The Jaw Droppeth: The smiling vitriol of Sarah Palin

After watching the Republican convention last night, (with the helpful antidote of livebloggers who saved my brain from exploding out of my head at the lies and vitriol that just got piled on thicker and thicker from Huckabee, to Guiliani and finally to Miss Alaska, Sarah Palin herself) and then this morning watching the media congratulating her "grand slam" and her "charisma" and her down-home, real life folksiness, I was desperate to find someone from the reality-based community to counter this insane juggernaut. One of the best, sanity-restoring responses comes from Gloria Steinem.

She writes eloquently on Sarah Palin today in the LA Times:
Some highlights:

This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues

Read the article here.

For the record: Hilary Clinton didn't cry. She had a slight catch in her voice.

There's a difference. There were no sobs, no liquids emanated from her eyes. She was hit with a well of emotion, while answering a fairly personal question, which was, "How do you do it?" and the emotion in her answer came out in her voice: a slight catch. NOT crying. There is a difference.
The media is going on and on about "Hilary's crying". They are asking: is it a female thing. Did it help her, did it hurt her? Even, amazingly, did she FAKE it? Give me a break. It was obviously a slightly emotional moment for her. She is obviously human. She's not out of control, sobbing, breaking down.