Mary Newsom, Staff columnist for the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, has a column in Saturday's paper, entitled "We haven't come a long way, baby".
Not only does the article blast Palin and her policies, but also goes after the way women are treated in the media and by the public, in general.
Let's remember that this column is in the Charlotte Observer, with a very large readership of both Republicans and Democrats, and North Carolina is currently in the national news as a red state possibly going blue in November.
Newsom first goes after all the lies that Palin has been saying. But, then she takes an interesting turn into the constant misogyny of women when they enter politics.
Here's some of Newsom's take on Palin:
Understand, I am no fan of Palin's politics. She and I differ on virtually every issue on which I have heard her position.
Understand, also, that I am aghast – I mean, jaw dropping to the floor – at how cavalierly she uses hypocrisy and succeeds. Sure, hypocrisy is a political stock-in-trade. They all do it. But Palin has people cheering that she cut taxes in Wasilla – when she also raised them. (Property taxes were cut; sales taxes raised.) She brags about fighting federal pork, and people lap it up like kittens at a saucer of cream, yet Alaska, under her governorship, was 10 times greedier for earmarks than any other state. She is beloved for fighting wasteful spending, yet billed taxpayers for more than 300 nights when she stayed at her own home.
And, then she takes on the slams of women who get involed as politics, by way of being married to the guys who are running:
All that said, the frenzy about Palin is scary. It's a caricature of the myriad of unsavory ways women in politics are demeaned and belittled. Traditionally, it's first ladies who get the psychotic public scrutiny – all those cookie scandals and the obsession with hairstyles and weight gain.
Consider the thousands of scurrilous e-mails telling gullible people Michelle Obama – a corporate lawyer – is a Marxist. Fox News referred to her as Obama's "Baby Mama" – combining racism and sexism into one fabulous phrase. Cindy McCain, meanwhile, is mocked as a too-rich, too-tightly-wound Stepford wife.
Then Newsom writes about Hillary Clinton and here's my favorite line of the whole column:
And how many of the people who today are complaining that Palin isn't being treated nicely also drove around with bumper stickers saying, "Life's a Bitch, Don't Vote for One"?
I would love to find a poll on some right wing blog about how many people find that bumper sticker funny.
Read Newsom's entire column here.