Just writing the blog owner now, thanks Miko.

Wonderful, thanks for this, miko! I'm going to post on Facebook -- right after I send it to my bf's 80-year-old mom, a lifelong Republican who was just telling us this week that how she now has serious reservations about McCain's judgment for picking Palin.

Uh, I'm kind of freaking out that almost every post on the front page is about Sarah Palin. OK, well not freaking out per se, but aren't we playing into part of the game by talking about her so much?

I know. I know. This has probably been talked about over and over. Just a thought.

I realize I just posted that ^ on one of the more meaningful posts on here about her and this whole situation. That was unintentional. It was just the last one I saw.

aren't we playing into part of the game by talking about her so much?

No, it's true. I've been pontificating all night about what a genius move it was to nominate her and thus commandeer the entire political conversation for weeks. The Dems have definitely lost the control of the narrative that they've been enjoying, and I certainly hope it can be regained. But one thing 2004 taught me is that silence=death. Vocal opposition is helpful. The only topics regarding Palin I want to address are : how to beat her ticket, how ludicrously unqualified she is for the job, and the disastrous nature of her policy positions once she becomes President.

It's up to Obama now to return the conversation where it was - to identifying the civic issues that the majority of Americans agree upon and move beyond partisan battling. I am behind him if he can do it. But I think it's also important for all the women in America who do not share Palin's hard-right, repressive politics to clearly voice their opposition so that it will be heard and understood by the party that nominated her.

Naming Palin has turned into one of the greatest social experiments ever conducted.

My godmother sent me this a few days ago.


I doubt this will happen, but I want an apology from Obama for not doing anything about "bros before hos" et al. I still say that these were more about sexism in general than about Hillary. It was this attitude that got Palin selected (and muttering to myself about this last week nearly refused me entry to a restaurant tonight). In contrast, Mr. Rogers (who always rubbed me the wrong way) asserted himself to stop the SNL parody and the "Welcome to my hood" t-shirt depicting him with a gun.

Does anyone remember how Shirley Chisholm was depicted when she threw her hat in the ring?

That level of writing has become quite common lately, brujita. I particularly love "muttering to myself about this last week nearly refused me entry to a restaurant tonight"; it's so Marcotte.

Since there's a lot of burnout on politics, I'll add this here:

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

So, her insight into Russia is that she can see it from the state she is the Governor of. Then there's this from the article:

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.

So someone's love of cows is a qualification to run the agriculture department. Surely she had other qualifications??? The more that comes out, the more insulting this pick is to the intelligence of all Americans.

Maybe if I were Alaskan or American I'd be upset. Being neither, my reaction was a genuine lol...

Ms. Havemeister at her first press-conference, panicking at the onslaught of questions. Flop sweat sluicing off her face; wide eyes darting around the room at the reporters with their pencils at the ready.

"... I like cows." Followed by crackle of 50-odd pencil tips snapping.

I caught this somewhere else... it has restored my faith in reason just a little bit. There is just no way you can let the Republicans win again. It pains me to imagine.

I read a bit of that piece too, eekacat: That article was pretty scary - the crony appointments, plus the hunting down and intimidation of people who don't agree with her. It's definitely like a Bush mini-me in that respect, only (until now) much less powerful and well-connected.