Thank you Joan, Kelly and Garden Goddess and the many women on site for your words and incredible insight!

They are saying that with the crazy senate election for Stevens ( guilty of felonies) Palin could end up taking over his seat there. We have not heard the last of her, you betcha.

Joan - if only you’d allow your argument to progress to the next logical step you’ll find the fertile rationale into which those “white men who have hurled the charge most frequently and loudly” have cultivated their arguments in support of Gov. Palin shored up through charges of sexism committed against her. Was she qualified to be our VP? No. Was sexism used against her? Yes and the fact that it was not put down at every turn allowed her supporters to highlight it and proclaim that the arguments against her were unfair. Naturally Dan Quayle and other powerful white men like him don’t have any ism’s to hide behind - they NEVER had to deal with any ism’s/hatred/buffoonery/cheap-shots, they had only to show up with their well-connected white male I’s dotted and T’s crossed - if only it were so simple for everyone. There were loads of sexist cheap shots taken at Gov. Palin even HERE at wOw - the sexist junk only served to provide the fuel for the smoke and mirrors act. Those “white men who never supported a feminine cause”? … GOP supporters who make it their business to play smoke and mirrors act for all it is worth. You can’t really blame them for doing their job. The hate needs to stop. Just as racism used to subvert any candidate (whether they are good OR bad) should be called out and put down - so should sexism. Sexism is hate and needs to be recognized as such, highlighted at every turn and put down. Until then we are all kept vulnerable to deception and weakened by it. It confused the issues in this campaign to the point that many people were invested in it. You might stop to wonder why you seem more aggravated by the support that Sarah Palin received by the GOP henchmen who are paid to do it than you are at the sexism itself aimed at her, Hillary Clinton, Margarer Thatcher and most other women.

It was jaded sexism that placed Sarah Palin in the position she was in! The boys in the Republican party thought that more liberal women would support Palin simply because she is a woman—after all, we ARE women, we don’t put any kind of thought into our actions, nor do we possess any understanding of important issues, according to their ilk. They surmised that more conservative women would find her appaeling because she is a mother. Such men, themselves, thought of Palin as being “hot” (I had to endure a whole lunchtime at work oneday hearing how HOT my male Republican coworkers found her to be)—she could look pretty and keep her mouth shut ( turns out that SHE SHOULD have kept her mouth closed, and not exposed her glaring lack of knowledge and intellect) just like a good girl should! Stupid is as stupid does, and it didn’t take too long for the miscalculations of the Republican big boys to become evident…Sarah soon exposed herself as having ignorance of “Dan Quayleian proportions”…and we all remember what a poor choice THAT was on the part of the Republican party! Joan is dead-on about Palin, as are most of the posters above. When we are fortunate enough to have a woman in the Chjef Executive’s office, she needs to be a person of intellect and substance, who can think on her feet, and who is assertive enough to not only move policy forward, but have self-evident strength and certainty. Although Palin was only nominated for Vice President, she would have been first in line for the office behind the oldest President ever, if the Republican ticket had won. She has NONE of the qualities I mentioned above. Had she ever become President she would have set back women’s rights, as well as women’s chances to hold higher office,back immeasurably!