It's legitimate to report that the question has been asked. To my knowledge, the only media figure to pose the question is right wing talk show host Dr Laura Schlessinger, who is unhappy with the selection of Ms Palin because it'll take time away from Ms Palin's family. I know of no Democratic party politicians, surrogates, or other MSM figures, or popular left wing blogs who have thought it's a valid argument.

It's another attempt to construct a straw woman - "they can't stand up to her because she has common people power. And they're hypocrites!"

At least nobody's calling her "uppity."

But she's running with a POW! You can't ask questions like that of someone who is serving her country by serving at the feet of a POW!

OK Steve, I watch TV so you don't have to. But I think this charge is pretty much what you suggested the other day. That is they are conflating Obama with "liberal media" with bloggers with commenters. And then they omit the focus on whether the mother of a newborn with downs should be taking on this new responsibility. Even Bay Buchanan was insisting she was in the same position as Palin, although her children are adults.

I think her speech last night made her sound like a negative and divisive harpy (with nothing issue related or informative to say other than she's business as usual and a Republican gimmick). If that's sexist then I'm incredibly guilty!

That came out of Brokaw's mouth??? What a shock. This is whata the McCain repubss are doing...bringing issues up first as if someone else did and then condemning those making those issues. This is to make sure these issues are ever raised and distract from what is really being asked. Brokaw huh? Amazing.

Didn't work for Hillary....

Just heard Lakoff on the radio, on NPR. He called Palin an extremist, a charming extremist.

Actually, I did hear people from MSNBC--perhaps it was Andrea Mitchell--raising the question with female politicians. And Sally Quinn was on MSNBC making the overt argument that Palin can't do both. (This was all before her big speech.)

I detest Palin and don't want anything done that will move her one inch toward the vice presidency. So I wish they'd never gone there--because this is one argument that makes a lot of women, of all political persuasions, see red.

Democrats need to be as careful about not coming off too strong when criticizing Palin as Republicans were about criticizing Feminazis.

Well I'm surprised that Brokaw spoke up, good for him. What bothers me is the Bridge to nowhere lie is not being debunked by the media and it needs to be.

I doubt this previews a withdrawal - it looks like she's in it for the duration. However, it's likely an effort to garner sympathy and peel off those disgruntled Hillary voters. It may backfire; a woman who can't take the same heat as a man might expect has no business in politics. And don't blather that a man would never have to stand that level of scrutiny - it happens all the time. Maybe not on quite the same things; although the aim might be to achieve equality, the sexes will always be different (and vive la difference).

i never thought i'd see the day, but i think the "liberal media" is finally waking up. just keep watching over the next week or two. the final straw was when she said last night that she wasn't going to washington to impress the media. they're going to turn on her in a hurry.

orange

We've criticized Brokaw from time to time, but I always thought he was basically honest, decent, intelligent enough, albeit a bit dorky and not always canny about being manipulated in subtle ways. Good for him, good man. The "establishment" version of the Jon Stewart and Roger Simon smackdowns.

BTW, the big thing making the conservative rounds on blogs and chain email is the laudatory message from claimed "Cynical Alaskan", the original venue apparently being http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/how_sarah_palin_handled_corrup.html.
He/she won't give a name, it could easily just be a plant from the campaign sympathizers.

It's funny as hell to me how my conservative friends send me chain emails and act like I should take them seriously, aren't they supposed to be the canny, shrewd ones and we are the dorky emotional ditzes?

Good for Brokaw! The big questions are really not being asked that much by TV correspondents or anchors.

And Sally Quinn was on MSNBC making the overt argument that Palin can't do both.

I'd never heard of Sally Quinn, but her wikipedia page is precious, especially the part about taking communion at Tim Russert's funeral.

They sure are good at playing up the victim angle.

I would also like to know where the assertion that "OBAMA AND HIS SUPPORTERS ABUSED HILLARY CLINTON! DEMOCRATS ARE SEXIST!" comes from.

There is no basis in reality for this.

This further confirms something I'd only suspected of the Rethugs up until now - they literally don't believe that sexism exists. As far as they are concerned, it's just a handy club that uppity bitches use to keep good men down. That's why they haul out the card and play it with relish even when it is patently absurd. Because that's all they believe it is - a tactic.

Somebody should check where the story came from. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the Republicans planted it themselves. And they appear totally careless that someone might check - they are certainly riding that "this cruel Democrat heckling of Palin must stop" while doing everything in their power to see it continue.

orange

Amazing that Brokaw, pretty much a McBush tool, would say that. Meanwhile...
There is an issue here that resonates with women but it's not exactly the one about how she can do a good job when she's the mother of 5. First, let me say, that I am a single parent of a teenage girl and a feminist and a person with a high level corporate position. But I think, that when women heard that she would accept this job and subject her pregnant daughter to worldwide humiliation, there was something irredeemably repellent about that. How many pols have left their posts "to spend more time with the family" before the crap hits the fan? This woman happily walked her daughter into the buzz saw for her own ambitions. Sorry, but that speaks to character (an issue Rethugs are always crowing about) and not the idea of whether she can generically be a mom and an executive.
Also, I'd add, in this vein, the fact that she was going into labor and took a flight and delayed by many hours checking into a hospital before the last baby was born is particularly troubling too. Moreover, that baby, with Down's and an attendant weak immune system, has been paraded about in public and passed hand to hand. I think she is hoping the child dies (called home by Jesus) so she can garner the trifecta: the proud "choosing life" award, the sympathy of a bereaved mother, and the relief that the burden is gone.

"That can't last as a defense for questions about her readiness for national office." Oh, yes it can. She will appear on Fox frequently and Fox will encourage her to raise "sexism" when the other news media questions her readiness for office. By the way, I'm surprised that the Republicans waited this long to apply the label of "uppity" to Obama. By the end of the campaign, "uppity" will have become a theme of elevated political discourse in the media.

That quick-witted (like a catfish) and artful public speaker George W. Bush used to rely heavily on the strawman in his speeches: "Some people say we should abandon the Iraqis to their own devices - I disagree". Of course nobody ever said that, but it allows him to look reasonable and measured in his prevailing against an argument that never was never offered.

orange

It is an unfair assertion. I don't her family enters into her world at all. They are photo props. They never interfere with her agenda. Never have, never will. She needs to hire better nannies or something though.

What's up with otherwise respectable blue states going for venal Republican governors?

I haven't read anyone question how a mother would be governor or VP. What I have heard questioned is why, when (and whether) she had amniocentesis. She's adamantly anti-abortion so presumably she was going to have the baby regardless. The test, apparently, is fairly risky to the child, so why have it done?

The implication is that she's either playing up the decision to go ahead and have the child (that there was no amniocentesis and the child's condition was discovered at birth) or that she's hiding the shakiness of her pro-Life beliefs.

I concur w/Frak. And, I have heard discussions of this angle on the Ed Schultz radio program (today there was a discussion along this line w/Jonathan Alter). I recognize that the line between "can't do family and a high-powered job" and "maybe shouldn't do THIS family with its present challenges and a high-powered job." I have no doubt that I would have the same "Hmmm" reaction if Palin were a man and he thrust his teenage daughter and Downs-syndrome child on to the stage as campaign props and to make a idealogical point. I believe with all my heart that Palin should be free to make the choice she made, but other citizens may draw an unfavorable conclusion about her as a result.

I am also on board (pardon the pun) with the revulsion over the flight from Dallas to AK after her water broke. It simply seems reckless and selfish to me, and her husband's explanation flippant in the extreme. To me, these are bright-line markers of a personality that I find neither appealing nor inspiring of confidence. These are my personal reactions to certain revelations about her and her judgement.

When she stops dragging that baby around as a prop and parading her white trash family at every opportunity then we'll shut up. Opportunistic pandering bitch. She'll probably have a bassinet on stage at the vice presidential debates.

I haven't read anyone question how a mother would be governor or VP. What I have heard questioned is why, when (and whether) she had amniocentesis. She's adamantly anti-abortion so presumably she was going to have the baby regardless. The test, apparently, is fairly risky to the child, so why have it done?

As much as I hate to defend her, there is a good reason to have the amnio done, even if she is antiabortion. That way the family can start to prepare for the challenges it will have to face. It gives them time to figure out how they are going to handle having a special needs child. She was at an age when Downs Syndrome is a real risk, so I can't fault her for taking the test.

My take is that the McCain campaign doesn't understand the fourth estate.

I don't like the entrenched hierarchy of the MSM, but they exist. Once members of the other estates pay their respect and kneel at their feet, kiss their hand, etc., they may give them a pass.

But not before. Palin cannot absorb this by osmosis, she has to subject herself to some form of questioning by these top guys before she can even apply for a pass.

The big problem with Palin is that she is under investigation. How can she answer all questions?

Obama spent hours alone with the editorial boards of the Chicago newspapers on the Rezco issue. Hours...without help...on one issue.

Can Palin do that? No.

Ahhh, but it's not nice to question the qualifications of "the High Priestess of the Heebie-Jeebie Clan." Between her coddling of the petro-companies, her glowing remarks about fringe secessionists, and her history of fundee-vangee "values" that border on the theocratic, it's becoming all too clear that McCain isn't the real power here.

It's Palin.

She's WingNuttia's answer to the need for a "new and improved" Cheney; a Cheney 2.0; a next-gen Cheney that will blend the deeply-rooted monopolistic agendae of corporate America bred by the likes of Prescott Bush with the socio-proselytistic agendae of the various hardcore religious groups into an unbridled version of theo-fascism that will make both Hitler's Reich and Khomeini's Islamic Republic seem pale by comparison.

Beware the angry woman who calls those quoting her a liar, for she is Medusa unleashed upon the world....

I did see Soledad O'Brien talking to another woman, ane editor from "Working Woman" magazine, who said that a lot of her readers are asking questions about Palin's challenges-- that it isn't a sexist question because it is actually coming from people who know how hard it is to balance family/work life. It never veered off into sexist territory, but it is something that has a lot of people thinking and talking.

There was also a presidential historian on MSNBC this morning-- a man whose name I can't remember-- and he said something about Palin's unique challenges with her family. Mika jumped all over him and said that he wouldn't have said that if Palin hwere a man-- he very calmly and kindly said, actually, no, as a father of 2 young children I would ask the same of a man because I think a lot about where I need to put my energy, my focus, because I want to be there for my kids. Mika calmed down.

The bottom line is that Palin puts them up there, uses them really forcefully as "props," uses her baby with Downs as part of her speech, and puts out press releases about her pregnant teen-- then everyone acts all offended that anyone is talking about her family demands.

Basically the GOP is playing a game, daring the media to cowtow to their demands and treat them with kid gloves. I don't know if it's going to work this time since they're not doing it with any kind of panache. They're just too obvious.

Mommie Dearest, @20:06.

"Harpy". Yum. It's been *ages* since I've heard/seen the word used and it's ever so much more descriptive (as well as more acceptable in "polite society") than "bitch". Thanks.

Frak, @20:32

That's what I've been thinking too (vis the Down Syndrome baby), just didn't have the nerve to say it out loud. First putting off checking into the hospital for *hours* after her water broke. Then dragging him to work 3 days after he was born. Now the kid is being passed around like a human football... Either they're totally stupid, or else they really are hoping that Jesus will "solve" their long-term problem if they look smartly about it, short-term.

The older women on Barbara walters' "View" were all talking about how hard it had been for them to raise a child and work. The only cast member enraged by this talk was the pro-Republican young one with two very young daughters who, Barbara pointed out, often came in exhausted. The concern of these older women was that Palin has so many young children two of which have special needs (one with Downs syndrome and the other, a teenager about to give birth in front of the whole world). I watched the trooping-of-the-family on the evening prior to the disclosure and wondered why I could only read pain in the face of the teenage daughter who held the baby. (I, too, noticed how they waved the baby about like a flag in a room full of thousands of people.) The next day, like Frak, I was horrified to discover that Palin had chosen to accept the appointment knowing that this would expose her daughter's pregnancy. I can only assume Ms Palin knew her daughter was pregnant before this point. If she didn't, then either way, I have to ask what kind of a mother she is. Does Ms Palin (and the republican party) understand that in many parts of the world and in many women's minds, an unmarried pregnant teenage daughter reflects as much upon the mother as it does upon the daughter?
Barbars Walters also commented that Ms Palin claimed it was her daughter's decision to have this child. Am I supposed to beieve that a woman who couldn't or wouldn't give her daughter the life skills to prevent her conceiving a child while still a child has given her the skills to make such decisions?
What does all this say about the decision-making abilities of the people who would be king er, president?
Usually American elections are so depressing. This one is bizarre. Who wants to bet that she will end up resigning, either that or get lost in a snow bank during a blizzard.

Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle has personal issues of her own. Take a good look at her, and you then have three guesses as to what they are -- and no, I'm not talking about her being Jewish, even though there are certainly more than a few people in her own party who would see that as an issue.

Anyway, trust me, she really has no standing to wax poetic about Republican family values.

"...and whether or not being the governor of a state like Alaska, with 600,000 people, and a budget that is underwritten by the oil companies, prepares her for stepping into the Oval Office."

I'd have thought that having a budget underwritten by the oil companies was perfect preparation for steeping into the White House.

If there's one thing we've learned about the icy Ms. Palin in the last six days, it's that she will use anyone and anything to seize her golden opportunity for whatever the hell it is that's going.

She is blessedly unburdened by doubt or any of the hesitations that come from genuine contemplation of what's before her. And that is what's scary about her.

che che--so nice, you said it twice. Go back and check your reading comprehension. The empirical evidence (and empirical is non-quantitative but observed) is the fact that she happily is humiliating her pregnant daughter by making her a spectacle before the world in service to her ambition. Generally, "good" mothers are more self sacrificing. Also, she is allowing, if not, supporting, her Down's child rough treatment since shortly before birth to now by how she handled labor and by letting him be passed from hand to dirty hand in crowds.

More on the second point--Down's infants are immunosuppressed and it's not prudent to expose them to every germ in the Republican party. A "good" mother would be more protective of an at-risk infant. VP be damned.

che che writes: "Isn't it OK to be quite fruitful, so long as you make every attempt to nurture the fruit?"

yes, absolutely! The problem is not the pregnancy or being fruitful, the problem is that Sarah Palin is not nurturing. She threw her pregnant daughter in the spotlight by accepting this nomination--she put herself before her pregnant daughter's wellbeing. And she doesn't seem to want to take good care of her last born. She's not nurturing the fruit. Jeez...

Now, I'll concede that I don't watch television news...

WTF?! I thought you were watching it so I don't have to! What am I paying you for?

Is it even a mystery why the Republicans are bringing this up? Very simple - as a woman who prioritizes career over child-raising, Palin is doing exactly what her base, the fundy Christians, has been speaking against for years. Most liberals don't have an issue with this, but the campaign strategists know Palin's ambition could be an Achilles heel among her own supporters. By quickly trying to frame this issue as "liberal" criticism, even though liberals mostly haven't done so, they can rally the base and head this issue off. Remember, hypocrisy just isn't a concept that is understood by Republicans. Brillian strategy really.

Most people who have an infant with a compromised immune system wouldn't drag it on the campaign trail and have it passed hand to hand through a convention hall tempting the fates. Enough said. I've made my points (a few times). I think you are pretending not to understand but that is not the same and putting forth a persuasive argument. Let's agree to disagree.

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