Newsweek has been asked to justify its photo choices.  Their explanation is lame.  I can't stand Sarah Palin, but I agree with BTD their treatment of her is sexist--just as much media treatment of Hillary Clinton has been sexist.

John Edwards being attractive was part of his narrative, for sure.  Obama, not really.  Sex appeal was not part of the week to week narrative of who they were.  With Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, this was the case.  That's why shakesville's sexism watch for Sarah Palin goes up to 28 chapters and Hillary's goes into the 100s.

Everyone is viewed through the lens of their attractiveness. It is a bug, not a feature. 'Serious' news magazines are supposed to be better than People.  Of course Time and  Newsweek left that standard behind a long time ago, but still I thought they at least wanted to maintain the facade.

As for Tina Brown, or anyone else who's happily justifying the Newsweek cover, why would we want to accord any positive meaning to equal opportunity sexism?  Why would we want to let sexism put down more roots, anywhere, for anyone?

The situational ethics - the "but they do it to men, too" justification - is just perpetuating the sexism we've been fighting forever, and it's hard to believe that the trade-off - hoping Palin takes a hit for this cover - is really worth it.

By and large, the depictions of Edwards and Obama as being sexy actually bolstered their public image.  In other words, the cultural message, and the message of the media, is that being sexy is a political PLUS, if you're a man.  It was a good thing.  Now, the haircut kerfluffle is different, because that wasn't about being sexy.  That's about a man caring too much about his looks, which, of course, is code in our homophobic culture for being gay.  And as we all know in this culture, the one thing worse than being a woman is being gay.

Jeralyn is right.  she posed for the photos.  and anyone could have told her they would be used and reused and abused.

is that right?  perhaps not but its the world we live  in.  and as I said, Palin loves her some whining about all the political correctness in DC and the country.  and then she wants it that very political correctness to be applied to her.

John Edwards hair¢ut -- any Democratic male's hair¢ut maintenance -- is a hard-wiring fixation in the GOP limbic mentality, as eminating from the Grand Imperial Lizard.

They pull this crap on every Dem male candidate to imply -- no, baldly (pi) show that he's effete. The teevee media join the fun, even though every day, each one easily gets a three-figure fluff job to get camera ready. Wolf Blitzer, twice as much, because of the beard.

This from a party where precision-shellacked hair, apparently lowered onto each numbskull by industrial crane, is an entry-level requirement when joining the party.

And what's Edwards supposed to do anyway? Turn up to events wearing a black hood? Spend all his media time talking about hair¢uts?

Right left or center, any time any stripe wants to smack around "the enemy", chances are they'll slap some boobies on the menace and have at 'em.

Remember that week-long CDS shriekfest the media went into becase campaigning (Sen) Clinton "showed cleavage"? It was a f*cking inch -- a fraction of what you might see on a news reader on a conservative network in Arab / Muslim states. Sheesh-and-a-half!!

That's not even sexuality or sensuality, but a process whereby the subject gets no say in the  application of sex for some sort of weird, Puritanical-American punishment: person and effigy as one, then boom goes the dynamite!

Imagine how smooth and efficiently the witch-burnings would have gone had the witches really been made of BBQ-starter, like the Inquisitors and New World Witch-Sniffers claimed!

It's wrong to use insulting gender stereotypes against women even if you can't stand their politics (and, lord knows, I can't stand her politics).

The treatment of Palin over the last year reveals the left's utter fascination and fear of her.  However, the derision and ridicule only deepen the support she gets in other places.

This is so true.  Tell ya what I worry about.  She bones up the issues, tweaks her stance on a few items.....we's in trouble - when we shouldn't be.

Fact is good-looking people do get ahead in our society.  Good-looking people who know what they are talking about even more so.  Smarts are easier to come by than looks.