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Are these decent pictures of Gov. Sarah Palin published by Reuters and Associated Press?

"If Sarah Palin is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, so am I!" These words spoken by my friend Janet were true. But Janet hasn't put herself in Palin's position by running for office. She's made films and renovated houses, cushioned by inherited money. And since she doesn't have any kids, it's hard to say what would have gotten in the way if she'd wanted to be in politics. She didn't, though, any more than 99% of my women friends and acquaintances; she believes in cultivating one's own garden. Most women I've talked with about Palin--all certified...

There's a price to pay for conservative politicians like Sarah Palin who don't swath themselves in pantsuits, wear stylish open-toe shoes and refuse to cut their hair into mannish crops. Apparently part of that price is that, on the very day we should be focusing on Sarah Palin's forthcoming vice presidential debate performance, we learn that porn-peddler Larry Flynt has shot an X-rated adult film starring a Sarah Palin lookalike. This isn't even the most offensive thing I've heard. Yesterday I read about a Chicago tavern that's hanging up nude Palin paintings. And no, painter Bruce Elliot isn't a fan...

After the vice presidential debate Chris Matthews criticized Sarah Palin for, of all things, looking into the camera because it made her look like a "dolt." In fact, the "Hardball," host took several stylistic shots at Palin that implied the Alaska Governor wasn't very intelligent. Audio here When guest panelist Roger Simon noted Palin looked directly into the camera, Matthews observed: You know what I think of people when they come on "Hardball," and they look at the camera, I think they're dolts. In addition to the "dolt," remark Matthews viewed Palin's performance as "so reciting," and "automatic," "like a...

There was a map of the United States produced after the 2000 and 2004 elections, showing the presidential campaign victories on a county-by-county basis in blue and red. America was a sea of red, with clusters of blue for the most part relegated to major urban areas in the East, West, and scattered in between. The Democratic Party is an urban one, focused largely on urban problems and constituencies. But in order to win in 2008, Democratic leaders knew that they needed to woo small-town America. The time was ripe, the theory went, with an unpopular president, an unpopular Congress,...

Heather Mallick must be loving it. The largely anonymous journalist, a legend in her own lunchtime, is now the subject of controversy because she called American Republicans "white trash," said Sarah Palin looked like a porn actress and made repugnant personal comments about the governor of Alaska's family. She did all this on the CBC website, paid for by public dollars. The content of the diatribe is less Oscar Wilde and more Oscar the Grouch, but it's become major news in the United States. This is not a woman whose career has exactly blossomed and the consequent anger and bitterness...

At Debate, Biden Told: Ignore Palin By RUSSELL BERMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 29, 2008 http://www.nysun.com/national/at-debate-biden-told-ignore-palin/86746/ As Senator Biden prepares to face off against Governor Palin on Thursday night in the campaign's lone vice presidential debate, Democratic strategists have a few words of advice for the lawmaker of Delaware: Ignore the Alaskan. Mr. Biden's 35 years in the Senate dwarf Ms. Palin's single month of experience on the national stage, but Democrats are worried that his penchant for verbal missteps and his occasionally aggressive style could be a liability as he faces only the second woman to...

Actress Anjelica Huston has become the latest star to take aim at US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, stating the fact the Alaskan Governor is even in the race for the White House is "depressing". The Witches star admits she's "terrified by the politics of Mrs. Palin" and disturbed by her love of hunting. Huston states: "This is a woman who is shooting caribou from the air, from helicopters. It's like going back in time to some kind of fantasy of the 1950s, and I find it very depressing. "I think people are looking at the election as a reality show....

Two weeks ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation published a piece by Toronto writer Heather Mallick that sprayed far Left elitism like blood from a cleanly-severed carotid artery. In it, she described supporters of Republican vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin as “white trash” and ascribed more insulting terminology to the Alaska governor and her family. Which presumably makes this black columnist “white trash.” Curious… ... cont.

You'd think Chris Matthews would learn his lesson. First he insulted Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell as "showcase appointments," only to apologize for it later. Then, on Tuesday's "Hardball" he essentially called Sarah Palin an empty "vessel" with no "independent thinking" of her own, just "like a Clarence Thomas." [audio excerpt available here] Matthews made the following gaffe during a discussion about Sarah Palin's readiness, on the September 16, "Hardball":

I watched ABC News Anchorman Charlie Gibson interview Governor Palin last night and was horrified by his blatant disdain for her and by the Grand Inquisitorial nature of the interview. He was not there to draw her out but to trap, shame and expose her as an unqualified fraud. He never smiled. He never paused. He literally looked down at her as he peered through his half-lowered glasses. He grilled her relentlessly, on and on, and when he thought she did not have the right answer e.g. as to what the Bush Doctrine really is, he “failed” her right on...

WITH all due deference to lipstick, let’s advance the story. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be? It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election. No longer able to remember his principles any better than he...

While trying to understand the rants of the left against Sarah Palin’s mothering abilities, it occurred to me that many of these people criticizing her are treating her like a single parent, because they have absolutely no idea what a fully functional family is like. I am willing to bet that a majority of functional families are conservative. I believe it takes conservative values to create and maintain a fully functional family. These values are beyond the comprehension of those attacking Sarah Palin’s personal life and beliefs. To the left, Sarah Palin threatens the existence of liberal values and as...

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck...

Compensation figures for his legislative staff reveal that Obama pays women just 83 cents for every dollar his men make. Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397 Obama’s female employees [earned] $45,152, on average. McCain’s male staffers averaging $53,936. His female employees averaged $55,878.

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking. If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible. It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking...

John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from...

Obama On Letterman: 'Palin Would Be The Lipstick' Presidential Hopeful Says Media Took His Words And Ran; Defends Bush Policies On Afghanistan, AIDS In Africa NEW YORK (CBS) ― Presidential hopeful Barack Obama appeared on the "Late Show with David Letterman" in New York on Wednesday after a day of heated debate by media and political pundits over comments some took as a slam against Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Obama spent much of his visit talking about Palin and clarifying his earlier comments. "This is sort of silly season in politics, not that there's a non-silly season, but it...

One wonders: What did Sarah Palin ever do to inspire the rage and bile that exploded on her selection by John McCain? What is there either in this woman's record or resume to elicit such feline ferocity? What did we know of her when she was introduced? That she was a mother of five who had brought into this world a baby boy with Down syndrome, thus living her Christian beliefs. That she was a small-town conservative who had risen from mayor of Wasilla (population 9,700) to be governor of a state twice the size of Texas. That she was...

In the heady atmosphere of last week's Republican convention -- electrified by Sarah Palin's barnstorming speech as the vice-presidential candidate -- a curious fact seems to have been overlooked. On paper, the new darling of Christian conservatives ticks all the right boxes as only a media-taunting, oil-drilling, gun-toting, abortion-hating, creationist mother of five could. Equally at home posing for photographs with her children and dead animals, she sends out an irresistible mating call to evangelical voters who suspect that John McCain is secretly too secular for their taste. Did his team carry out sufficient checks before selecting an inexperienced state...