her, father a child by her, but you’re not mature enough to marry her? . . . And this is why abstinence only education is the only sex education that makes sense.”

Hmm, okay, not the conclusion to which I would immediately jump. Let’s find out where Bristol and Levi really fall on the maturity scale, shall we?

[ x ] MATURE ENOUGH to have sex
[   ] MATURE ENOUGH to be allowed to decide how to handle the results of that sex
[ x ] MATURE ENOUGH to be allowed to decide whether or not to get married (finally).

Looks like they’re improving!

BRISTOL JUUUUUST GREAT: “Bristol is doing great, just great!,” Palin told reporters over the weekend.

BRISTOL PALIN SPRING SPORTS CORNER: Bristol missed out on the Girl Scout cookie sales because she was out performing other adolescent activities repackaged as “state business.” “Oh, Bristol is over at the state capitol building golfing in a miniature golf tournament,” Palin told People. “It’s a fundraiser and she’s up there taking my place while I’m here.” Also—oh, my God—some poor People reporter has probably been stationed in Alaska, following the Palins, since the Republican National Convention. Our hearts go out to your loved ones.

BRISTOL “UNCOOL”: HuffPo’s Bonnie Fuller thinks that “the Palin women take public trashing to a whole new and totally uncool level.” Fuller gets most of her insight on this topic from an interview Johnston’s sister, Mercede, gave to Star magazine, so she’s working from pretty solid academic ground here. The story alleged that Bristol refused to allow Johnston to see their baby and that she called his family “white trash.”

Writes Fuller: “Now, the reason I don’t doubt Mercede’s version of the story—Bristol trashing her ex and his family—is because of the very public trashing and more, that her mom has been tied to, which also involves an ex-in-law: Sarah’s brother-in-law.”

Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that all the Star interview proves is that Johnston’s sister publicly outed her brother’s personal problems while smearing his ex-fiancee’s character. Both Bristol and Johnston have since said the report was riddled with errors.

Still, Fuller uses the evidence to prove that Bristol is a Troopergate-level bitch, just like her mother: “You better not mess with those Palin women when romance goes awry,” writes Fuller. “Slicing and dicing exes appears to be in the family genes.”

Photo by aburt

This anti-gay marriage ad, targeting West Virginians, manages to both:

a) equate gay activists with deadly snipers out to murder a bubble-blowing hetero family, and

b) make marriage between a man and a woman seem like the creepiest shit you could possibly be involved in.

“One man. One woman. That’s marriage,” the narrator tells us, after explaining to us that marrying a member of the opposite sex is a destiny forged in “God’s heart” (along with some other shit that makes me want to get married less). Probably the best part of the video comes about five minutes in, though, when the creepy narrator tells you that the best thing you can do to stop this is “pray.” Hey, sounds good to me.

Via HuffPo.

* In case you missed it, George H. W. Bush tells a really terrible joke about mean, ugly pro-choice ladies (above). Bill Clinton’s response, though: Kinda funny [via Feministe].

* Tiger Beatdown offers a feminist critique of John Updike‘ classic short, “A & P.”

* Who’s the hottest Congressional Freshman? (My pick: Tom Perriello, 35, Democrat from Virginia, Romantic Status: Single). I smell slideshow! [via Huffington Post].

* American Apparel CEO / serial “alleged” employee rapist Dov Charney is also very funny, self-aware, and helpful! His latest ad, which features him in bed with one of his female employees, is accompanied by the following text:

Meet Dov Charney. “Women initiate most domestic violence, yet out of a thousand cases of domestic violence, maybe one is involving a man. And this has made a victim of culture out of women.”

Yep, “maybe” one, out of a thousand, even involves a man. The rest are domestic catfights between women who dutifully carry on the tradition of clowning each other in order to claim “victim” when they, like, sue their bosses for reaching beneath their neon triangle-top bikinis.

* Related: Don’t try to rape a raccoon, it may bite off your penis.

The Huffington Post points us to this video of members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas protesting Obama’s inauguration yesterday on Pennsylvania Ave. From HuffPo:

NomadsLand provides a nice video of the Westboro clan getting worked over by the more well-adjusted crowd and giving their typical bizarre answers to everything. I especially love the part where one church member explains the crypto-zoology behind the size of various mythical beasts’ horns.

My favorite is when they all chant “Anti-Christ! Anti-Christ!”

I, too, enjoy indiscriminately copying a phrase from a public figure’s Web site, arbitrarily deciding I disagree with it, and burying my nonsensical criticism in 400 words of jokes about the figure’s perceived sexual orientation. Upon further inspection, though, I think your little lesbian Mad Lib could be a bit more to the point, no? After the jump, I’ve edited your hilarious homophobic euphemisms to help you say what you really mean.

You’re a little old for me, Secretary of Homeland Security Elect, but boy are you tough a lesbian. According to Wikipedia, you’re “an avid basketball fan who regularly plays tennis” a lesbian! That’s so cute! Now, Napolitano, to be honest, we couldn’t be more different. I’m not the athletic type butch, I get sports terms all mixed up, and I haven’t worked up an impressive heart rate since the last millennium.

That is, until I saw your photo!!!

How did such a handsome woman lesbian manage to stay single for so long? And why is your last name so much fun to say?

But enough fawning, let’s be serious for a moment. I love how, as Governor Napolitano of Arizona, you’ve taken extensive measures to create fiscal responsibility and to end bureaucratic waste. Maybe you could teach my own faltering state Governor, Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a thing or two. For instance, yesterday I had to take a dilapidated public bus full of garbage and pathogenic microbes to stand in a three hour line for an unemployment check. I brought a library book, but two thirds of the pages were missing and the remaining third made references to the Soviet Union. [incomprehensible screed about California]. Bet that wouldn’t happen on your watch! I sure wish you could ride in on a horse like Prince Charming a lesbian and save us. Then I’d hop on sidesaddle and we’d gallop off into the smoggy horizon, my hair limp and greasy from unregulated toxic emissions lesbianism.

But things get even more romantic gayer from there. We could eat spaghetti and discuss fortifying the nation’s borders. I’d giggle nervously at the sight of your sturdy posture and resolute facial expressions lesbianism. We could make a real night of it; I’ve already invited Maddow, Samantha Ronson, and Condi several notable lesbians. Actually, Sam might not follow all the political jargon, but she could sit there chain smoking and looking exhausted gay. As for you, do me one favor: skip all the makeup and just show up in a swoon-worthy blazer or polo shirt with a rakishly aggressive collar some gay shit.

Love,
Sascha a “humorist.”

In the aftermath of last night’s Veep debates, Huffington Post leaves us with this video of Rachel Ray shucking corn. If you’re like me, you’re sick of all this political mumbo jumbo anyway. Ahmadinejad who? Give me Rachel Ray handling a cob of corn! It’s funny because cobs of corn look kind of like penises! Rachel Ray touched something that kind of looks like a penis! ON TELEVISION!

If you’re wondering what Sarah Palin thought about Tina Fey’s spot-on impression of her on last night’s season premiere of Saturday Night Live, Palin’s only comment was that she had once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween. Seems she’s not nearly so charming without a script written by Fact Forger. Of all the remarks she might have made, the one she did make seems the most alienating.

Does anyone else find this unnecessarily curmudgeonly of Maggie Van Ostrand? Is there some sort of protocol for how a public figure must publicly respond to their inevitable SNL alter-ego? I thought Palin’s response was both clever and gracious, but Van Ostrand uses the comment to “reveal” the dull and grotesque reality of the VP candidate. “There is no real Sarah Palin,” writes Van Ostrand, “there’s only Tina Fey.”

Even if Van Ostrand objects to the comment, she must admit that it offers up an instantly classic Halloween costume for Fey: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin as Tina Fey. You’re welcome!