Setting back Feminism Since 1983

I think there's a good article in this profile of Tina Fey by Maureen Dowd, but it's nowhere to be found on the page. Instead, I would rather read Fey's reaction to this mental patient with a notepad bursting into her house, demanding a cocktail (there are references to the alcohol they're drinking throughout) and asking questions almost entirely confined to her looks, her weight, her mostly unnoticeable scar, her love life, who she flirts with, and whether she was cool in high school. The questions reveal a series of insecurities so transparently that it reads like a psychiatric evaluation. I agree with Amanda that Fey comes off well regardless, but what I'd really like to hear from her is "Yeah, what the hell was that, a celebrity profile by Freud?"

While reading it, I thought back to the fact that there was a time when Dowd did sports reporting at the late Washington Star, worked the metro desk at the New York Times, and then served as a Washington correspondent. Was she probing key Congressmen about their sex lives as a corollary to the debate over the Clean Air Act?

They Think You're Stupid

The early results are not promising:

The first national polls on John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin yesterday came out today from Rasmussen and Gallup -- and contrary to what the GOP probably hoped, she scored less well with women than men.

Here's a finding from Gallup: Among Democratic women -- including those who may be disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination -- 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely.

From Rasmussen: Some 38% of men said they were more likely to vote for McCain now, but only 32% of women. By a narrow 41% to 35% margin, men said she was not ready to be president -- but women soundly rejected her, 48% to 25%.

This seems to me like a classic example of a bunch of men deciding what women would want. Palin's gender is not nearly as important as her views on women's issues. She is aggressively anti-choice, is likely to be anti-birth control and wants our kids to be taught creationism. She doesn't believe in global warming and doesn't know anything about Iraq. Women are far more likely to look at the facts and not the chromosomes when it comes to this; if the first female Vice President is an unqualified disaster it sets back the cause of feminism years. That's unfair but just factual. And women are going to vote for someone who needs quick tutoring from an old man before he dies (that's the MCCAIN CAMPAIGN'S FRAMING):

Mr. McCain’s advisers said Friday that Mr. McCain was well aware that Ms. Palin would be criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, but that he viewed her as exceptionally talented and intelligent and that he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.

“She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long,” said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s top advisers, making light of concerns about Mr. McCain’s health, which Mr. McCain’s doctors reported as excellent in May.

I agree with Molly I - the McCain campaign believed the PUMA hype to such a degree that they thought going with a woman as some kind of bone to throw would be enough. It's classic Republican superficial thinking. And it's not going to work.