* Ms. Magazine reporter Kate Noftsinger asks a panel of Lilith Fair artists a question:

“Who here identifies as a feminist?”

I got a long pause, followed by nervous laughter.

Finally [Brandi Carlile] spoke, “I don’t know, it means something different that it used to.”

Before I could ask what it meant now as opposed to then, [Sarah McLachlan] assumed the role of official spokesperson and began building a mystery:

"It’s a tricky question, because it’s been redefined and I think we all define feminism to a certain degree. We all define femininity. I think we’re able to have a little more balance. There’s still fights to be fought. There’s still inequality, absolutely. . . . I think as long as we’re being mindful and honest with ourselves and doing what we feel is right, and that’s a very personal decision for all of us, if we’re going forth with that intention, then we are; we’re being feminists, we’re being humanists, we’re being feminine. We’re being true to ourselves, in every way, in every facet of our personalities."

By conflating feminism with femininity, Sarah McLachlan officially lies squarely in the feminist tradition of Sarah Palin devotees.

* Metro Weekly profiles "the first out transgender Capitol Hill staffer."

* But, also in Metro Weekly, magazine co-publisher Sean Bugg is "terrified to write about transgender issues."

* In 1999, David Segal penned the definitive Buttman profile:

Ladies and gentlemen, hide your daughters: John Stagliano is strolling down a riverside walkway and he's got his mojo working.

Cradling a video camera in his hands, he sidles up to a curvy brunet and fumbles for a pick-up line. Gazing into the lens, the woman seems flustered at first, then amused, then — lo and behold — flattered. She follows him to a hotel room, and within minutes she is standing on a coffee table, peeling off her dress. A man knocks on the door and eventually there is a whole lot of naked writhing on a white couch.

Stagliano shoots. Stagliano scores.

* Sady Doyle channels Simone de Beauvoir-as-dating advice columnist.

Photo via Kashmera, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Happy birthday, "post-racial America"! Writing in the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker does not see race. In response to criticism that calling Barack Obama the first woman president was (among other things) racist, Parker pens a column explaining that she can't write racist things, because she is white, and white people have the luxury of not being racist, like black people are:

But I also recognize that my life experience is different from that of most African Americans. And that experience allows me both the luxury of seeing people without the lens of race, but also (sometimes) to fail to imagine how people of other backgrounds might interpret my words.

She also has trouble seeing Obama as "exclusively black" because she has learned that she and the President are eighth cousins once removed—a genealogical "nugget" she had previously intended to write an entire column about.  That detail alone strikes me as a fireable offense.

* Via Figleaf: Holly at The Pervocracy on the douchebaggery behind calling women "females":

I hate it when people call women "females." I have one friend who does it because she was in the military and it was standard practice there, and occasionally I'll say it when I specifically mean biological females rather than women, but 98% of the time it's douchebaggery. Rule of thumb: if you say "females and males" it's okay, but if you say "females and guys/men," you're probably a douchebag.

* Virginia resident Andrea examines U.S. immigration laws through the lens of her attempts to get her British fiancee a visa. In short, they have it easy, and they still don't have it easy:

One of the things I hear a lot in any discussion of people who come here illegally is some permutation of “Well why don’t they just do it legally?” If they know that I’m currently going through the immigration process with my fiance, people will often ask “Doesn’t it make you mad that you’re going to all this trouble and people are just coming over here illegally?” The answers to these questions are, in reverse order, “No, I am thankful that we are able to do it legally fairly easily” and “Wow, you have never dealt with immigration, have you?”

* In Newsweek, Julia Baird tells us to "stop ogling Republican women":

It’s odd to see how some men insist that when women start to grasp power, we should think of them primarily as playthings and provocateurs. Is this the best way to explain their success? They aren’t challenging the status quo. They’re being wild! They’re not trying to lift the ban on offshore drilling. They’re being naughty! When four women beat a field of men on the same night recently, competing for primary and gubernatorial nominations, it was widely referred to as “ladies’ night.” Aren’t ladies’ nights those promotions where women are allowed free entry into bars to provide fodder for the men?

* Scarleteen continues its "queering sexuality in color" series, this time with Dharshi, a 25-year-old South Asian lesbian:

The problem is that the queer community where I live is predominantly white, and tend not have familiarity with issues such as my marriage predicament. Sometimes I do feel pressure from the queer community to come out, as if that will be the solution to all of my problems. I do have some wonderful white gay and lesbian friends though who make an effort to listen and understand. One woman in particular is my mother's age and her advice and sharing of her life experience has really helped me through the hard times. Also when I watch her with her partner and her kids, I feel optimistic that maybe that kind of future is also possible for me. I love meeting other queer people of colour, particularly from the South Asian community, but I don't often get this opportunity.

Photo via Beverley & Pack, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* A new study suggests that 11 percent of male drivers under 30 are masturbating  on the road. No word on the habits of the ladies, who these days are cleared to both drive and touch their own genitalia—but can they do it at the same time? Get science on this.

* Figleaf supports Lindsay Beyerstein's assertion that Palin is a feminist—-the worst feminist, amirite? Of Palin's contribution to the movement, he writes:

Maybe 10-15 years ago Michael Moore had a television series where he did his Bowling for Columbine/Roger and Me schtick in generally nicely-paced 10-15 minute segments. I didn’t see very many episodes (I’m not sure how many episodes there were) but in one of them he managed to get himself invited on a skeet-shooting trip with the wives of a bunch of conservative Republican congressmen. He seemed to get along well enough with them, and they with him, but at one point he made a leading statement like “you know, I didn’t think women could be so handy with a shotgun. You’re better than a lot of men I know.” There was a little general laughter and one or another of the women said something like “women can be better at a lot of things.” He said something like “maybe some of you could run for Congress, you might be really good at that too.” And the women just sort of clammed up and looked at each other like that was a terrible idea. And that seemed like the point where he wore out his welcome.

Fast forward to today and, thanks in surprisingly large part to Sarah Palin, I don’t think Moore would have gotten the same shocked or embarrassed silence were he to try the same stunt now.

* The Curvature's Cara Kulwicki on the efforts of Australian detectives to derail the investigation of a rape case.

* Thomas McAulay Millar at Yes Means Yes! on "ugly":

some insults appear to be empirical claims, but are effective even when demonstrably untrue. “Ugly” is like that. Antifeminist trolls call even the most obviously conventionally attractive women ugly; and it still has some power, even when used against women famous for their beauty. Why?Why indeed. Because they’re not empirical claims at all. They are claims that assert a truth based in social structure. “Ugly” and “slut” work not because of the truth of the matter asserted, but primarily and often exclusively because there are elements of the culture that work to instill in every woman an insecurity that these things are true. The insult is really a claim about the existence of an insecurity; and the hurling of the insult itself is part of the social structure that creates and maintains the unsecurity. And I know several prominent feminists who admit that some of these insults sting even if rationally they know it’s untrue, for just that reason. It takes a strong woman to really just remain unaffected by it. A lot of women I’ve talked to over the years remember vividly when Kathleen Hanna wrote “slut” on herself in lipstick, because it was a difficult and radical thing to do.

* Sady Doyle is smart, and talks about books.

Rating recent commentaries on issues related to Elena Kagan's appearance:

* WIN: NPR on how Kagan's success informs our speculation over her gender conformity: "Forty years after the birth of modern feminism, we are still not able to think about women who attain certain kinds of professional success as normatively gendered," writes Patricia J. Williams. It's not just Kagan's short haircut, her interest in poker and softball, and her wardrobe that have critics questioning her femininity: For women, "success itself is masculinized."

* LOSE: Beyond her concern that Kagan does not cross her legs when she sits in a skirt, Robin Givhan is also apparently dismayed that Kagan is not the nation's first cougar Supreme Court Justice:

Kagan is only 50 years old, which might be the equivalent of 100 in Hollywood years, but within the Washington establishment she would be classified as a young'un. Her style, however, makes her seem so much older. There's little that could be described as fun, impish or creative in her dress. It's a wholly middle-age approach to a wardrobe — if one stubbornly and inaccurately defines that transitional period in life as the beginning-of-the-end of sex appeal, effervescence and sprightliness. Kagan's version of middle-age seems stuck in a time warp, back when 50-something did not mean Kim Cattrall or Sharon Stone, "Cougar Town" or "Sex and the City."

Givhan adds: "Looking drab has its advantages for both men and women in the nation's capital because it insulates them from accusations of superficiality—a sure-fire political career killer." ORLY? Because from where I'm sitting (with my legs positioned in an unladylike spread-eagle formation), "looking drab" has inspired plenty of accusations against Kagan, thanks to people like . . . Robin Givhan.

* DRAW: The Atlantic's Wendy Kaminer rejects the high standards for Kagan's appearance:

What do Elena Kagan and Sarah Palin have in common?  They each offer complementary cautionary tales about the continuing appeal of an ersatz, "Sex in the City" feminism that rewards beauty and punishes plainness with all the subtlety and compassion of a Playboy centerfold.  Kagan's appearance and fashion sense are mocked or savaged, especially but not exclusively by pundits on the right, following a familiar script.  Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano endured similar hazings. Sarah Palin, to say the least, did not.

Palin's fans would counter that, conversely, she has paid a political price for her beauty.  Liberal feminists dislike Palin partly because she is "very attractive," feminist psyche expert Bill Bennett declared during the 2008 campaign.  He didn't explain how the equally attractive Gloria Steinem became a greatly admired liberal feminist leader, despite feminism's presumed disdain for good-looking women.

Well . . . that's an easy one. People of all political stripes (even feminists!) are more likely to use sexist attacks against women they really don't like. Why don't feminists ridicule Steinem based on her good looks? Because they like her politics, and it's easy to refrain from leveling anti-feminist attacks against women you don't want to attack. So why have some feminists ridiculed Palin's good looks? Because they don't like her politics, and it's really easy to fall into anti-feminist attacks against women you are eager to attack. Republicans were playing the same little game when they defended Palin against detractors who would ridicule her appearance, while condoning sexist remarks against certain other candidates (uhhh Hillary).

Daniel Nardicio has served as the director of marketing for Playgirl magazine since August of 2009. Since then, Nardicio has introduced three crucial developments to the long-time beefcake mag: (a) Acknowledgment of the magazine's gay readership; (b) a nude Levi Johnston; and (c) "The Shaggin' Wagon" (above).

Yesterday, Nardicio circled his magenta, man-centric wagon outside of the Georgetown University campus in search of hunks for the magazine's annual "Campus Hunks" issue. I spoke with Nardicio over the phone about the strength of D.C.'s hunks, the lingering perviness of  driving a man van, and straight dude recruiting, post-Levi:

SEXIST: How was Georgetown? Did you meet any hunks?

Daniel Nardicio: Tons! The great thing about the van is—once we decided to wrap the van, we thought it would be really funny to do a college tour and drive it on to all these campuses. What I’m learning from this now is that I don’t even have to leave the van. I thought I’d have to get out and walk around and humiliate myself, but I don't. People will just come up to the van and ask us things. We're giving away t-shirts, posters, and we have some of the last Levi Johnston issues in the back. So it’s been great. We have a lot of guys coming up, and some girls coming up too, telling us they want to see their boyfriends in Playgirl. It's very progressive.

Do you think straight guys are turned off by it?

DN: No! I have to say, I love the South, because contrary to what people think, people are so friendly. They're really respectful. Sure, some people walk past the van and look down or look away. Most people—like over at Georgetown yesterday and at Rutgers—are coming over to pull their shirt off to show their abs. I get a lot of cat-calling in the van. Sometimes I think the guys wish a hot girl were driving it—I kind of wish it was, too! I kind of wish it wasn’t me sometimes! But they’ve been great. The main reaction I get from straight guys is, "My buddy would love to be in this," or, "Do you think I’m hot enough to be in Playgirl?"

So, were any of them hot enough?

DN: Oh my god. Yeah. I have to say, Georgetown is beautiful . . . We drove around around the area and walked around the campus itself, and people were really friendly, and there were a lot of beautiful guys.

Do you think you have to advertise the magazine differently for straight women and gay men?

DN: I was handed a great gift with Playgirl, because it appeals to both straight women and gay men. So straight men feel more comfortable with it—it's not like I'm driving up in a van for Honcho or Inches magazine. If I did that, I'd get things thrown at me. I consider Playgirl to be the classic American brand. It comes out of a feminist background from the 1970's, and so there's a lot of goodwill toward it. So I'm just really trying to find the most interesting, attractive guys for the magazine and promote it that way.

When I came onto the magazine, Playgirl wasn't really acknowledging its male readership. I succeeded in getting rid of the "Entertainment For Women" byline—it was doing a disservice to the gay readers. Now, we're the most open to both. Playgirl was the first magazine to be doing this male erotica in the mainstream, and now, we're embracing our gay guys, straight women, and smattering of straight guys that buy the magazine—believe me, there are a few of those. And we’re very proud of the fact we really put a dent in Sarah Palin’s reputation. We're very, very proud of that.

So do you think Playgirl is in this sweet spot where it's insulated from criticism both by feminists and by homophobes?

DN: You know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Women were objectified for so long, and now straight men are being objectified. It's a great position to be in. I'll drive my van down the street and yell at construction workers—"Hey! Show me your dick!" I do this for fun, and to let them know what it feels like to be cat-called. Of course they yell things at me, but let’s face it—it’s hilarious to turn the tables on this. But the van is so in-your-face—I don’t want to say it's so "gay," because it’s not necessarily "gay"—it's just in-your-face male sexuality. There's a brilliance to it in a weird way, because it's all about beefcake men, and it's in a position where people are really forced to acknowledge that. So it's fun to watch their reactions.

Unlike the construction workers, though, it seems like some of the straight guys are really into this.

DN: Oh my god, yeah. It's great! At first, I was a little scared going into Rutgers yesterday. I felt like Chris Hanson was going to jump out, like To Catch a Predator. I felt very pervy for a few minutes. But the great thing is that the reputation of the magazine isn’t really hardcore, and guys seem to respond to it really well. The greatest response guys have for me is, "Do I measure up?" Of course, I’ll still get called "faggot" now and again, but that's something you learn to live with when you drive a magenta van. It's like being in a pride parade 24-7.

Do you think gay men particularly like seeing straight guys in the magazine?

Yes. As a gay man, I think there’s something about the power of turning the tables. Growing up, a lot of us were bullied. I know I was bullied by straight guys in high school for being gay. And I think there’s something to be said for straight guys, you know, stripping down for us. Even with Levi, you know, there was that satisfying elment of the straight cocky stud from Alaska taking off his clothes. Levi is now actually amazingly, amazingly gay friendly. He's even pro-marriage.

Where are you going next?

Tonight I'm headed to Chapel Hill. We're going to work frat row, driving around the frat bars. I'm a little nervous about what the reception is going to be like in Chapel Hill. Hopefully you won't hear any news of my car being torched. . . . But I'm meeting some people I know, and they told me that they recruited a couple of really cute girls to help us out. So that will help. I think we've got three girls and a couple of gay guys to work frat row with me.

Interview has been condensed.

Following my post on vajazzling last week, I received several responses from commenters who were concerned that I was questioning a woman's sacred choice to vajazzle.

While I appreciate commenters' willingness to engage with feminist talking points (you know how we love choice), I'm afraid that responding to the new trend of women applying heat-activated crystals to their pubic mounds by simply concluding, "A woman's choice! A woman's choice!" only functions to preempt discussion about just what women are choosing. In this instance, defending "choice" without question discourages women from making informed choices for their pubic mounds. So let's talk vajazzling.

Listen: Vajazzling is no stranger to the feminist talking point. In last week's post, I floated the following equation:

Sexual Repression + Capitalism + Sexism = Vajazzling

I think it would be appropriate to add "Pseudo-Feminism" to the list of Vajazzling's contributing societal factors. But first, let's tackle the good old fashioned anti-feminism at play here: Capitalism will find a way to exploit any weaknesses in our society, and sexism is one of them. Take Liz Lemon's analysis of Valentine's Day from 30 Rock: "Valentine's Day is a sham created by card companies to reinforce and exploit gender stereotypes." You could say the same thing about the cosmetics industry, plastic surgeons, and Vajazzling technicians.

When it comes to personal appearance, it's no coincidence that femininity is marked by performance, while masculinity is just as often defined by men not performing things. Shaving your body hair is feminine; not shaving is masculine. Plucking, waxing, or bleaching stray facial hairs is feminine; growing a few days of stubble is masculine. Applying makeup is feminine; not painting your face is masculine. Dying, styling, blow-drying, and curling your hair is feminine; keeping a low-maintenance hair cut is masculine.

I suspect that this is because women are encouraged to achieve societal power through their appearance and sexuality, while men are encouraged to achieve power from . . . reaching real positions of power, like running companies and governments. Sure, women who are very successful at performing femininity can gain some real power, too. Maybe there's a two-year window there where women can translate their success in this field into posing for Playboy, or shaking in a music video, or stripping, all of which can translate into money in the bank—until they get a little bit older and fall out of favor in those industries. Maybe some women can aspire to be trophy wives and get their social validation by being married to a successful man. The majority of women won't be able to make a career out of performing femininity. And yet, we're still shaving and waxing and plucking and dieting and padding and inflating and cinching and painting and dyeing and surgically trimming our labia and, now, vajazzling like it's our jobs—even as we have been successful in claiming real power as Senators and CEOs and lawyers and doctors and journalists. In these fields, the performance of traditional femininity can either help us or hurt us—either way, the focus is back on the way we look instead of our qualifications. The societal investment is the appearance of women is still going strong.

Why is that? Well, for one thing, capitalism hates to lose a consumer. And at some point, it figured out that this feminism stuff that was helping to put women into positions of power could also be used as a tool to sell things (girl power scholars place the exact date ar0und 1994). The interesting thing is that feminist ideals like choice and personal empowerment are now being used to sell the exact same things that sexism was shilling—like corporate-made supergroups of scantily-clad women with inconsistent musical talents; vice-presidential candidates with anti-woman policies; and expensive and elaborate personal grooming procedures like Vajazzling.

So when Jennifer Love Hewitt appears on television to shill for Vajazzling, she doesn't say, "Ladies, Vajazzling is great because the guys love an uber-feminine, totally infantilized vagina." That would be too obvious. Instead, she insists that women Vajazzle for themselves. "After a breakup, a friend of mine Swarovski-crystalled my precious lady . . . and it shined like a disco ball," she announced. "For the ladies: I was feeling awful, I had been through a horrible breakup. And I was like, oh, this is just awful, and I need something to make myself feel better. And it was the one thing I hadn't tried after a breakup, so I gave it a try. And it's great!"

I don't doubt that Hewitt truly loves having her vagina Vajazzled just as much as she loves promoting a friend's Vajazzling business. Many women do find personal fulfillment in obsessing over their appearance They really, truly like to apply lipstick and slip into a pair of high-heels and have doctors cut off parts of their genitalia, because that's what makes them feel sexy. No man is forcing these women to perform these behaviors (although that happens, too). In fact, there's evidence that men are often mystified by these activities. We love it because we live in a society that values us for loving these things.

This is where the "a woman's choice!" defenders come in. How could we possibly deny women the choice to engage in these behaviors, if that's what they love? Look: I don't begrudge women who make the choice to perform the behaviors of femininity. I perform many of them myself, on a daily basis! Resisting engaging in these things is almost impossible. But I don't kid myself into thinking that I just love wearing lipstick because I was born that way, or that I shave my legs because I have somehow independently decided—without any influence from my culture!—that that's the way I personally prefer my legs to look.

It's a sexist world. We just live in it. For women in this world, the choice not to convert our bodies into a tool for the beauty industry to exploit is the one that's seen as odd, different, and weird. For us, the simple choice not to invest the time, money, and concern into shaving our armpits is the one that marks us as somehow less of a real woman. But really, the choice not to shave is the one that requires more energy for women, because we stand to be dismissed as dirty, masculine, man-hating hippies if we abstain. When the "woman's choice!" advocates argue that deciding to Vajazzle or not Vajazzle—for that truly is the question—is just a matter of personal taste, they are putting their fingers in their ears and talking really, really loudly in an attempt to deny the culture in which these choices are made.

For women, the choice is not between a preference for looking "natural" or a preference for looking "groomed." The choice—if you take a look at what is really going on—is between challenging sexist beauty standards and receiving negative attention for leaving the house looking like "a man," or just giving in and shaving our pits because we have more pressing shit to deal with right now than singlehandedly dismantling sexism today—like keeping our jobs. Remember those?

For now, the more extreme performances of femininity, like breast implantation, vaginal "rejuvenation," and Vajazzling aren't considered the norm for women. I'm not going to be met with shock when I remove my pants and reveal to my sex partner that I haven't converted my pubic mound into a shiny disco ball. But these days, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for him to be shocked that I'm not perfectly waxed. The body hair ship may have sailed, but vaginal modification is at a point right now where we are still in a position to fend off the tide. And my greatest fear is that someday, we will wake to find that our girls are being routinely Vajazzled upon puberty, and realize that we never stood up to say, "This shit is fucking ridiculous."

Photo via Tsar Kasim, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

After it was reported this week that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had used the phrase "fucking retarded" to refer to a group of Democrats, Sarah Palin took to Facebook to decry Emanuel's word-choice as a "slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities"—and to demand that Obama give him the ax. Prepare to get totally fucking deep into the philosophical import of a Sarah Palin Facebook update, everybody.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown and I parse the new Republican PC strategy, examine Palin's record on disability (it ranges from condescending to damaging), and propose that Palin's adoption of a far-left feminist talking point is a sign of the coming apocalypse.

SADY: Why hello!

AMANDA: Hello, m'lady

SADY: What shall we discuss on this fine morning? In my newly adopted 19th-century-dandy idiom, apparently?

AMANDA: Indubitably! Or something! I dunno: How about Sarah Palin's Facebook updates?

SADY: OH GOOD. I ALWAYS KNEW IT WOULD COME TO THIS. Yeah: What strikes me about this Facebook update, aside from the obvious "Oh God I am reading Sarah Palin's opinions on Facebook" feeling, is that her call-out of Rahm Emanuel is continually framed as being "not about politics." And yet, she is calling for someone in the White House to be fired? And going all, "the President is responsible for this! Directly responsible! WHY haven't I heard from him about it, hmmmmmmmm?" And that seems... political.

AMANDA: Yeah. Of course it is. Although the thing that struck ME about her Facebook entry was that she used euphemisms for two words: "F—ing" and "N-Word" but not for the word she was concerned with everyone banding about in this case. And another thing! It’s also kind of funny that Sarah Palin thinks that the President of the United States firing a member of his staff is, like, a reasonable result of a Sarah Palin Facebook update.

SADY: Well, you know: it is the POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA! But I mean, I keep thinking that the reason she's all, "this isn't about politics, it's about God's children and a patriot in Somewheresville and decency because life is precious, and God, and the Bible," is that she's playing kind of a rhetorical con game. In that disability IS a political issue, but it's one on which Sarah Palin happens to be on kind of the wrong side. So it has to be apolitical in her framing – even though her means are political – so that, you know, we don't get to politicizing it and figuring out some basic stuff like universal healthcare keeps disabled people from dying on the fucking subway platform where they live, and so on and so forth.

AMANDA: Right. Palin's concerns are clearly entirely political, and not at all about securing actual rights for the disabled. But even so: words are important, and Palin has gotten 13,841 people who probably do not give a fuck about this stuff generally to agree that using that word is offensive. She also got Emanuel to apologize, which I think is a reasonable expectation (compared to forcing him out of the administration).

SADY: Yeah. And, I mean, people are having a conversation about the word. People aside from the left-of-the-left people I'm used to seeing discussing the word.

AMANDA: However, now we also have people who hate Sarah Palin (and there are a lot of them) using that word in spite. Like this commenter: "Give us a break Sarah, the people he was addressing were acting retarded and that group didn't contain a single person you are defending. We all know he was not referring in any way to children or any other mentally challenged individuals." So, the way that we talk about this stuff is important. Starting this discussion in order to score an absurd political point—and refusing to engage in issues of disability beyond politics—isn't helping anyone.

SADY: Yeah, exactly. What kills me is that in the comments, people who are anti-Palin are starting to get really amped up about making "retarded" jokes to prove that they don't like Sarah Palin. Like, one guy just wrote "your baby is fucking retarded." Or there's this example of point-missing: "Come to think of it I believe Rahm Emmanuel has a mental deficit that he and his president fail to recognize or adknowledge." FROM A SUPPORTER.

AMANDA: Oh my goodness.

SADY: But I guess she said "mental deficit?" Because if she'd just said "Rahm Emanuel is fucking retarded," THAT would have been wrong? And that's where these language games get tricky. Because it's true: the only people I'm used to seeing discussing this are the left-of-the-left disability activists, often disabled feminists because that is where I roll, discussion-wise. But when it makes it into a more mainstream discussion, especially when it's tied to something this obviously disingenuous . . . You have someone who's making an ableist comment but isn't able to recognize it as such because she's only identified the PEJORATIVE WORD as the problem, not the attitude. Or people who now construe using the word "retarded" as a pejorative as a bold political act.

AMANDA: It's a can of worms. I do find it interesting that Sarah Palin, Republican darling, has taken it upon herself to become the queen of "PC" now, even though complaining about liberals forcing political correctness on the world is a treasured Republican pastime. And I think Sarah Palin does represent the worst kind of "PC," which is to be only "politically" correct, and not correct in your social policies, or the way you live your life, or your expectations of all people, but "correct" only in a way that sticks it to people you don't like.

SADY: Right. It's the use of certain, I guess we can call them "PC," actions to boost your own status as a righteous person rather than to make any change. And obviously she's always been selective with her PC—one of the great triumphs of Sarah Palin in politics is that she kind of, if not pioneered, then perfected the use of typically left ideals to shut down the left. Like, "sexism!" Which means not challenging my candidacy, but sticks because there is actual sexism on the left. Or, "choice!" Which... actually, I don't even know how "choice" applies to anything Sarah Palin has ever stood for.

AMANDA: Being brave enough to make the choice to keep a baby and then making the choice to force all other women make the same choice? I mean, part of the reason that it does stick is because us liberals are, like, interested in this stuff. We're interested in dismantling sexism and ableism and racism (OK: Sarah Palin does not seem overly concerned with racism), and we're interested in doing it from all sides, but Palin is only interested in doing it from her side. The amazing thing, to me, is making it stick among conservatives.

SADY: Right. That's the thing: She's coming at the left in the places that they care about. She's found the Achilles heel, which is – you can call us Commie pinko bleeding-heart pussies from now until Doomsday, and we won't really care. But DON'T TELL US WE ARE INSUFFICIENTLY SENSITIVE. Because we care about that stuff, and are trying hard (uh, some of us) and aiming that accusation at us forces us to slow down and self-examine and meanwhile you are whipping a crowd of racists into a hardcore voting frenzy. Which is why I think she's so beloved by certain Republicans; this is good "politics" even if it's not good politics. Although, on the topic of Emanuel's supporters, I have to say: Some of them are not doing themselves (or myself) any favors here.

AMANDA: Yeah. Also, I mean, I don't doubt that there are many people among Palin's fan base who do care very deeply about these sorts of issues, because, like Palin herself, they were brought into caring about disability through a child or other family member. And now, tragically, I think, Sarah Palin is there to tell these families that they can do just fine raising their kids without any sort of government "interference," which is probably true of a certain person who just sold a billion copies of a book that certain person didn't have to write.

SADY: Yeah! Government interference is totally unnecessary, if you happen to be a rich lady! Which is why it is so weird that disabled people only ever belong to families that are super-rich. God has a Special Plan for us all, truly! Also true: All disabled people HAVE families. Private wealth, which all disabled people have access to, is always and totally sufficient to their needs. Like: WHAT. I have no doubt that Sarah Palin cares about her son, but if she cares about the ISSUE, she's either completely devoid of empathy or just really, really stupid.

AMANDA: Now the only thing left to be cleared up here is Rahm Emanuel's mouth!

SADY: Dear Rahm: Your usage is unbecoming. I like to swear, just like you, and also I like to rant at people in a kind of mean way over issues, as I am aware that you apparently do also. I am here to tell you that you can be a big swearing jackass without using the term "retarded." Love, Lady Who Yells On The Internet.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

This year on the Sexist, the pageviews accumulated like so many cats draped across my spinstery blogger frame. I'd like to take a minute to thank you all for clicking and commenting, even those of you who accidentally stumbled onto this blog while searching for porn. Especially you guys.

Below are the 10 most popular blog posts of the past year, with commentary on everything from semen facials to sexy librarians to nipple slips to Sarah Palin. Damnit! You all were just looking for porn!

10. Semen Facials Are Like Weddings, in which the degradation of porn can be ignored in the bedroom (as long as we can address it on the blogs):

Facials are like weddings. We all know that the institution of marriage is one of the patriarchy’s all-time greatest hits, in which women are sold into sexual slavery from father to husband in exchange for livestock. And yet, who derives the greatest joy from weddings? Women! It’s the craziest thing. But even though we all know that weddings were clearly institutionalized to facilitate the willing subjugation of women, feminists figure out a way to do it anyway. Why? Probably because even though we all know it’s sexist as fuck, weddings—like facial ejaculation—still make some people happy. And feminists deserve to be happy, too. But that doesn’t mean we should forget about the sexist tropes that sometimes inform our happiness (and our sex lives).

9. Library Conference Secret Twitter Proves Librarians Sexy, Stern, in which some librarians wish to silence the sexual overtures of other librarians:

Some librarians are exhausted by the conference’s material (”I have reached the point of the conference where I no longer give a damn about anything anyone is saying any more.”) Others are inspired by a perceived lack of cultural acceptance for a librarian’s sex life (”I am an adult. I am a librarian. I enjoy good sex. Including at this conference. What is the problem?”). Most of them, for whatever reason, are talking about fucking—that’s the “sexy” part. Not everyone is happy about it. That’s where “stern” comes in.

8. Huffington Post: Liberal Politics, Sexist Entertainment, in which nipple slips emerge as a liberal mainstay:

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.

7. The Onion's Best and Worst Rape Jokes, in which the hilarity of rape jokes is all about the target:

I’ve written a lot recently on who can successfully tell a rape joke and what targets are fair game for the butts of those jokes. One perennial source of rape humor, the Onion, gets the rape joke dynamic right a lot of the time. The format has a lot to do it: as America’s leading source of fake news, the Onion is always skewering the media along with its make-believe subjects, and media treatment of sexual violence is often ripe for satire.

6. The Rapiest Quotes From "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell", in which Tucker Max's jokes rely on almost (but not quite!) rape:

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Max’s stories succeed on orchestrating sexual conquests that are increasingly outrageous, drunk, dubiously legal, painful, objectifying, and embarrassing to his sex partners. In order to continue to one-up himself, Max intentionally pushes the line of consent—getting drunker, getting her drunker, leaving his sex partners to fend for themselves—naked—on the street, hiding his friend with an undisclosed video camera in his closet while they’re doing it. It’s not hard to think of the ultimate scenario these increasingly absurd sexcapades are inching toward—it’s, like, rape, dude. And now—thanks to Max’s movie tour—undergrads everywhere can compete to have the consensual sex that’s most like rape without actually being a prosecutable offense. Sure, some dudes might fail and actually rape chicks. Oh well!

According to a new Gallup poll,  Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America. Barely. Clinton's runner-up, Sarah Palin, almost knocked the Secretary of State from the most-admired perch she's assumed 14 times. If you think that's sad, check out the also-rans:

The third most admired woman in America is Oprah Winfrey, with 8 percent; fourth on the list is Michelle Obama, with 7 percent. Makes sense so far. Next up is Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth II—each with two percent. (Oddly, British royalty counts: The poll is actually meant to determine the most admired woman by Americans). Then we have the one-percent group: A four-way tie between Margaret Thatcher, Maya Angelou, Angela Merkel and . . . Elin Nordegren Woods.

Let's see: We've got heads of state, cultural ambassadors, high-ranking government officials, and a lady who married a douchebag. One of these things is not like the other!

Marrying (and divorcing) douchebags, sadly, has been hailed as a resounding achievement for women in 2009. Jessica Grose chastised Barbara Walters for placing Kate Gosselin and Jenny Sanford, two ladies who married douchebags, in the top 10 most fascinating people of the year: "Being publicly cheated on does not automatically make you an interesting person, much less interesting enough to appear on one of these silly lists." Phoebe Connelly also chimed in on the absurdity of giving the feminist treatment to Sanford: "The news that Sanford is leaving her national punchline of a husband, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, is no reason to hail her as a feminist icon."

Look closer at the cultural narratives surrounding Gosselin, Sanford, and Nordegren Woods, and you'll find three different monsters born of our fascination with wronged women. Sanford gracefully endured her husband's infidelities before calmly divorcing him. She is respected. Nordegren Woods allegedly chased her philandering husband down with a golf club, leaving him laying delirious in the middle of the road next to his wrecked car. She is celebrated. Gosselin, star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 and wife to confirmed douchebag Jon Gosselin until their separation this year, broadcast her marital troubles for all of America to see. She is pitied.

When we have women like Clinton, Angelou, Thatcher, Rice, and Merkel to admire, why are we still eager to recognize the long-suffering wife whose greatest accomplishment is no longer being married to a douchebag? Perhaps it's because divorcing a douchebag is an achievement that regular women can foresee accomplishing in their own lifetimes. Most women won't become Secretary of State or a celebrated writer—or end up married to a catch like Barack Obama. But many, many women will marry douchebags, and about half of those douchebag unions will end in divorce.

Most women won't find the strength to face their divorce with Sanford's calm and collected exterior. They won't get away with Nordegren Woods' outburst of spousal abuse (though many will fantasize about it). They won't attract the unwavering public attention that Gosselin's divorce has. But these public narratives of divorcing douchebags lend a certain gravitas to the personal lives of normal women—women who are not likely to be admired or celebrated or even pitied for finally severing their marital vows. For a long time, getting a divorce was seen as a failure, which meant that half of married women were failing. No wonder America has labored to find something to admire about these women—they are us. The problem with the current narrative is that we're celebrating divorce as a failure of men and a triumph of women, instead of focusing on the real triumphs of women like Clinton, whose marital status has been made irrelevant to the discussion of her success.

Photo via marcn, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

On Saturday, hundreds braved the first snow of the year outside BJ’s Wholesale Club in Fairfax to get a live glimpse at Sarah Palin, there to sign copies of her new memoir, Going Rogue. Having filed into the shopping center’s parking lot, the Palinites were sitting ducks for reporters with questions like this one: What does Sarah mean for women?

“I think she speaks her mind, and I think sometimes she speaks a little bit unguarded, so she is a little—she’s not conformed to speaking planned speech. Planned. It’s not planned,” Dee, a Palin supporter from Haymarket, Va., explained. “So I think she speaks her thoughts, and I think that she goes ahead and talks. I think she’s a strong woman. And she allows herself to express that … she’s not afraid to speak. And she’s fairly attractive, and that doesn’t seem to interfere with her being intelligent.”

“As a younger female, I like the fact that she has her own opinions and is not afraid to share them with others,” Chantilly, Va.’s Celia Coughlin submitted. “Also, that she can stand on her own and pave her own path and not really follow the line of any particular thing.”

Elizabeth from Gainesville, Va., says: “For women, she represents principles, life principles, and for the country she represents principles also.”

“I think she’s representing the women the way they should be,” says Patrick Darby of Rockville, Md. “You know, independent, strong, capable of doing whatever she wants to do, standing up for moral issues. And rights.”

Who could ever argue with “rights”? Or with refusing to conform to “speaking planned speech”? Therein lies the appeal of the Palin as culture warrior. Since she debuted on the national scene last summer, conservatives have attempted to corral this outspoken personality into a politically expedient persona: Palin as feminist. The November issue of conservative magazine Newsmax featured Palin on the cover, under the headline “Sarah Palin and the Leaders of the Newer Feminism.”

In the issue, Newsmax situates some notorious female conservatives, like Palin and Dr. Laura Schlessinger, alongside more traditional feminist icons, like Ms. Magazine executive editor Katherine Spillar and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Pegging Palin, darling to anti-feminist voters everywhere, as America’s hottest new feminist is a clever trick. As the crowd at BJ’s attests, Palin’s feminism contains none of the messy political agendas of former feminist waves—it is all personality, all self-reliance, and no politics. It’s about speaking your mind, even when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

It’s a bizarre twist on the old feminist adage that the “personal is the political.” Instead of identifying the structural influences over the day-to-day lives of women, this feminism focuses tightly on choices that have been fully operational for decades: Pants or skirt? Family or career and family? Maybelline or Cover Girl?

In “newer feminism,” every woman’s choices are valued—no matter what those choices mean for other women. Schlessinger isn’t an enforcer of rigid gender roles; she’s a facilitator of women’s choices. Palin’s opposition to abortion rights and comprehensive sex education isn’t anti-feminist; it is her choice to deny reproductive choices to other women. Under this model, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis isn’t an exploiter; he’s a liberator of women’s breasts.

Last fall, Palin did some yeoman’s work in the rebranding of the “F-word.” After telling Katie Couric that she was a “feminist who believes in equal rights,” Palin quickly added that she believed that all of feminism’s work had already been achieved. This “newer” feminism isn’t shy about devaluing feminism: The Newsmax report casually accuses Gloria Steinem of “man-hating,” celebrates Schlessinger’s statement that feminism has “turned the family life upside down” as a welcome “departure from the feminism of old,” and raises the bogeyman of feminist “bra-burning” four times. In her contribution to the Newsmax piece, FoxNews.com writer Andrea Tantaros floats a new definition of feminism: “choice.” Feminism, she writes, is now “defined by each and every woman.”

The democratization of feminism brings us back to the parking lot outside of BJ’s Wholesale Club. If feminism is now “defined by each and every woman,” why not by Mary Ellen Hood, a D.C. resident who eschews politics but loves Sarah Palin?

“I’m not so sure I would put a label on her as a feminist,” says Hood of Palin. “She presents herself feminine … The impression is that feminists are women who don’t like to value their feminine qualities, and they like to put it down and be like a man, and I don’t think that’s appropriate for women. I kind of like her in that regard, that she’s sort of celebrating her womanhood as well.”

Loretta Teele of Fairfax is also more comfortable defining Palin in opposition to feminism than in concert with it. “She’s more godly, loving, and she’s more into her family,” says Teele. “She’s not out there like some of the past feminists—and I do not want to call names—that are bashing men and everybody around them. Feminists have a tendency to bash men. They’re cruel, and she’s not that.”

Caroline, a Herndon resident, is open to seeing Palin as a “new” feminist. “I think in a way. You know, not in the classic kind—you know, I came of age in the feminist revolution and there was a lot of kind of anti-male and anti-traditional female roles, like kids. There was a touch of that, there, back in the old days. And so, in that sense, she’s surely not. She kind of does kind of integrate it all—family, husband, everything, so I do think that that is really good.”

Others aren’t budging. “A feminist? Maybe borderline a little bit,” says Coughlin. “But I don’t really see her—no, not really.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” confirms Dee.

Feminism is now “defined by each and every woman,” and some women are still content to define the movement as those godless, mannish, childless specimens of women who hate men. The latest wave of the women’s movement is all about women having choices—as long as they make the right ones. Call it “newer” feminism, or Sarah Palin feminism, or anti-feminist feminism—just make sure you get a woman to say it, to make sure that it will be above all criticism.

Via Feministing: Glenn Beck has slapped down rumors of a Palin-Beck presidential ticket in 2012. Why? Because Glenn Beck would be an even worse Vice Presidential pick than Sarah Palin was is really sexist!

"I was just thinking, what, I'm going to take a back seat to a chick?" Beck said, before resorting to the most clichéd remark ever:

I'm just saying, Beck-Palin, I'll consider. But Palin-Beck—can you imagine what an administration with the two of us would be like? She'd be yapping or something, I'd say, 'I'm sorry, why am I hearing your voice? I'm not in the kitchen.'

So . . . Glenn Beck is too sexist to consider being vice president. Everybody wins!

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Need a convenient way to evaluate any charge of sexism? Pull out the "If It Were A Man" defense. Here's what you do: Isolate an instance of sexist behavior against a woman. Now, imagine a man is the target of the allegedly sexist scenario. Would the man be treated any differently? If yes, it is sexist! If no, it is not sexist!

This theory was recently tested out on a particularly incendiary Sarah Palin Newsweek cover. The magazine ran a photo of Palin posing in short shorts alongside the cover line: "How do you solve a problem like Sarah? She's bad news for the GOP—and for everybody else, too." Charges of sexism were instantly refuted by the "If It Were A Man" defense: It can't be sexist because it happened to Barack Obama:

"Was This Magazine Cover of Obama 'Sexist?'" Andy Ostroy of the Huffington Post asks of Washingtonian's May 2009 cover, which featured President Obama walking shirtless on the beach. Answer: Nope, it wasn't sexist. Therefore, no other cover image can ever be sexist:

To the Republicans who've been critical of Palin's mistreatment by the big bad liberal media, I say, stop your whining. Nothing's more unflattering than a thin-skinned conservative. The Newsweek shot is no more "sexist" than the May Washingtonian cover of a bare chested beefcake President Obama, who the publication called its "hot new neighbor."

Sorry folks, but that's not how sexism works. Ostroy is right, of course: The Washingtonian cover was criticized for a variety of reasons—from photo-shopping a public official to selling sex for page-views—but nobody accused the magazine of sexism. But Ostroy ignores two major distinctions between the Palin and Obama covers. One, Washingtonian used an ab-tastic photo of Obama to illustrate how hot he is, whereas Newsweek used a leggy photo of Palin to illustrate how bad she is. Second, Palin is a woman and Obama is a man. And the second distinction has everything to do with the first one.

First, perhaps we should do a little bit of a primer on what "sexism" actually is. Let's turn to the Gender Bender Blog for a reminder:

There is no such thing as reverse sexism. . . . Just like how racism = power + prejudice based on skin color, sexism = power + prejudice based on gender. When talking about the various forms of oppression, many people often confuse prejudice with the ism. . . . Therefore, a person who does not exist with the necessary institutionalized power and privilege of belonging to a dominant in-group, cannot be racist, sexist, ableist, etc. Women can certainly be prejudiced or discriminatory against men (which is not acceptable either) but they cannot be sexist or “reverse sexist” simply because they lack the institutional power to systematize their prejudice against men.

Why is it different for a publication to run a photo of Obama's hot bod and Palin's hot bod? Because male and female bodies signify different things to the people who publicize and consume them. These magazines applied explicit value judgments to the Palin and Obama bodies—hot Obama is just "hot," while hot Palin is "bad."

Women's bodies aren't just their bodies: They're also a reflection of their value as a person. This is why underage Taylor Lautner can prance around wearing next to nothing and be praised as "hot," while underage Miley Cyrus shows a bit of back skin and is condemned as a "disappointment." This is why male political commentators don't resort to insulting each other for being old and/or fat, like Meghan McCain and Laura Ingraham famously did earlier this year—because a man's looks aren't seen as a reflection of his worth, whereas women in the public eye are routinely judged on age and weight.

Sexism is not a copy-and-paste sort of thing—it can't be applied to males and female equally in all situations. Sexism is a structure. And particularly when it comes to appearances, that structure is stacked against women. Yes, men are criticized for their looks. But the "suitably male appearance" is far more forgiving than the "suitable female appearance," which must strike that delicate (almost impossible) balance between too sexy and not sexy enough. That's not to say that sexism exclusively functions through people conflating women's legs with their brains. But it is helpful to put these body issues in some context: This is a country where the images of George H. W. Bush and Barack Obama are both considered fit for the White House. I don't have to remind you that we've yet to deem a female body suitable for that position.

Last week, everyone's brain exploded over a couple of Newsweek Sarah Palin covers. One cover, which ran last week, was criticized for depicting the former Alaskan governor as too sexy (left). Another, which ran last year, was criticized for depicting the Republican vice-presidential candidate as not sexy enough (right).

The indignation accompanying the covers—"How dare Newsweek present Palin as overly sexy!" and "How dare Newsweek present Palin as having stray lip hairs!" respectively—miss the point. The problem doesn't lie in Palin's looks, people. The problem is Newsweek using Palin's looks as a stand-in for her political failures.

Take the headline tagged to last week's cover: "How do you solve a problem like Sarah? She's bad news for the GOP—and for everyone else too." Placed alongside a photo of Palin posing saucily in running shorts, the treatment implies that Palin's "problem" has got something to do with her killer bod. I think it has more to do with her radical right-wing political beliefs.

Last year's Palin cover contained a similar treatment: "She's one of the folks (and that's the problem)," the cover announced, next to a zoomed-in close-up of Palin's face. Some criticized Newsweek for unnecessarily exposing Palin's lip hairs, blemishes, pancake make-up, and fine lines to the world. The real trouble with the cover is that Newsweek, again, used Palin's physical appearance to represent her politics—this time, to illustrate that her "realness" is a "problem." Lacking political experience? That's a problem. Lip hairs? Not so much.

The comments sections on the stories produced such helpful commentary as "NEWS WEAK HA; SARAH PALIN HAS A VERY NICE FACE SHE IS NOT A PHONY NEWSWEAK HA" and "Only un-evolved Neanderthals find her attractive. She looks and acts like a $20 coke-head hooker on a Seattle street." Despite the deluge of body-snarking comments, I did find a bit of constructive commentary hidden between the cries of "hot!" and "not!":

Jennifer, on Newsweek's zoomed-in Palin face, writes:

I honestly think the response to the cover is more sexist than the cover itself.

There have been plenty of closeups of older men with skin full or wrinkles on the cover and no one claimed them to be ‘flaws’ that should have been hidden in order to somehow help him maintain his integrity. The fact that the people crying wolf attribute a woman’s looks to something that can ultimately be a ‘flaw’ in her and her overall appeal in, not a beauty contest, but a political election, shows you a lot about their view of women.

We are all humans, and what happens to humans when they get older is that their skin wrinkles. There is nothing ‘flawed’ about that.

Katie, on Newsweek's running-short body shot, writes:

I’m not sure calling her an ugly hooker is any vast improvement over whatever winking sexual antics she’s responsible for in the past. The whole point, as far as I’m concerned, is that her looks have nothing to do with anything. Or they shouldn’t. I really don’t think she has “baited” sexist behavior. She’s gotten it because she’s a woman. She absolutely deserves criticism for being a ridiculous joke of a candidate, a recklessly misleading author, and a general nutcase.

. . . she doesn’t deserve criticism for being a woman who has legs and long hair and posed for a running magazine picture…in runner’s clothes. I’m not saying that’s what you’re going for. But I don’t think the answer to unnecessarily glorifying Sarah Palin is unnecessarily denigrating her.

That first point makes sense—feminist women were thrown under the bus in order to pass the health care bill, and they're right to be pissed about it. But what's this business about forcing us to vote for lady politicians? "A major element in our battle for equality is getting women into positions of power," Siskind explains. "The hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders. Speaker Pelosi reveals a flaw in feminist thinking: There are exceptions. A powerful woman can in fact be an enemy to women."

Speaker Pelosi has taught Siskind a very important lesson: Supporting female politicians is not the same as supporting women. If only Siskind had figured that out sooner, before she wrote a big 'ol article entitled "Should Women Back Palin in 2012?"

The obvious answer to that piece's titular question, of course, is "fuck no." Sarah Palin is, officially, the worst. But Siskind defies feminist conventional wisdom by throwing out this compelling argument: "Here's the difference: Sarah Palin played women's basketball."

Barring the possibility Siskind believes that sinking sweet jump shots is now a requirement for President of the United States (at this point, I wouldn't put anything past her)—I'm going to guess that Siskind supports Palin for President because she is a lady. Siskind is willing to support a woman who definitely opposes abortion rights, is totally a firm believer in teen abstinence, and is most certainly opposed to sensible rape policy—but is a lady. Why, again? Oh yeah: Because "the hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women’s issues and encourage the next generation of women leaders."

That is a really dumb thing to hope, Amy Siskind. And that false hope becomes—forgive me for borrowing the terminology here—a nightmare when you learn of the wide variety of women Siskind is willing to support as her leader, just because they are women:

We should embrace what the current Newsmax cover describes as The Newer Feminism, which has a home for leaders regardless of political affiliation: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Suzy Welch, and Kathy Ireland, among others.

So, in the next presidential election, I'm going to vote for Sarah Palin and hope she suddenly starts caring about women's issues. I'm going to vote for Kathy Ireland and hope she suddenly turns into someone qualified to lead the nation in more than just underwear sales. And I'm going to vote for Hillary Clinton and hope she turns into a hippopotamus.

I kid. But just in case you weren't convinced that Siskind doesn't base her faith in female politicians on blind hope, consider this argument: "I know I'll hear from critics who claim that Palin would not share my policy views," Siskind writes. "But what makes them so sure?"

We aren't stuck with Stupak because we have lifted an anti-woman woman to the Speaker of the House. We're stuck with Stupak because we have elected plenty of representatives—male and female—who are really, actually anti-women in their policies. I'll take a pro-woman man over Siskind's theory of spontaneous feminist conversion any day. Besides, women are not the only group who need more representation in the U.S. government. It's worth noting that Siskind converted from a lifelong Democrat to a McCain supporter because he chose a woman as his running-mate. On the one hand, that says a lot about Siskind's eagerness to support women in government. On the other hand, I guess that means she doesn't think it's important for African-Americans to gain representation.

The most troubling thing about Siskind's aggressive campaign to put more women in office—even if their policy positions directly oppose women—is its one caveat. Why support Palin and not Pelosi? To Siskind, we must always support female politicians, no matter what—unless that female politician does not aggressively campaign to put more women in office. Keep in mind—we don't even know if Sarah Palin would support more women in government—that's just another of Siskind's "hopes." If representation is going to be our one-and-only issue, we should all be supporting Amy Siskind for president. And that's a very scary thought indeed.

How condescending is this photo? It's not the fabled (and fake) American-flag-wearin', gun-totin'  bikini photo that surfaced on the Internet shortly after Palin reached national fame, but it's about as close as Newsweek could get to the real thing.

I am generally in agreement with Palin supporters when they accuse the media of hurling sexism toward the former Governor. David Letterman's joke about Palin's underage daughter fucking Alex Rodriguez? Inappropriate. Ridiculing Bristol Palin for getting knocked up, while laughing it up with Levi? Sexist.

And I tend to agree with Palin's response here, too: Yesterday, Palin took to Facebook to denounce the cover's sexism. "The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now," she wrote. "If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention—even if out of context."

Is the Newsweek cover sexist? Yes. But let's put the photo back into context for a minute: Sarah Palin's entire existence is sexist.

Let's try to imagine, for a moment, the thought process that went into creating this Newsweek cover image : "We need to convey that Palin sucks really bad! Let's take some photo of Palin lookin' sexy, slap it on the cover of Newsweek, and then use her sexuality in attempt to draw attention to all the terrible things this woman has brought upon us."

Hey! That sounds kind of like what John McCain did when he chose Palin as his VP: Found an attractive lady, slapped her on to his campaign, and used her image as a sexy lady in order to distract people from her scant qualifications, her total lack of concern for women's issues, and her complete suckiness as a candidate.

Sarah Palin's very existence as a national figure depends upon people being sexist. It's not just the bad things that have happened to her that are a result of sexism—the mud-slinging about her daughters, the circulated upskirt photos, the intense scrutiny over her appearance and her clothes. But sexism tends to help individual women, too, and it has certainly helped Palin. Sexism allows women to earn insane amounts of money for simply taking their clothes off, and it allows women to earn an insane amount of political power for simply being a hot conservative lady with no particular skill at public speaking, reading comprehension, telling the truth, or articulating a single political view that makes any sense, ever.

At that point, can we really get bent out of shape every time we see the media reflecting the reality that Palin is a product of sexism in their coverage of her? We have crossed the Rubicon, people. Everything about Palin is sexist. When it comes to sexism, I'm a big advocate of hating the game, and not the player. But the game works both ways. And I am sick and tired of only having to care about it when that sexism means something bad for Sarah Palin.

When Laura Ingraham covered hosting duties for Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor last week, she sought out to answer the age-old question: Why do feminists hate Sarah Palin so much? Hmm—I can think of a few reasons. The resulting discussion between Ingraham, Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, and Republican pollster KellyAnne Conway produced some pretty interesting theories. Let's check them out:

Theory #1: We hate her because we're childless spinsters.

CONWAY: I think of some of the spinster childless columnists who have attacked this woman for her right to choose . . .

INGRAHAM: Can you name names?

CONWAY: . . . and have five children. There are too many to name and then it would make them relevant on such a great show.

INGRAHAM: Spinster columnists, OK.

—

Theory #2: We hate her because Todd is cute.

CONWAY: . . . I think she makes some women feel inadequate because she has five children, no household help. Not only is she not anti-man, but she has, as we could tell, a supportive husband and father.

INGRAHAM: And cute, too. He's real cute.

CONWAY: . . . the extended family. He's cute to go.

—

Theory #3: We hate her because Palin lost weight after having the 5th baby we never had because we were too busy being childless spinster abortionists without cute husbands:

CONWAY: . . . And look, she lost all her baby weight. It makes some women crazy. They've got 1.3 children and a Pilates schedule they have to keep, and it makes some of them crazy.

QUINN: . . . Well, let me just say first that she has a point about people being jealous about her losing her baby weight. I have to say.

NGRAHAM: OK, we've gotten that out of the way.

CONWAY: But you did too, Sally.

INGRAHAM: I got that.

QUINN: No, I'm crazed about that.

INGRAHAM: Right.

QUINN: And I have to admit it right here.

INGRAHAM: You've always been fit.

QUINN: Yeah.

INGRAHAM: So we're not going to hear that from you.

—

Theory #4: We hate her because she's a woman:

CONWAY: And look, I just want to say this, that with Palin, she looks so feminine. She acts like a woman, but governed like a man.

—

Theory #5: We hate her because we're jealous that she's pro-life:

INGRAHAM: Admit it right now. Palin is hot. She is pro-life. She shoots. She hunts. She has a big family. And all these feminists are like just seething with jealousy about it.

—

Theory #6: We hate her because she is against everything that we stand for:

QUINN: . . . I have to say that of all the people I know, I don't know a single person who feels jealous about her. I think that most of the people I know who are not Sarah Palin fans just don't like what she has to say.

Photo by lifeisaprayer, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Still looking for that sexy Halloween costume? If you've been dreaming of dressing as former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, except naked and horny for other high-profile female politicians, you are so in luck!

Hustler has produced a promotional cardboard mask in the likeness of Lisa Ann, the adult film star who portrayed everyone's favorite VILF in the Hustler-produced picture "Who's Nailin' Paylin?" (featuring porny Hilary Clinton and porny Condoleezza Rice) and its spell-checked follow-up, "You're Nailin' Palin: Interactive!" (co-starring porny Carrie Prejean).

Ladies, I'd really love to tell you to strap on Hustler's "Parody Mask of Lisa Ann" this Halloween. But according to the instructions on the back, the mask is actually produced for men to slap on to you. Presumably in the boudoir. It reads:

PLACE ON FACE OF:

• Wife
• Girlfriend
• Mistress
• Significant Other

Doesn't every man deserve to pretend to fuck a dead-eyed porn star who is pretending to be an absurd Republican politician? Just shut up and take the mask, Mistress.

Listen up, teens: Guess what happens when you get teen pregnant, you're not allowed to have a smushmortion, and you can't figure out how to secretly swap your fetus into your mother's aging but willing womb. Umm . . . you get rewarded with an eccentric celebrity handler and sexy undies shots in Vanity Fair? Oh ho no, honey, that's what's happens to the dude. What happens to you is you get to hold the dang thing throughout a couple of tortured appearances on a crazy middle-aged lady's FOX News program, and then everyone makes fun of you for being a hypocrite because GOD, YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER EVEN HAD SEX. And then you have to raise it.

Did I mention your babby's daddy got to do Tyra?

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown: Why Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I think that's kind of fucked up, actually? BONUS: what to expect next in the SARAH PALYN SNOMOBLOWJOB TODD PALYN BAREBACK LEVI JOHNSON porn saga of the Palin family story, after the jump.

AMANDA: Hi!

SADY: WHY HELLO. are you ready to discuss THE TERRIBLE REVELATIONS OF LEVI JOHNSTON???? because there are a few, apparently.

AMANDA: Yeah. Apparently Sarah Palin attempted to engineer the EXACT SAME LEFT-WING BABY-SWITCHING CONSPIRACY that liberal bloggers speculated about after photos of pregnant Bristol surfaced during the campaign.

SADY: ha ha, yes. but the version of Sarah Palin in this article is capable of all trickery.

AMANDA: but not of cooking.

SADY: yes. it's the intimate revelations of terribleness that are really special. she apparently often walked in on Levi and Tripp (?) and tried to trade him for Trig (??) saying, "I don't want the retarded baby — I want the other one." did you get a chance to read the full article?

AMANDA: No! That's fucking insane! I just watched a video of Levi Johnston posing in men's formalwear. I think I missed the good stuff.

SADY: well: one gets the sense that mr. johnston may be, let us say, playing up the anti-palinry a bit. it is a really, really anti-palin article. also, there's some thing in there with meghan mccain throwing a fit because no-one will do her hair, which her rep calls a "naive mischaracterization." NO-ONE COMES OFF WELL, i am telling you. only LEVI JOHNSTON, sole bastion of integrity among the corrupt palin clan. which: i kind of doubt it. but speaking of poses, you may soon have the opportunity to see levi himself in his underthings!

AMANDA: Yes, but at the same time, I think that Levi Johnston may be the only person who really gets it. First of all, Levi Johnston is hot. Like Sarah Palin

SADY: Ah, true. They have so much in common! Like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, really. But with more snowmobiling involved.

AMANDA: yeah, but Levi Johnston is willing to settle for that. By which I mean hot photo-shoots and tabloid-y tell alls, and a personal handler named Tank. And from my perspective, that's a pretty good life!

SADY: Right? There was Trip and Trig and Tank... lots of T-names. I'm surprised he can keep them all straight. I can't, really.

AMANDA: yeah. but the point is, he's not trying to ruin the lives of a whole country of humans! i know: low standard

SADY: it's true, it's true! Sarah Palin does set an imposing standard for any young douchebucket. like, i guess i'm fine with the whole self-serving tabloid expose thingy as long as he's not trying to make Jurassic Park illegal for promoting evolution. or something.

AMANDA: yeah. Also, if he keeps along this path, my election season prediction of him becoming a porn performer may come true!

SADY: ah, so now we see what this is about. your GAMBLING ADDICTION. i plan to tell all to vanity fair.

AMANDA: yeah. I wonder how easy it is, though, just to make up an absurd lie about sarah palin's home life? Because at this point, i think people will really believe anything, they hate her so much. still, I wonder: could any mind have invented the "I don't want the retarded baby" story?

SADY: it's true! that is kind of unmatchable, all things considered. i automatically distrust anyone who tells these kinds of "and then I stood around and was awesome and watched everyone else in the world suck" stories. but, on the other hand, the idea that sarah palin, at home, "would literally say things that did not make any sense." that is sensical.

AMANDA: I don’t know. I can’t hate him. he doesn't seem like a liar to me, and any overblown statements i just have to attribute to him enduring media scrutiny for having the grandson of a famous crazy lady while in high school. i didn't have to endure any of that shit in high school, and i was still kinda bratty

SADY: yeah, exactly. he does, all things told, come across as a regular dumb dude that you'd maybe make out with in high school. who is maybe still a little bitter that sarah palin made him cut off his mullet (the mullet plays a crucial role!) and threatened to spray-tan him.

AMANDA: dude, NO

SADY: i don't MIND levi johnston so much as i mind the media creation of "Levi Johnston: Totally Admirable Guy! Who is Cute! And Also Sexy!" like, one thing i have learned from the levi johnston thing, as a whole, is that if you accidentally get someone pregnant in high school you can end up a sex symbol. and if you accidentally GET pregnant in high school, you end up a tragedy.

AMANDA: bummer. you're totally right. imagine a bristol palin interview treatment that was super fun and sexy like this one!

SADY: I KNOWWWWWWWW.

AMANDA: i think the closest bristol could get to that would be doing an US Weekly How I Got My Body Back.

SADY: and yet? i think if one could give bristol a year or two and get her away from the whole family dynamic? she would be a far better storyteller. SHE WAS FORCED TO MARRY THE GENTLEMAN WHO STOLE HER VIRTUE. AS IN YE OLDEN DAYS. if you want dirt, that lady is the one to get dirt from. should she ever be in a position to reveal it.

AMANDA: and her options were: have the baby, or have the baby and have your mom steal your baby. although i would bet that bristol and levi's porn performance options are roughly equal.

SADY: um, yeah. i'm kind of surprised that there's no bristol "paylin" porn on the market already. maybe they're waiting until they can get levi?

AMANDA: oh man—mind went slightly insane imagining all the creepy options available. "trig palin isn't the only thing sarah wanted to trade"

SADY: you know. every now and again i realize what life would be like if i had no scruples. and i imagine myself rolling around on a bed of pure gold with a mattress stuffed with $1,000 bills.

AMANDA: and a handler named Tank!

SADY: and all i would have to do is to invent some scenario whereby levi "johnson" and todd "paylin" bond – WITH TANK, TANK'S NAME COULD STAY – over snowmobiles and enthusiastic outdoor sexual escapades.

AMANDA: what does it say about society that one political family's story translates so easily to pornographic storylines?

SADY: power corrupts. and power within a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere where the kids have nothing to do but make out to conserve their bodily heat and their mom is better suited to image-making than rational thought corrupts absolutely. or something.

Martin, to her credit, stays pretty upbeat on Palin's aftermath, striking three positive notes on Palin's political ascension: she's taught us that "women across the country are hungry for their strength to be acknowledged, without sacrificing their femininity"; that "defending women against sexism means defending all women against sexism"; and that "we've succeeded in so many ways!"

I, too, believe that feminists have learned a lot from the rise of Palin. But since I'm kind of a downer, I think it's important to point out the less-than-positive flip-sides of Palin's Feminist Primer:

Lesson #1: Women across the country are hungry for their strength to be acknowledged, without sacrificing their femininity A Female Politician's Image is Always More Important Than A Man's.

Martin finds an interesting silver lining in Palin's lasting contribution to "American electoral rhetoric"—the pit-bull with lipstick. The phrase, Martin argues, was a rallying cry for the powerful woman who refuses to be underestimated because of her feminine identity.

"Feminists need to get better at explaining that, in fact, feminism is opposed to anything that narrows human beings' choices around gender identity and expression," writes Martin. "Whether you are Sarah Palin and you want to wear a perky ponytail while standing by your 'dude,' or you're Rachel Maddow and want to wear thick black glasses while standing by your partner, we defend your right to do so."

The shade of one's lipstick and the style of one's glasses should never have any bearing on a woman's political career. But while this election cycle exposed many liberal commenters eager to ridicule Palin for her perky ponytail or productive womb, it also produced rampant sexism among Palin supporters. For many of her conservative backers, Palin's femininity wasn't just tolerated—it was magnified, obsessed over, and valued above her qualifications. Palin's femininity wasn't respected as a personal choice—it was practically a prerequisite for her position.

The feminist lesson we can learn from Palin isn't so much that ponytails are as valid as Maddow's black-framed glasses or Hillary Clinton's pantsuits—it's that no matter what flavor of female political figure you are, your looks matter.

Even in extremely visible careers like politics and cable news, strict standards of appearance have relaxed a bit for female employees. But the expectation of femininity has far from disappeared, as any side-by-side comparison of Palin and Clinton will make clear. Even Maddow, Martin's example of the anti-Palin, is a smoking hot babe—a smoking hot babe who doesn't wear those signature glasses on the air.

—

Lesson #2: Defending women against sexism means defending all women against sexism.

Actually, I totally agree with this point. Awesome!

—

Lesson #3: We've succeeded in so many ways! Palin's Failure Is Not A Feminist Success.

Martin takes a time-out here to detail How Far We've Come—and she's right to remind feminists to soak up their successes once in a while. "Sarah Palin doesn't represent feminists, but she surely represents the success of feminism's long, hard-fought battle to get women leading roles on the political stage," writes Martin. "It may have made feminists squirm to see that the movement's fight produced a moment ripe for a soldier like Sarah Palin, but from another vantage point, her candidacy (and more importantly, Hillary Clinton's) prove we've won certain battles. Women are taken seriously as political candidates. Plain and simple."

Well, I have to disagree there. Sarah Palin was not taken seriously as a political candidate—she ranks up there with The Economy in helping to totally derail John McCain's presidential campaign. Since November 4, we've learned enough about Palin's uninformed, inexperienced, and dubiously ethical approach to politics to know that she shouldn't be taken seriously as a political candidate in the future. I'm not sure why Sarah Palin has risen to the forefront of the Republican Party, but it's not because she's the best and the brightest the party's got to offer. Unfortunately, I've gotta think it has a lot more to do with image (see Lesson #1).

*BONUS* Lesson #4: Let's Get Our Shit Together.

Though Martin doesn't headline it as such, she does touch on Palin's most lasting feminist lesson at the end of her essay. "I feel thankful that she inadvertently pushed feminists out of complacency," writes Martin. "No matter who she claims to be, we need to keep pushing ourselves to clarify who we are." This is Palin's real contribution to feminism: Her frustrating combination of power, femininity, destructive reproductive health positions, and incessant winking presented a puzzle for feminists to hash out at every Palin public appearance. In other words: Hey! She gave us something to blog about.

Why pay journalists to write about Sarah Palin when Sarah Palin is perfectly willing to pay people to write as if they were Sarah Palin? It's almost too easy.

Hopefully the above photo, published on the cover of the New York Times today, has some sort of innocuous explanation whereby Sarah Palin has not kicked off her resignation victory tour with a bizarre twist on the sexy rock star pastime: Signing the chest of a crying child, what the fuck. Okay, she actually appears to be signing the area of the onesie covering the child's chest. Better?

On July 3, Alaska Gov. Sara Palin announced her impending resignation from the Governor's seat, citing "a higher calling." In the wake of the announcement, Palin hasn't demonstrated much interest in unsolicited advice from newspapers, bloggers, and Tweeters. But with all of the contiguous United States now at her fingertips, Palin could use our help more than ever. As Anne Applebaum wrote in today's Washington Post: "what is that higher calling? If you don't tell us, we have to guess—or make jokes about it."

Weighing the pros, cons, and probabilities of our best guesses for Palin's next steps, after the jump.

MAKE A RUN IN 2012.

Pros: May manage to successfully run all the raging feminists out of this country for good.

Cons: Couldn't handle the job if she somehow, miraculously snagged it; couldn't handle the campaign trail, either; with all the feminists gone, no one left to defend Palin and family from rape jokes.

Odds: 5 to 1

—

MOVE TO LOS ANGELES.

Pros: Inevitable, just get it over with.

Cons: Will be lost in sea of naive fame-seekers.

Odds: 10 to 1.

—

POSE FOR PLAYBOY.

Pros: Heff's already interested; anything to erase the memory of her resignation speech performance (above); Runner's World spread confirms knack for full-body modeling. Plus, money.

Cons: Icky; too obvious; would help print media, which she hates, stay afloat another month; move would lower Palin's stock to below that of reality TV show rejects.

Odds: 500 to 1 (Maxim is a different story).

—

STAR IN A REALITY SHOW.

Pros: Would allow First Dude Todd Palin's star to rise along with hers; money; helpful transition into posing for Playboy; punning opportunities for name of reality show endless ("Pallin' Around With The Palins"; "The Beverly 'Fuckin' Rednecks,'" for chronical of relocation to L.A.)

Cons: Constant camera access to Palin family would only confirm fucked-up-edness of Palin's life and world-view; would allow First Dude Todd Palin's star to rise along with hers.

Odds: 10 to 1

—

GET A FOX NEWS TALK SHOW.

Pros: Finally, a venue where Palin's mixed metaphors, folksy aphorisms, and refusal to listen to anything are encouraged; no one would be able to look away; would improve Palin's improvisational skills while greatly inflating her ego; could really mine a Democrat-bashing "Politics as Usual" segment.

Cons: N/A

Odds: 3 to 1

—

RETREAT FROM THE LIMELIGHT.

Pros: Hates media; already undergoing public nervous breakdown; retreating from celebrity would make process less public

Cons: Loves media.

Odds: 1,000 to 1

"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!

Last week on the Sexist:

1. How Sarah Palin Confuses Liberals Into Arguing About Feminism in which Sarah Palin is wrong, but still manages to drag us all down with her.

2. Huffington Post: Liberal Politics, Sexist Entertainment in which a commenter argues for Arianna-approved "testicle slips."

3. Don't Blame Glenn Beck's Hot Mormon Wife in which Tanya's insistence upon Mormonism "grounds" him.

4. Teen Sex Scandal! in which all the people searching Google for "teen sex" and "teensex" are sorely disappointed.

5. The 10 Creepiest Paul Rudd Stalking Tweets in which I, too, do my part.

Protesters—15 of 'em!—who gathered outside a Late Show With David Letterman taping yesterday had a hard time finding a consistent message.

One responded to Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's daughters by suggesting that Letterman's son, who "was born out of wedlock," was fair game for mockery. "I believe there's a term for that," the protester hinted.

Another responding to Letterman's joke about Palin dressing like a "slutty flight attendant" by suggesting that Letterman himself had "a slut for a wife."

Yet another responded to I don't know what by suggesting that David Letterman will "rape you with his mouth."

Others expressed more creative gripes with the late-night comedian, or "the general sentiment that Jay Leno is a better host than Letterman."

Also, one of them thinks Alex Rodriguez plays basketball.

Methinks these protesters may need a refresher course on how not to fight hypocrisy with hypocrisy. And also, maybe, American professional sports.

David Letterman apologized to Sarah Palin and her family last night for telling that joke. Palin accepted, saying:

Of course it's accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who 'joke' about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve.

Letterman certainly has the right to 'joke' about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction," Palin said. "This is all thanks to our U.S. Military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America's Right to Free Speech—in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect.

Hey, minus the military-protecting-our-right-to-get-mad-at-rape-jokes stuff,  they both sounds pretty reasonable to me.

It is a simple formula for both comedy and political commentary:

Take a public figure (Sarah Palin) who holds disagreeable views (abstinence-only education). Zero in on an aspect of her personal life counter to those views (her own teen daughter, Bristol Palin, becoming pregnant). Reveal the comedic irony and/or hypocrisy of the public/private contrast. Repeat ad nauseam on blogs, 24-hour news channels, and late night talk shows.

We should all beware this construction. Though very easy to pull off—and often journalistically and comedically sound—it is a trap. And it will render us all hypocrites. Three lessons from history, after the jump.

SARAH PALIN

[youtube:v=-X6FUwBmclo]

DISAGREEABLE VIEW: Too many to count, but in this case, it's the abstinence thing.

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: When Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol became pregnant months before Palin rose to political fame as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election, political commentators and comedians held up Bristol's pregnancy as evidence that abstinence is futile—even under the roof of your state's no-sex-before-marriage Governor.

IT'S A TRAP! The revelation came at the height of election season fervor, and liberal commentators ate Bristol's sexual activity up with a spoon. The term "knocked up" became par for the course. When the baby's father, Levi Johnston, told Tyra Banks that he and Bristol had practiced safe sex, Tyra et. al dismissed him as a liar. The late-night comedy cycle feasted on the Bristol-is-a-slut jokes. Even Palin family cheerleader Greta Van Susteren asked Bristol if she had been "lazy."

We forgot that even the most responsible of 17-year-old condom users don't put it on right every time. We forgot that condoms break. And we forgot that, when you're the governor's daughter in the small town of Wasilla, requesting birth control from your family doctor, seeking Plan B at a local pharmacy, or even buying condoms—anywhere—could cause such a shit-storm for you, your boyfriend, and your family, that it would have been hard to mount the courage to even approach the counter.

At some point, we forgot about why Bristol having sex was funny to begin with. The insane glee that we all derived from a teenage girl having sex before marriage became counter-intuitive—and downright creepy. We had crossed the hypocrisy bridge. We were no longer making a point about how young women should be free to choose to be sexually active. We no longer joked to show how bogus abstinence was. We joked to show that Bristol Palin was slutty, and that was enough to make it funny.

—

CARRIE PREJEAN

[youtube:v=8XMvviFbkf0]

DISAGREEABLE VIEW: During the Q-and-A section of  the 2009 Miss USA pageant, Miss USA California Carrie Prejean described her views on same-sex marriage this way:

"I think it's great that americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, and in my country, and my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be a man or a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that was how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be. Between a man and a woman. Thank you."

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: After rising to blogosphere infamy—with the help of question-asker Perez Hilton's videoblog declaring her a "bitch"—Prejean's past modeling career caught up to her. When topless photos of the 21-year-old Prejean surfaced on the Web, Prejean was accused of both violating her pageant contract and preaching inconsistent moral views. Who is she to preach good Christian values when she's flaunting her assets for cash?

IT'S A TRAP! Wait a second—since when did we start caring about women upholding the contractual obligations of beauty pageants? Pageants are among the most sexist and anti-feminist of American traditions. They encourage patriarchal views about the traditional roles women and men should hold in society. And guess what—gays don't have a place there.

But the patriarchy is also responsible for one of the most damaging of all hypocrisy constructions: the virgin-whore dichotomy. Shaming Carrie Prejean—a woman we've elevated through beauty pageants—for taking topless modeling photos is a very short leap for shaming gays and lesbians for expressing their sexuality. That's why this whole thing was hypocritical in the first place—but perhaps we're all too distracted by Carrie Prejean's boobs to remember. We may keep posting them in the interest of "revealing hypocrisy." But we all know the real reason they're on the Web: It's not hypocrisy anymore; it's hotness.

—

LARRY CRAIG

[youtube:v=xWjXedX7pLA]

DISAGREEABLE VIEW: As a Republican Senator from Idaho, Craig often championed conservative moral values. William Saletan got specific in 2007, pointing out that Craig "helped to enact the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," revealing his "anti-gay hypocrisy."

HYPOCRITICAL MOVE: In June of 2007, Craig was arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop in the Minneapolis airport:

According to the report filed by the officer who arrested Craig at the Minneapolis airport in June, Craig stood outside the officer's bathroom stall for two minutes, repeatedly looked at the officer "through the crack in the door," sat in the stall next to the officer, tapped his foot, and gradually "moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot … within my stall area." Craig proceeded to "swipe his hand under the stall divider for a few seconds" three times, palm up, using the hand farthest from that side of Craig's stall. Most of these gestures, the officer explained, were known pickup signals in a room known (and hence under surveillance for) public sex. When the officer took Craig outside and told him so, Craig claimed he had been reaching down with his hand to retrieve a piece of paper from the floor. The officer wrote that no such paper had been on the floor.

IT'S A TRAP! I'll admit it—this is rich, fertile ground for the hypocrisy construction. Craig blows Palin and Prejean out of the water with this Perfect 10 hypocritical move: enacting anti-gay policies in law, and being gay in private. Jokes at Craig's expense were easy, valid, and very popular.

Conservatives, when not denying that any of this happened, joined in the shit-throwing. After all, this is the stuff homophobes' nightmares are made of—strange gay men attempting to have sex with them while they're taking care of business in a public restroom. For them, Craig reinforced the idea that homosexuals are sick and disgusting individuals just waiting to pounce on your unsuspecting bare penis. In other words, gays can pose a very real threat to their heterosexuality, and Craig proved it.

And yet, those who railed against Craig's institutionalized homophobia were the ones who took the most immense joy in the gay jokes. So—again—reveling in jokes about Larry Craig being gay began to lose their hypocritical anchor. On some level, the hypocritical construction allows people with pro-gay political views to indulge in some homophobic ribbing of their own. They see a rare window where making fun of gay sex is politically acceptable, and they sieze it. It's the same tale with Sarah Palin: People who support progressive sexual health policies, like comprehensive sex education, sieze the opportunity to make jokes about sluts. It's the same tale with Carrie Prejean: People who rail against patriarchal values, like "opposite marriage" and beauty pageants, sieze the opportunity to make sexist jokes.

So, let's all try not to descend too deeply into the hypocrisy construction's rabbit hole. Fall too far, and we become ripe for ironic commentary ourselves.

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.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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."

I've been mulling over whether to attend this week's Rock & Roll Hotel "Air Sex championship" for a few days now—ever since Metromix announced its intention to supply its very own D.C. competitor. Since I'm not much of an exhibitionist, I'm afraid I may not be able to add much to the coverage. It's Air Guitar, but with fucking. What more is there to say?

But after enduring a Sarah Palin Air Sex Routine, a George Bush Air Sex Routine, a Magician Air Sex Routine, a Swedish Air Sex Routine, and yes—a fucking Chris Kattan Air Sex Routine—I was hit with a terrible feeling of foreboding. All the obvious Air Sex Routines have already been performed, leaving only one Ripped from the Headlines Air Sex yet un-done.

This is my terrible fear: This Wednesday, some brave soul will reach the Air Sex stage, perform some brief Air Kung Fu, crawl into a Thai Air Closet, pull out an Air Penis Noose, and attempt an Air Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation.

If anyone actually goes through with the forbidden David Carradine Lack of Air Sex Routine, I'm really, really hoping it's the Metromix employee.

I couldn't find any Carradine Air Sex in Youtube's arsenal, but if you want to watch people pretending to be Palin, Bush, and "Bjorn to Fuck" pretend to do it, be my guest:

Sarah Palin Air Sex:
[youtube:v=Ap7reMzmh_U]

George W. Bush Air Sex:
[youtube:v=dDSxTE4FrWc]

Magic Air Sex:
[youtube:v=5rh3UMMd6GQ]

Swedish Air Sex:
[youtube:v=MHFEHbh8VsA]

While placing a simple rape joke in a pop song won't derail your music career, it could haunt you for decades and prevent you from becoming president, or anything else great ever. Below, five rape jokes that politicians wish they had never said—or, more likely, wish nobody ever heard.

5. In 1995, New York Magazine sat in on a "Saturday Night Live" sketch writing session with Al Franken, Norm MacDonald, and Jim Downey as they riffed on "60 Minutes"—and rape. Republicans dredged up the session again in 2008, during Franken's extended bid for a Minnesota Senate seat (still pending). From an Associated Press story:

Franken and fellow writers Norm MacDonald and Jim Downey kick around fictional Rooney responses to the discovery of the bottle. . . . The article quotes Franken putting an edgy twist on the discussion: "And 'I give the pills to Lesley Stahl. Then when Lesley's passed out, I take her to the closet and rape her.' Or 'That's why you never see Lesley until February.' Or, 'When she passes out I put her in various positions and take pictures of her."

MacDonald takes it a step further, suggesting that the Rooney rape comment be directed at other "60 Minutes" icons Mike Wallace and Ed Bradley. Franken chimes in: "What about 'I drag Mike into my office and rape him. Right here! I guess that makes me bad.'"

—

4. In 1990, Texas Republican gubernatorial nominee Clayton Williams opened a traditional campaign photo-op non-traditionally: with a rape joke. He later lost the seat to Democrat Ann Richards, who condemned the joke. According to the New York Times:

Mr. Williams made the remark on Saturday while preparing for a cattle roundup at his West Texas ranch. He compared the cold, foggy weather spoiling the event to a rape, telling ranch hands, campaign workers and reporters around a campfire, ''If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.''

—

3. Sarah Palin's nominee for Alaska Attorney General, Wayne Anthony Ross, failed to pass the state legislature's stink test after allegations of Ross's past rape joke went public. Voted down 35-23, Ross was the first Alaskan AG not to be confirmed. I wonder why:

Another woman who had been a citizen lobbyist on behalf of families and children in Alaska with regard to child support, custody, abuse, abandonment and neglect spoke before the House Judiciary Committee the following day about statements she heard at a meeting of Dads Against Discrimination. “Numerous comments were made that were appalling, not the least of which were remarks by Mr. Ross which included the following; “If a guy can’t rape his wife…who’s he gonna rape?” and “There wouldn’t be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouths shut.”

—

2. Last year, Palin running-mate John McCain was forced to cancel a fund raising event with fellow rape-joker Clayton Williams after his own long-buried rape joke resurfaced. Oh, the tangled web rape joke-tellers weave! After floating this one in a 1986 National League of Cities and Towns address, McCain went on to enjoy a long political career—stopping just short of the presidency:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?"

—

1. American politicians have got nothing on Japanese lawmakers Seichi Ota and Yasuo Fukuda, whose rape jokes aren't just deeply unsettling and inappropriate—they actually explicitly condone rape. And are told in the context of an actual rape cases:

"Gang rapists are somewhat better (than other men) because they have vigor."

Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Seichi Ota made the remark in late June, in front of a large audience during a debate—as it so happened—on falling birthrates.

He was responding to the recent arrest and widespread media coverage of five male students from three elite private Tokyo universities who were at the time being charged by a 20-year-old woman for raping her in a bar after a social get-together for students. Ota went on to shrug off the case as a sign of "virility" on the part of the young men and to characterize their actions as being "almost normal."

Meanwhile, as the case was in the media limelight in late June, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told the weekly Shukan Bunshun that given the provocative style of contemporary fashion, "there is room for leniency." The minister, in charge of a gender-equality panel run by the prime minister's office, was quoted as saying: "Some women really dress as if to say, 'Please do it,' don't they?"

When a journalist parried that women who dressed more modestly in old Japan were also raped, Fukuda is reported to have replied jokingly, that he "doesn't know about what really happened those days."

Photo by sonoazure

That's what Ruth Marcus claims in today's Washington Post, quoting Sarah Palin's remarks from a—what else—a pro-life fundraiser. At the dinner, Palin discussed her "choice" to have a child with Down syndrome  at the age of 44—a choice that, as Marcus points out, Palin wants to deny other women. Marcus is miffed that right-to-lifers like Palin routinely justify their anti-choice positions by describing their own "correct" "decisions" to have children. This isn't the fist time Palin has used choice to explain why women shouldn't chose—who could forget Palin's election-season classic, "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby"?

Palin's pro-"choice" comments—where she describes twice considering abortion before deciding to carry her pregnancy to term—after the jump.

"I had found out that I was pregnant while out of state first, at an oil and gas conference. While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, wow, I knew, nobody knows me here, nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy, could be easy to think, maybe, of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know.

"Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities. Oh, dear God, I knew, I had instantly an understanding for that fleeting moment why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances. Just make it all go away and get some normalcy back in life. Just take care of it. Because at the time only my doctor knew the results, Todd didn't even know. No one would know. But I would know. First, I thought how in the world could we manage a change of this magnitude. I was a very busy governor with four busy kids and a husband with a job hundreds of miles away up on the North Slope oil fields. And, oh, the criticism that I knew was coming. Plus, I was old . . .

"So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman's, a girl's temptation to maybe try to make it all go away if she has been influenced by society to believe that she's not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

Photo by √oхέƒx™

[youtube:v=mXdyB-wAnms]

[youtube:v=MwhqPEhzGFk]

Sarah Seltzer for Reproductive Health Reality Check wonders if Levi is a "victim" in the Palin spotlight. "The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston's appearance on Tyra yesterday to 'break his silence,' and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too," writes Seltzer.

I couldn't agree more: We're all victims here: Levi, Bristol, Tripp, and Palin herself all suffered at the hands of her ridiculous abstinence (with a teenage pregnancy backup) method. Everyone, that is, except Tyra, who pulls a fierce Katie Couric to get the daytime interview of the post-pregnancy season.

There are no words. [Via].

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

NUMBER 24: The Daily Mail reports on a poll ranking the world's most beautiful lady politicians. The poll was conducted by Spain's " 20 Minutos" newspaper, so, whatever. Peruvian congresswoman Luciana Leon is the most beautiful. Of the 54 women on the list, Palin currently ranks 24th, with 3,173 votes. At 61, Hillary Clinton is the oldest lady politician to make the list, coming in at 34th place with 2485 votes.

On the one hand, ranking the attractiveness of female politicians is extremely sexist. On the other, readers of "20 Minutos" are collectively aware of 54 female politicians internationally! That's progress!

CATHOLICS: BRISTOL EVIDENCE AGAINST EVANGELICAL "SHOTGUN" MARRIAGE: Upon hearing that Bristol & Levi's Palin-promised union would be no more, WaPo Catholic America blogger writes:

So much for what used to be called a "shotgun marriage." Evangelicals are of another faith and are entitled to believe as they might about the power of grace to heal and transform human inclinations. In Catholic America today, however, priests often counsel against shotgun marriages. "The chances for such a marriage enduring are very low," I was told by a pastor whose judgment I respect. "Better to wait and see if the marriage will endure beyond the birth of the child before celebrating the Sacrament of Marriage. Let them marry in a civil ceremony for legal appearances, if they want, but not in church."

So, I guess Levi and Bristol ended up doing the Catholic thing.

HOW MUCH MONEY DID SHE TURN AWAY? Palin rejected $288 million in stimulus money. I'm with Arnold here—hell, I'll take that money!

LET'S WATCH THIS STUPID VIDEO AGAIN ABOUT WHY TRIG ISN'T SARAH'S BABY:

[youtube:v=EnBjwZ93n6Q]

PALIN COMPLAINS MORE ABOUT "JOURNALISM TODAY," reports Politico's Ben Smith:

"Some in the media actually participated in not so much the 'who-what-where-when-why' objective reporting on candidates and positions, those five W's that I learned when I had a journalism degree so many years ago in college, when the world of journalism was quite different than it is today," she said.

"No, things have changed," she continued. "But complaining? Or whining? Absolutely not. But I am going to call it like I see it. It doesn't do any good to whine about any of this. But I can call it like I see it. Sometimes it gets me in a lot of trouble when I speak candidly, and I speak from the heart and I do such a thing. But I am going to."

Let us pray.

"So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray." As the crowd laughed, Palin grinned and said she meant no disrespect to the McCain campaign. She said she ultimately prayed with her daughter Piper.

Photo by NationalGovernorsAssociation

UT OH:Anchorage blogger Linda Kellen Biegel, who goes by the name Celtic Diva has filed an ethics complaint with the state's Attorney General, alleging that Palin promoted First Dude Iron Dog sponsor "Arctic Cat Inc." while representing the state of Alaska by covering herself in head-to-toe Arctic Cat gear at the start of this year's snowmachine race.

PALIN STRIKES BACK:

"Are Alaskans outraged, or at least tired of this yet—another frivolous ethics charge by a political blogger? This would be hilarious if it weren't so expensive for the state to process these accusations and for me to defend against these bogus harassments. Yes, I wore Arctic Cat snow gear at an outdoor event, because it was cold outside, and by the way, today, I am wearing clothes bearing the names of Alaska artists, and a Glennallen Panthers basketball hoodie. I am a walking billboard for the team's fundraiser! Should I expect to see an ethics charge for wearing these, or the Carhartts I wear to many public events? How much will this blogger's asinine political grandstanding cost all of us in time and money?"

HOW MUCH MONEY? RedState claims Palin has racked up $500,000 in debt "defending herself against fake/false/frivolous ethics charges" since September. Public scrutiny's a bitch.

SENATOR STATES OBVIOUS: U.S. Senator Mark Begich (D—Alaska) disagrees with Palin's refusal of some federal stimulus package funds. “I worry when we throw money back to the federal government that’s designed to help our state,” said Begich. “It sends the wrong message that maybe we don’t need the money. We do need the help.”

VIDEO THROWBACK: Palin and fam moving into the Governor's mansion for the first time (cute).

[youtube:v=Blh_1wC7thg]

Photo via Celtic Diva

O'REILLY & GRETA & BRISTOL, OH MY! O'Reilly weighs in on the Bristol Palin / Levi Johnston fallout: MSNBC "incredibly viscious"; "disturbed individuals egged on by . . . the Air America on the radio."

BONUS: Greta downplays O'Reilly's characterization that she is "close to the Palin family," sayinh, "The only way that I've met them is by interviewing them. I don't socialize with them or spend a lot of time with them."

Greta goes on to chastize journalists who are "gushing with glee" to her at the news; O'Reilly says, "nobody would do that to me."

PALIN POLLIN' IOWA? The Mudflats heard tell of some peculiar robocalls fielded in Iowa and New Hampshire. The recording went a little something like this:

I wanted to let you know that I just received an interesting phone call.  It was an automated poll and it asked the following questions:

1. Do you have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin?

2. Gov. Palin thinks A, B, C, D & E do you agree with Gov. Palin?

3. Do you feel it is important that Gov. Palin is reelected as Gov. of Alaska?

The Iowa Independent weighs in on the premature polling:

Notably, some of the governors whose names are mentioned as possible candidates will have to decide whether to run for reelection in 2010.  Put Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal into that category with Palin.  The three of them might find it awkward to run for reelection as governor with all of their state’s voters asking whether they still even want the job.

WHO COMMISSIONED THE POLL? It's not clear yet, but the Independent ventures it ain't Palin:

This far out from an election, polling is very difficult, and anybody who is considering running for president might find the results of a poll about Palin more useful than a poll about themselves.  If a recorded voice called you up and started asking whether you thought Pawlenty should run for reelection as governor, would you even know whom it was talking about?

SUCK IT, JINDAL: Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupts, "spews ash and steam to 50,000 feet"; ash cloud possibly heading toward Anchorage.

CONSERVATIVE PAPE NAILS PALIN: The Alaska Standard reviews Palin's Anchorage Lincoln Dinner speech, wherein the Governor complains about media criticism during the election (again) and compares herself to Abraham Lincoln (for possibly the first time):

[Palin] spent the bulk of her speech talking about tearing down and critics, but nothing about the economic future of the state. She announced what the personal financial cost of her “open and transparent” has cost her to avoid being open and transparent. As a matter of fact, only one person spoke of issues greater than self with any conviction and clarity, and that person is the clear face of the Alaska Republican Party: Lisa Murkowski.

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."

[youtube:v=1XimPQqNwh4]

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

According to "The Truth About Scientology," which tracks public Scientology records (there are public scientology records?), Coale has completed 15 courses, from a 1989 "Not Drugs Rundown" course to a 2005 training in how to "detect and handle suppressive persons." Coale, apparently, has reached Scientology's second-highest operating thetan level (or whatever). If you think this news will only diminish the Sarah PAC brand, note Coale's completed "Route to Infinity" course. This guy is not going away easily.

IF SHE DID RUN, HE WOULD CRUSH HER, a new poll finds [PDF]. "A new national [Public Policy Polling] poll finds that nominating Palin could be a death wish for the party, with Barack Obama leading Palin 55-35 in a hypothetical contest. The key reason Palin would lose to Obama by so much is that even though she might be the top choice for a certain segment of voters within her party, there's also a number of Republicans who say they would vote for Obama if their party nominated Palin." [via ThunderPig].

ALASKANS STILL LOVE HER: Palin enjoys a high approval rating in her state:

Very positive 40.5
Somewhat positive 20.8 percent
Somewhat negative 12.5 percent
Very negative 20.2 percent
Don't know/Didn't answer 6 percent

Her staff still sucks, though.

WHY IS GRETA V.S. SARAH PALIN'S OFFICIAL JOURNO? Greta Van Susteren has bombarded the populace with interviews with Palins big and small. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza knows why: Her husband, John Coale, is a friend of the governor:

Coale, a well-known Washington lawyer and the husband of Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren, drew national media attention when he endorsed Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid in protest of the way in which Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who he backed in the primary, was treated. Coale, in an interview with the Fix, described himself simply as a “friend” of the Alaska governor but acknowledged that he suggested she start a leadership PAC and helped her navigate through some of the questions surrounding her family that lingered after the campaign. Others familiar with Palin’s political team insist that Coale has far more power than he is letting on—essentially helping to run Sarah PAC. Coale demurred on that front, noting only that he talks to Palin regularly and that she is a “fascinating person” who is “definitely not what the right thinks or the left thinks.”

GRETA ON WHY SHE'S A NEUTRAL PALIN REPORTER:

[youtube:v=8PF17zpUBIM&]

[via ThinkProgress]

PALIN HEADLINE OF THE DAY, from Politico's Ben Smith: "Palin Clashes With Feds on Wolves"

MADONNA is to Hillary Clinton as Britney Spears is to Sarah Palin: “Britney is not Madonna,” writes  Spears tour reviewer Jed Gottlieb. “She just ain’t. Madonna is Hillary Clinton. She’s whip smart and survives, even thrives by adapting. And Lord knows she wants it more than anyone. Britney is Sarah Palin. Baby drama headlines. Podunk back story and a massive industry machine behind her. She’s a manufactured star aimed at the lowest common denominator.”

Photo by Kurisu

PALIN PORN LIVES ON: The Fairfield Weekly reviews a local appearance by "Lisa Ann, famous in the adult-film world for portraying the Alaska governor in the spoof film Who's Nailin Paylin: Adventures of a Hockey MILF." And she ain't nothing like the real thing:

The real-life Sarah Palin is a hot mother of five who shoots hoops as easily as a rifle and sports flag pins as easily as a beauty-pageant sash. . . . The porno Paylin, however, is just a blow-up doll. After 18 minutes of watching her drill-baby-drill routine, you've completely forgotten who she's supposed to be channeling or why it was sexy.

COVER GIRL PALIN: Sarah Palin will appear on the cover of Portfolio next month. HuffPo has a copy of the cover shot: Palin, defiant in the snow, wearing fluffy black boots on her feet and an unidentified animal wrapped around her neck (a green coat has the midsection covered).

. . . SO SOME AT "PORTFOLIO" ARE PISSED: Some of the magazine's staff are upset with Portfolio editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman, who put Palin on the cover even though she "didn’t offer any exclusive quotes, nor did she participate in a photo shoot."

BUY THIS ON EBAY: That's Palin in Rush Limbaugh's jaws; Michael Steele takes up the rear.

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: Sports Illustrated honors snomachine racer Todd Palin with three-page online spread: CHECK OUT THIS KILLER SNOWMACHINE REPORTING:

Behold Todd Palin's snow machine, dangling from a truck's winch in the icy gray murk of an Alaskan winter morning. The machine is gleaming, new, scarcely ridden. It is ­orange and black and pointy-nosed, with thin, tensile orange steel suspension arms jutting from its sides like the wings on a menacing insect. This is, no doubt, a machine that could inflict a nasty sting, but right now its engine is stilled, and a certain awed quietude prevails on Big Lake, outside Anchor­age, at the start of the 2009 Tesoro Iron Dog, a 2,000-mile snow-machine odys­sey that crashes through the Alaskan backcountry, northwest to Nome and then east to Fairbanks.

You had me at "behold," then you lost me a little bit at "its engine is stilled," but then you picked me up again at "certain awed quietude," and then you lost me again after this paragraph that I copy-pasted into my blog and read no further.

SHE WAS LIKE, "NO": Yesterday, congressional Republicans announced some exciting news: Hot mom Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin would be headlining their fancy fundraising dinner in June. Turns out they told everybody except for Palin, CNN reports:

"I communicated with the governor directly and she did not know anything about it," [Palin spokesman Bill] McAllister told the Anchorage Daily News in a story published Tuesday. "I pointed out the (National Republican Senatorial Committee) press release and she was like, 'No.'"

The possibility of an appearance is still "under review" by Palin.

CAN SARAH PALIN SEE THIS WOMAN FROM HER HOUSE? Some are hailing this leggy blond Livejournal blogger as the future "Russian Sarah Palin" (or at the very least, the Russian Ann Coulter). She's 24, hates immigrants, and has been photographed "drunk, wrapped in a Cuban flag" (right). An excerpt from her blog:

"Думаю, заметку про меня в Дейли Мейл нужно как-нибудь откомментить. Поскольку журналисты иногда стесняются спрашивать и предпочитают додумывать:)"

Incendiary!

Her name is Maria Sergeyeva. Know it.

THE LEVI VIDEO: Hunky redneck expounds on "maturity" from truck:

[youtube:v=COEuGPYpahE]

Aww.

SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY: Republicans hope for the Palin draw: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will serve as the keynote speaker at the GOP congressional committees' annual fundraising dinner in June, helping the party boost its coffers in an otherwise tough climate for collecting cash," WaPo reports. The gala will be held June 8.

IN OTHER FORMER CANDIDATE KID SPOTLIGHT NEWS: McCain spawn and Daily Beast contributer Meghan McCain thinks women who call her fat can kiss her "fat ass."

NEXT UP: GAY IS THE NEW TEEN PREGNANCY: New Majority's David Frum says Bristol proves the GOP can't win on morality alone. Anti-gay attitudes still make the cut; traditional family values, not so much. "Many conservatives carry in their heads a mental image of American society that’s a generation out of date. They imagine the existence of a huge class of socially conservative downscale voters, ready to vote Republican because of abortion and gay marriage. The story of Bristol Palin should help puncture this illusion."

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: This anonymous Internet commenter has found a new sport for Todd:
"Run, Levi, run. Sarah and Todd will give you five minutes head start. If you hear a helicopter, try to hide."

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

FINALLY: FIANCEE TURNS BABYDADDY, says Sharon Cobb, who thinks the whole blessed holy matrimony schtick Palin paraded the kids around for was just some racist bullshit to begin with:

Why is it that when a white teenage woman gets pregnant out of wedlock it's a 'blessed event' and the father is the 'fiancé,' but a person of color is someone we think of as someone on welfare and the man is just the baby daddy? . . . Racism. Alive and sick in America. That's the difference, and had the Obamas had an 18 year old daughter who was pregnant during the election, you know damn well the stereotypes would have run rampant.

Cobb ends her smack-down by sending Bristol some well-wishes: "Hopefully, her baby daddy former flame will participate as a father."

LEVI SEES TRIP, Bristol says and AP reports: "Levi sees the baby whenever he wants, the family sees the baby whenever they want," family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton told the news org. "Bristol is not preventing anybody from seeing Tripp at any point in time."

AP IS ALL OVER THIS BRISVI SHIT: The motives of Mercede Johnston, or "Sadie" to Stapleton, have come into question. Stapleton "speculated money was involved in the tabloid interview," saying that "the fact that it is a tabloid and a soft interview, there could be an incentive to say things. . . . We don't even know if Sadie said that." Martin Gould, senior executive editor for Star, the magazine that published the Sadie interview, "declined to say if Mercede Johnston was paid to speak to the Star. But he said the report was accurate."

WHAT WILL LEVI DO WITH HIS "BRISTOL" RING TATTOO? No, really, what is this dude going to do about that. Cover it with a real wedding ring?

COULD BRISTOL'S SPLIT HELP PALIN'S FUTURE? "These are not the kind of news stories that Palin might hope for, adding to earlier controversies over her fondness for expensive clothes and use of public money for family holidays that have consistently dogged her. Yet once again she is back in the news, and in media-saturated America that gives her an enormous strength that few within the flailing and defeated Republican party can emulate."

BRISTOL AND LEVI WERE DOOMED, Chicago Tribune reports. Dooooomed, I tell you!:

"Despite high expectations, less than 8 percent of teen mothers marry the baby's father within one year of the birth," said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "That is magical thinking. It almost never happens."

Steve Waldman over at Beliefnet wonders if Bristol should have put Tripp up for adoption. Along the way, he actually admits that he thinks a former Vice Presidential candidate's seventeen years old indignation over fictional unwed mother Murphy Brown was spot-on. "I dunno. I was with Dan Quayle on that one," he writes. Awesome.

LEVI ON THE BREAK-UP: Nineteen-year-old Levi Johnston is single, ladies! His coming out party was held in front of his Wasilla home and was attended by a horde of bloodthirsty reporters. He told the AP that the decision to end things with 18-year-old Bristol was mutual and decided "a while ago." According to the AP, "He also said some details of the breakup, rumors of which had been swirling on the Internet, were inaccurate."

THE PAPES REACT: Freedom Eden compiles the worst of the worst:

Chicago Tribune: "No one saw this coming, right?"

Politico: "It's true. You probably don't believe it."

Los Angeles Times: "Bristol Palin, fiance Levi Johnston split. Surprised?"

Boston Herald: "Isn’t this the same Bristol Palin who told Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren last month that her fiancee was a hands-on dad to their son, Tripp, and they hoped to marry after finishing their education?"

And my personal favorite (drumroll please) Christian Science Monitor: "Not even the Love Boat had a happy ending every time. . . . Remember when Charo had a crush on Capitan Stubing and they didn’t end up together? Although we were all heartbroken, Charo moved on. So will Bristol Palin. For all we know, she may be the Charo of the 21st century."

PILE IT ON: Rabbi Ben Kamin, "Spiritual Life Examiner," also has something to say!:

It’s impossible not to think of Tripp, the 2½ month-old innocent baby boy who will now not have his father as husband to his mother and whose life will be stamped with the history of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and the failure of a couple to keep their much-ballyhooed public promise to wed and raise their son as a family.

Oh yeah, two teenagers who were only engaged because some lady who wanted to be the most powerful Vice President in United States History made them do it, should probably just stay together "for the kids." That always works out.

HUFFPO'S SNARK: Isn't just insensitive—it's incorrect. Writes Michael Shaw on an "award-winning image by photographer Melina Mara" from Election 2008 that clearly takes on a richer meaning now that Brisvi are over:

I mean, it's all there: the smirk; the fact sister Willow was mostly the one schlepping Trig; and the irony—since Bristol's since had her own baby—of being left holding the bottle. (And then, contributing to the family values, remember First Dude's tendency—out of the spotlight—to put all kinds of distance between himself and little Trig?)

Except that Bristol's the one holding Trig. Willow's holding the bottle. The smirk is all hers. And I don't remember seeing First Dude outside of the spotlight.

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: Not a good day for sporting, dudes.

Photo by Emily from Wikipedia Commons

LEVI & BRISTOL: DUNZO? Radar reports that the forthcoming Palin and Johnston union has been scratched. All the deets, courtesy of Star magazine:

But in a new interview with Star Magazine, Levi's sister Mercede Johnston says Bristol actually broke up with Levi more than a month ago, is not attending school and rarely lets her baby daddy see their young son. Mercede also says Bristol even told him that she hates him and, when she learned she was pregnant, wished the baby wasn't his.

Mercede told Star: "Bristol's just crazy. That's the nicest way I can put it. She and Levi actually broke up a while ago!"

Apparently, Levi is also far from being a hands-on dad. Said Mercede: "Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible for him. She tells him he can't take the baby to our house because she doesn't want him around 'white trash.' She treats him so badly!"

NEW WAYS TO KILL BEARS! Palin's "Board of Game" (yes!) has outlined "new guidelines in a predator control program that now allows the use of paw snares to catch and kill bears, and helicopters for access. . . . Under the new guidelines, hunters can use snares to trap black bears in a specific area and can access the area via private helicopters. As for wolves, state employees are now authorized to use poison gas to kill wolf pups, orphaned after aerial hunting, in their dens."

Orphaned wolf pups? That's not good for publicity!

COURIC HONORED FOR PWNING PALIN: She received a Cronkite award for "Special Achievement for National Impact on the 2008 Campaign," or: totally throwing down.

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: What do you do when the snowmachine races have ended? Throw some back with Joe Six Pack. What's Todd's best bet for scoring a free beer? A Wasilla joint known as the Mug Shot:

Mug Shot is the biggest pro-palin spot in the valley. People wondered why she (when she was mayor) agreed that valley bars could be open until 5:00 am. Because the owner contributed big time to her campaign. It’s weird – back in the 80’s the Mug Shot was the place to score coke. Everyone knew. But hey – campaign contributions trump everything! It’s just funny how things turn out. And Alaska is a small town (not to mention Wasilla).

OK: MORE BRISTOL AND LEVI: "The worst part, Mercede continues, is that the former vice presidential candidate supports Bristol's treatment of Levi, 19. 'I used to love Sarah,' Mercede says sadly. 'But I've lost lots of respect for her.'"

MORE LATER: "For more photos and details, including the hate-filled text message

Bristol sent Levi, the cheating rumors, the lies about Bristol's schooling, the Johnston family's plan to win back Tripp and exclusive photos of the baby boy, pick up the March 23 issue of Star, on stands now!"

Photo by bpende

REMEMBER THAT DUDE: Who supposedly hacked into Sarah Palin's Yahoo! e-mail account last fall with only an easily guessed password hint and a dream? Well, he's David Kernell, "the son of a Democratic Tennessee legislator," and he pleaded not guilty yesterday to counts of "fraud, unlawful electronic transmission of material outside Tennessee and attempts to conceal records to impede an FBI investigation." Is it really fraud if it's almost too easy?

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: Did Todd Palin grow up in a rural Alaskan village or a boutique rural Alaskan village engineered by the hotel industry? You decide.

MIDDLE-AGED MORMON LADY UNEARTHS SECRET TO SAVING DYING MEDIA: Anne Cannon, the woman who yesterday unsuspectingly used "Sarah Palin" and "stripper boots" in the same blog post, has figured out how to save us all. "In just a few hours there have been over 30 comments posted," Cannon wrote on her personal blog. "For me this is unusual. Usually I only pull in a couple of public comments a week. The difference? I mentioned 'Sarah Palin' and 'stripper boots' in my piece." If a self-described "middle-age Mormon lady" can rake in the hits by simply evoking Palin and sexual imagery—and if we can all then ride her coattails by linking to her blog posts evoking Palin and sexual imagery—perhaps this whole crazy media industry can stay afloat.

WANT TO SERVE IN THE ALASKAN SENATE? Palin is taking applications.

CALLING OUT PIPER: "And what is the deal with Piper?" writes the Immortal Majority in its inexplicable obsession with all things Palin (hey, wait a minute . . . ). "Is that child never more then a few feet from Governor Palin at any given time? By my calculations that little girl has not attended school regularly since 2006." My theory: Piper is just preparing to cover for another unexpected Bristol Palin pregnancy.

SARAH PALIN ADDRESSES THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS:

[youtube:]

Look at Trig's little glasses!!!1

Photo by Material Boy

DUR: GOP needs to get smart, says The Young Turks.  "Obama won because he’s smart. . . . I enjoy having a beer with my brother in-law, but I wouldn’t want him running the country. He’s an idiot! Sure, people like a candidate they can relate to, but when it comes down to the crunch, Americans want smart leaders, not drinking buddies." Joe Six Pack, we hardly knew ye.

TROOPERGATE CONTINUES: Somebody doesn't like Kim Elton. And it's not Sarah Palin! Oh, it is just some blogger. "Surprise. Surprise.  President Barack Obama has done a nationwide search and appointed the Chairman of the Troopergate investigation as Director of Alaskan Affairs at the Interior Department.  Is this a case of political payback for a smear job well done on Governor Sarah Palin???  Yes!"

FIRST DUDE WINTER SPORTS CORNER: Todd Palin's legacy: ushering the contiguous U.S. into the awesome world of the Tesoro Iron Dog. "at 1,971 miles (3,172 km), it is the longest snowmobile race in the world. The 2008 event featured a record forty teams competing for a $100,000 purse, with $25,000 awarded to the winners and attracted worldwide attention when 4-time winner Todd Palin's wife, Sarah, campaigned for vice presidency of the United States.

THE TRIG-AIN'T-HER-BABY RUMORS CONTINUE. The Immortal Majority parses Lorenzo Benet's Trailblazer and suggests (as reported previously by rumermongering liberal bloggers): Trig ain't her baby. Could page 185 finally reveal the truth?

A few minutes before leaving work on March 5, Sarah held a press conference in her Juneau office and finally announced her pregnancy. She said. "Expect a new member of the first family," and then she headed out to a reception at the Baranof Hotel with her family to dine on king crab. reporters stood there in disbelief. In fact, Sarah had to announce the pregnancy in three different ways before anyone knew what she was talking about. "That the pregnancy is so advanced astonished all who heard the news," the Daily News reported, "The governor, a runner who's always trim, simply doesn't look pregnant." Not even her staff was aware until the same day, "I thought it was becoming obvious," Sarah said, "Clothes getting snugger and snugger." (Emphasis mine, pg. 185)

So, Bristol Palin pulled a Britney and got pregnant twice in a row? Does this make her more or less qualified to be a teen pregnancy spokesmom? Discuss.

STRIPPER BOOTS: YEA OR NAY? The Mormon Times, for some reason, speculates as to whether or not men actually like women who wear "stripper boots." Sarah Palin is involved, somehow.

Ann Cannon on her favorite boots: "They're soft and brown and dressy, and whenever I wear them I feel exactly like Posh Spice—that is if Posh Spice was a size-12 middle-age Mormon lady, who bought all her clothes at Target."

I love Ann Cannon and her stripper boots. But Cannon's teenage son does not like her stripper boots, which has totally thrown Cannon's Palin theory for a loop. Cannon writes" "I thought that was one of the reasons men liked Sarah Palin so much—because she always had those sexy stripper boots on whenever she and Todd got off the airplane."

My God, Cannon, you've cracked the code!

Photo by Bright Meadow