Palin, however, is a dangerous choice and her style goes against the grain of feminists and women everywhere. We spent years seeking equality, and ask only for a level playing field where we can find credit for our accomplishments and capabilities and the opportunities to compete fairly. Sarah Palin can launch us back in time and remove years of progress, albeit slow and incomplete.

I find the rest of it sort of embarrassing and if Karpinski wants to know why womens progress has been slow and incomplete she need to look no farther than her own mirror.

Throwing up Palin's screwability and her views on how that "affects" men and what Palin is accomplishing with her seductions is sort of a reverse sexism.  Our poor men, they don't know any better than to be led around by their weiners.

Bill Clinton was and seemingly remains highly screwable, even my grandma wanted him.  I'm missing something in the genes or jeans, not sure which, but I don't want to have him - I'm just in love with his mind.  He's just an object to me.  How does Bill get to be so seductive and defended by women like me though while Sarah needs to be called out on her salesmanship of her own DNA?

I respect Karpinski on one hand for standing up to military brass when nobody else at Abu Ghraib would, whether they had ovaries or testicles. She truly misses the mark though in defining how Palin will/would/could set all women back.  I would say that Palin sets women back by allowing herself to become such a tool of the imploding Republican philosophies party while having very little true experience in hardcore leadership moments.  She lacks too much personal internal integrity in allowing herself to be USED to this degree in this fashion to be my leader. And ovaries or testicles or screwability has nothing to do with that and it never will with me thanks all the same.

Sarah Palin is cut from the same mold as these women who were desperate to fit in with male colleagues - desperately trying to prove herself as tough as, or tougher than, "the boys" who are competing with her. Palin sets the stage with stories of her prowess in murdering wolves, moose and caribou from a helicopter platform vantage point, begging the question, "C'mon boys, don't you think I am tough enough?"

The fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever that Palin has ever shot at animals from a helicopter, although, as we all know, she does support culling the population of wolves and in some areas grizzly bears in this manner, which she defends as necessary to maintain carabou and elk populations for game hunting, etc.

So where does Karpinski get this story? Why, from a website post entitled Fake Governor Palin Quotes, which has somehow managed to be taken for the truth by PDS sufferers everywhere (cf. Matt Damon, Eve Ensler). Here's one fake quote that has caused such a stir:

On oil exploration and drilling in the ANWR:

God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats. Now, as to the ANWR, Todd and I often enjoying caribou hunting and one year we shot up a herd big time, I mean I personally slaughtered around 40 of them with my new, at the time, custom Austrian hunting rifle. And guess what? That caribou herd is still around and even bigger than ever. Caribou herds actually need culling, be it by rifles or wolves, or Exxon-Mobil oil rigs, they do just great!

Sans her flamboyant onstage persona, Cher has been a most articulate spokesperson on behalf of Operation Helmet, a nonprofit public advocacy organization which has had to fight our own Pentagon in order to provide this most critical piece of protective gear to our own soldiers in the field.

By contrast, Sarah Palin uses her newfound celebrity to create about her a self-aggrandizing cult of personality as a means to power. Most recently, she's wielded that clout in an attempt to shut down "Troopergate" -- I really detest that suffix -- the pesky ethics scandal and legislative investigation that has dogged both her administration and her family for a number of months now.

And, TL, you are quite right in seeing this area as uncomfortable - it is one of the difficult truths of our society (and any society) that using sex to sell something while blinding the buyer to the reality of the product being sold is one of society's great weaknesses.  And, this difficulty is compounded exactly because many women, particularly professional women, make their way without resorting to using their sexuality to succeed.

One has to remember that Karpinski made her way to the top - a general's star - in perhaps the most male-oriented world there is, the military.  When I served, there was a chart which showed, based upon historical figures, that about 2 percent of all officers who served 20 years or more would achieve a general's rank.  That really hasn't changed much, if at all.  And the military is nothing if not as much of a meritocracy as there is (not to say there is not some politics involved, but it isn't a place you can make your way to the top without showing ability again and again).  So  Karpkinski was in the top two percent.  And, to achieve that rank not only do you have to have technical skill - you have to understand people, motivations (after all, you have to motivate them to do difficult things), interpersonal relationships, and how different people act and react.  

So when Karpinski says Palin is a shiny object - she's right.  When she says Palin uses her sexuality to both blind people (particularly men) to what her reality is - she's right.  For all the reasons one can think of, women, by and large, can and do see through that use of sexuality better than men.  

And when Karpinski remarks on the "possibilities" that Palin's attractiveness communicates, she's exactly right.  Palin does all the guy things and, to all reports, does them well. That is very attractive to guys for a multitude of reasons, at a minimum if only because it means they don't have to adjust their football, car fixin' and racin', huntin' and fishin' to putting up with girly things.

Palin was a very careful pick - but not by McCain.  By Rove.  And Rove, from having opposed McCain, knew his vulnerabilities and, doubtless Rove's research told him those vulnerabilities were shared with many, many men, particularly wingers.  There never was any doubt in my mind, just from seeing how McCain was speaking and acting when introducing Palin, and the "candid" photos taken outside the public forum, that Mrs. McCain has no love for Palin, because Mr. McCain is smitten.  And Rove knew that.

This was a very solid, smart, subtle and dangerous pick.

Why do this?  Go read this diary by Wolf on Palin as Evita for the Cheney Police State.

I know enough about Palin's character to assess her as ill-equipped, clueless and unprepared to take control of our nation in the event of McCain's early demise or incapacitation.