I see Sarah Palin as an ordinary modern Republican woman with feminist leanings — about as feminist as Republicans get.

I do not think she’s evil, anymore than I think most ordinary Republicans are evil. I believe she — and they — are mistaken about many things. I do believe to some extent they are tools, because they’re misled.

To go beyond that, and paint all Republicans as fascists with black hearts of evil, is a mistake. I know it’s a mistake, because I — like most Americans — have Republicans in my family. Lots of them. I know these people. I know women like Sarah Palin. In fact, every time I see or hear Palin I think of a cousin of mine, who’s that same kind of conservative Republican go-getter woman.

We gain nothing for the cause of liberalism when we fail to see the humanity of everyone, including our political opponents.

Meanwhile, Erica Jong has a piece up in Huff Post in which she refers to Sarah Palin as “white trash” and as a “redneck.”

If you really can’t figure out what’s wrong there, then you need to go back to remedial feminist class.

Some of Apostate’s commenters are saying things like “feminism doesn’t mean we support women just because they’re women.”

Actually, here’s what feminism means: it means we stick up for women against sexism no matter what, even when the women aren’t on our side politically.

All these soi-disant feminists who think that because they disagree with Palin politically, it’s okay to revile her and call her trash and attack her with misogyny and sexism — nope. Wrong. Sorry. That’s not how feminism works.

I disagree with this woman on almost every policy position, but I like her anyway. Actually I think I have a tiny little spirit-crush on her. She’s Annie Get Your Gun, she’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, she’s about a half dozen American populist fantasies all rolled into one. Hockey moms and pitbulls. Yeah. Bring it on, cheeto dicks. Fuck with me now, flipper.

By the way, did any of you catch that inspiring introduction by noted feminist Rudy Giuliani? I forgot to tell you — I think I died a second death during that speech. When I heard him say, “When did they ever ask a man that?”, my brain tried to process what was happening but couldn’t. I think it kind of exploded there inside my skull.

Yeah, right.

The Crucifixion of Sarah Palin is one of the most revolting things I’ve ever seen. After the Trashing of Hillary I thought the misogyny couldn’t get any worse, but goddamn. God. Damn.

Anglachel is absolutely on fire with her post on the sexism and classism that is driving the attacks on Sarah Palin:

Aside from Hillary, name me another presidential ticket contender who has been the obsessive focus of such widespread and aggressive verbal violence. These attacks are far in excess of anything necessary to discredit a political rival….

But there do not appear to be any bounds to the indignation, even rage, that this, this, tart from Alaska presumes to be the VP. As with the assaults on Hillary, the squalls of the MSM and the blogosphere are like the infant who can’t make Mommy do what he wants so he is going to wish her dead. The posts and comments on Gov. Palin and her oldest daughter are invasive, trying to tunnel inside of their offending bodies and shred them from within. It is the same rage that Olbermann spewed when he asked for someone to take Hillary into a dark room and murder her. It is not as far from the recent murders of women in Pakistan - shot and buried alive - as we would like to believe. These women sought to control their bodies and their lives and were murdered for it. Bristol Palin is living her incredibly ordinary teenage life and these modern day Dimmesdales have appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner in her case. How dare a 17 year old “girl” fuck without our consent! (Or our participation…)

~

The media message is coming through loud and clear - white trash women are sluts for us to fuck with as we please. They should not aspire to higher than the shanty that houses their (incestuous) family and should know this is not their place to trash. They need to remain breeders and feeders. I mean, how can we associate with these women? They don’t even have Ivy League degrees to make up for their slutitude! If they won’t stay in their place then we will take them out like the trash they are.

Women perceived to be of a lower socio-economic classes, regardless of their color, regardless of their actual status, are treated like trash - cheap, dirty, used, disposable objects undeserving of civil rights and privacy, let alone common decency.

It doesn’t matter that the Republicans were banking on this when they picked Palin. What matters is that the Obama camp — the so-called liberals, the so-called progressives — took the bait and delivered. Oh jesus, did they deliver.

What [McCain] has done is actually quite sophisticated. It is very short sighted to say that he can’t use the “lacks experience” argument against Obama anymore now that he has chosen Palin. Wrong. He now can say he put Palin in a position that is appropriate to her political talents and promise, but which takes account of her actual experience. For the Left to argue that she is unqualifed for VP when her political career is extremely similar to Obama’s is political suicide. If the Obamacans honestly cannot understand that Obama and Palin have comparable political biographies, then they are too stupid to be let out in public without a keeper.

Emphasis mine.

Actually, I think Palin is more qualified than Obama. She’s held executive office. She ran a town, she ran a commission, now she runs a state. She’s actually accomplished things.

What has Obama done, aside from write books about himself? “Community organizer”? He ran a voter registration drive, for chrissake. The law school thing was a sinecure while he wrote his autobiographies (plural, I note with a wry amusement that has yet to fade). He had a part-time job as a state senator, which mostly seemed to involve voting “present.” And for the bulk of his scant three years as a U.S. senator he’s been too busy running for president to even attend to Senate business.

Newsflash: Teenagers have sex. Teenagers get pregnant. Teenagers who don’t believe in abortion don’t get abortions.

What the hell is the big deal? From where I sit, Palin and her family seem to be handling the situation admirably. There’s no evidence that the daughter is being forced to do anything, but there’s plenty of evidence that her parents are being loving and very supportive.

The nutcases in the Obama camp have gone from spreading gutter rumors about the Palin family uteri to warning darkly that having a pregnant daughter makes Palin “unfit” to be commander-in-chief.

What?

Listen to this crap:

The facts surrounding the Palin family’s pregnancies may not become known, but they do suggest the Alaska governor will at the very least have many distractions while she is campaigning this fall, to say nothing of her fitness to become commander-in-chief.

Somebody needs to help me with the connection here, because I’m not getting it. What, precisely, is the disqualifier for becoming commander-in-chief*?

Is it having children? No, because most presidents have had children.

Is it having teenage children? No, because many presidents have had teenage children.

Is it having a newborn baby? No, because several presidents have had newborn babies.

Is it having a daughter who is pregnant? No, because several presidents have had daughters who were pregnant.

Is it having an unmarried daughter who is pregnant? That must be it, because I think this is a first, at least officially. But still: what the hell does it have to do with being commander-in-chief? If your unmarried daughter has sex and gets pregnant, you’re not qualified to command?

Forgive me for concluding that the real problem here is that Sarah Palin is female, and thus, in the reasoning of both Obama supporters and Pakistani tribesmen, she belongs in the red tent/birthing house/women’s quarters with her daughter. They can do breathing exercises together and discuss amniotic fluid. That’s what women are meant for, by God, not commanding troops!

I’m much too depressed by this to muster up the usual feminist analysis; besides, you all know the spiel anyway.

I am wondering this, though: is there any country on earth where the murder of men is legal? Any country where it’s legal for a bunch of regular Joes to murder some other regular Joes ’cause they don’t like how they dress or who their friends are?

He sowed the seeds of his destruction himself many months ago, when he decided to exploit sexism and misogyny in his quest to defeat Hillary. Now John McCain will reap the harvest.

Back in June, BDBlue at Corrente wrote:

I have long believed the most dangerous thing about this primary was the misogyny, especially aimed at older women, running rampant unchecked by Obama or the Democratic Party. You can’t simply put that back up in its cage now that the nomination is over. That kind of hatred spewed into the culture is bound to affect the culture and change it in ways that are not positive.

Obama may very well want to stop this now, but I’m not sure this monster is still within his control. But then that’s what always happens when you accept help from a monster, it eventually turns on you. What? Obama and the Democrats thought Frankenstein was really about a scientist who built a monster from dead people?

With the addition of Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket, Obama almost certainly wishes he could re-bottle the misogyny he uncorked. But it’s too late. Woman-hating is now such a routine aspect of the Obama movement that the true believers can’t help themselves anymore. It simply pours out of them:

“She looks like a porn star.”

Obama supporters, all.

Yesterday I wrote that the possums will lose this election for Obama by alienating every woman in America who hasn’t already run screaming from the sexism in the Democratic party. Well, not every woman, but enough. Enough women will either stay home or vote for Sarah Palin (not McCain) to make that nut.

They’ll do so not out of spite and not because they’re irrational. They’ll do so because they will have decided that the critical thing, right here, right now, is not to be bound by some historical allegiance to the party that used to be the home of women’s rights, but to strike a hard blow against the sexism and misogny of today.

Can’t say I blame them.

Just got this in the mail from Murphy of PumaPAC; I reprint it here in its entirety:

August 29, 2008
TO: Puma PAC Members
FROM: Murphy
Subject: Announcement

Hello Puma PAC,
Goodbye Howard Dean. Goodbye Barack Obama. Goodbye Nancy Pelosi. Goodbye Donna Brazile. You have not only lost the White House for the Democratic Party. Today you have brought the Democratic Party to the brink of irrelevancy altogether. John McCain has played you all like a piano.

Today we say GOODBYE to the OLD Democratic Party. The OLD Democratic Party has led us to DISASTER. John McCain and Sarah Palin will win in November by a landslide.

TODAY, August 29th 2008, Puma PAC has started a new political party:

THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY
We have a website launching tonight. at www.thenewdemocraticparty.org and www.ndp.org We will be modeled on Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party. We will NOT be running candidates. We WILL be endorsing candidates. We will be the Party for All Disaffected Democrats who are FINISHED WITH THE OLD DEMOCRATIC PARTY. We are NOT Republicans, though millions of us will vote McCain/Palin in November.

Our Platform is the Platform of the TRUE Democratic Party

• Healthcare for All

• Equal Rights

• Reproductive Rights

• Worker Protections

• Envmtl Protections

• Fair Immigration Policy

• Help for working class college students

• Good public schools

WE MUST PREVENT A REPUBLICAN TAKEOVER OF THE ELECTORATE. WE NEED A POLITICAL PARTY FOR ALL THE MILLIONS WHO WANT TO BOLT THE DEMS AFTER TODAY’S FIASCO.

Please JOIN US. We NEED the Platform and Principles of GOOD DEMOCRATIC VALUES now MORE THAN EVER. We MUST STAY UNITED AS A DEMOCRATIC VOTING BLOC OR WE COULD LOSE EVERYTHING.

To Join the New Democratic Party, please send an email with your name and state today to newdemparty@pumapac.org

Listen in tonight to the Lion’s Share on No We Won’t Radio with Sheri Tagg. Riverdaughter and I will join her to talk about today’s events and where we go from here. www.blogtalkradio.com/no-we-wont

Thank you and Good Luck,
Murphy

I’ve been telling my mother for a month that McCain would pick a woman.

“Governor Palin of Alaska. I’ll just bet you.” Every time I would say that my mother would just roll her eyes.

I knew it. I knew he would pick Palin.

Goddamn, that old buzzard McCain is not so dumb after all.

EDITED TO ADD: The Palin pick is fricking genius, and since I’m a blogger and this is my blog I should probably take a minute here to blog about it.

Why is it a genius move? Because of two things:

1. It will make it easier for center-right Hillary supporters to vote Republican in the fall, and
2. (this is the genius part) It will complete the alienation of the rest of the Hillary supporters from the Obama camp. How? That’s easy — the Obamabots will do it themselves. Go read the Washington Post blog or anywhere online where the Palin pick is being discussed, and you’ll see the trademark Obama misogyny already out in full force. She’s been on the ticket for two seconds and already the Obamabots are saying she “looks like a porn star,” they’re making rude remarks about her childbearing, they’re ridiculing her intelligence.

Keep it up, possums. Keep it up. Just when some Hillary supporters were trying to forget what misogynist freaks you all are, now you’re going to remind us all over again.

Brilliant fucking move by McCain.

UPDATE: Greetings, Instapundit readers. You probably won’t be here long, as this is a genuinely feminist, leftist blog. But while you’re here I shall do my uttermost to be polite, and I ask the same of you. You are welcome to comment on your reaction to the Sarah Palin pick. As ever on this blog, sexist/misogynist and racist comments are of course verboten. Also, please refrain from attempting to “enlighten” me or my readers about abortion. Thank you.

Whatever happens tonight with Senator Obama’s speech, Patsy and Sugar are ready.

Tune in to NQR after the speech for a special late-night edition of Our View with Patsy and Sugar (produced by me, Violet). I cannot wait to hear their take on this whole circus.

We’re planning to start at 11pm, but if the speech runs over, we’ll start the show whenever Obama stops.

Listen to the livestream broadcast on NQR from 11pm to midnight ET (or thereabouts). The call-in line for questions is (347) 677-0792. We’ll also have the chat room open on NQR (look for the green chat sign).

P.S. I’m thrilled to announce that “Our View” is going to be a weekly program from now on. Tune in every Thursday night at 9pm ET to hear Patsy and Sugar!