I wasn’t responding to the “zillions of things,” I was responding to this one post. Which is legal, I think. My (larger) point is I see Sarah Palin as actually working directly counter to the stated goals of this organization — unless the goal is any woman in any form of leadership, even if that leadership is counterproductive to other women.

And to clarify, my point was *not* that said jokes weren’t in poor taste, etc. I was trying to extend the discussion into one where I point out they’re stupid for many reasons, one being that they are huge distractions from larger issues (like what Palin might actually do in a leadership role).

But then again, I must be nuts for trying to reason with someone whose idea of a discussion is to tell someone to cram it, call a reasoned argument “horseshit” and to “go to hell.” I’m pretty sure if I applied similar language to your comments you’d be duly impressed. Off to live life…

Go to hell. If you aren’t even willing to stoop to reading the opinions and quite well-reasoned conclusions of a bunch of mere females, you are not going to suddenly sprout brains and listen to one now.

Honestly, I’d like to understand how it is that anyone can assert that Palin has been marginalized. She went from mayor to governor, was promoted by William Kristol at The Weekly Standard after the magazine’s annual cruise in Alaska, was picked as a VP candidate by a major party and, unlike virtually every losing VP candidate in history, she’s managed to become her own industry; her *tweets* are considered news. If that’s marginalization then she makes it look pretty good.

P.S. What’s the “it” I should cram? Don’t want to pick the wrong one. And where? Clarity please.

She blatantly uses her children as props to demonstrated that she is morally superior and wiser than the rest of us. (Why people who have children think this makes them instant experts in things outside of raising their own children has always confused me but I digress.) Some of the other comments seem to imply that Letterman took shots at her grandchild with Down’s syndrome. He did not. He made a rather harsh joke about her eldest daughter mistakenly thinking it was her at a Yankee’s game, not her younger sister. The point of the joke was that Palin is another hypocritic whose own family is imperfect (like everyone’s) but likes to make broad and rather nasty “jokes” about other people’s patriotism, morals, citizenship, etc. She’s vicious.

The fact that she does what she does with a smile doesn’t change the content. It’s hard for me to understand why it’s not also clear to others that Palin jumped at the chance to again paint herself as a victim when a late-night talk show host made a stupid joke. What many, many people have pointed out is that others have been subjected to similar treatment (Chelsea Clinton comes to mind — I’m looking at you, Rush Limbaugh). But look, Letterman made a dumb joke and apologized.

My point is it’s a two minute story — the real problem here, and I hope even if you disagree with everything else I’ve said so far we can at least agree on this — is that spending a bunch of time debating a joke made by a late-night comedian simply doesn’t deserve the attention it’s received. There are other more important issues and a million great things that happen everyday that undermine the horrible degradation that is supposedly at work in our culture.

The problem Palin’s critics have with her, among many, is that she lacks substance — there’s really nothing there once you get beyond these types of stories. If getting upset when someone makes a joke about your child makes one an instantly credible candidate for higher office then that’s a pretty low standard. With six billion people on this planet and growing, the ability to reproduce doesn’t seem to be a rare talent. She distracts from discussing an issue in detail, or offering any substantive idea, with a combination of moral outrage and veiled accusations of not loving America enough. She is the embodiment of the very things you dislike about our media culture and when Letterman tossed out that joke he was tossing her a great big steak she knew exactly how to tenderize into another way to feed her holier than thou image.

On that point, Palin would not be where she is without the so-called and vaguely defined “mainstream media” she so dearly loves to denigrate. They can’t get enough of her and that keeps her profile high, keeps those spots on Fox coming (part of the “mainstream media” last time I checked along with the Weekly Standard etc.) not to mention the money. They work together in a rather dysfunctional relationship where one party says she hates the other, and the other loves reporting how much she hates them.

The real stupidity of joking about her kids is not recognizing that it only helps to extend her media life.

Okay, and since I’m at it, I find the meme of Sarah as stupid really tiresome.