Completely Unnecessary

‘Clean and articulate’ round two.

Joe Biden’s bound to cop some heat for his comment that Sarah Palin is ‘good looking’. The full quote, however, is quite funny (from Time’s Swampland blog):

Biden: There’s a gigantic difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and between me and I suspect my vice presidential opponent and that is that – it’s obviously, really, she’s good looking, you know there’s all these differences.

Woman in crowd: You’re gorgeous!

Biden: Where is that person? Who said that? Can you say that again for my wife?

Woman in crowd: You are gorgeous!

Biden: You know, I’ll tell you what, can you make sure Jill hears that. I want to make sure Jill hears that. I haven’t heard that in a long, long, long, long time…. I thought I was in pretty good shape until I hung out with this guy [presumably Obama].

That’s hilarious - and I support Jay Newton-Small’s argument that the comments were not sexist or condescending. She argues that such a comment made about a male VP candidate would pass unnoticed.

True.

Here’s the problem with being a liberal, which I alluded to in my last post. The tendency is going to be to handle Palin with kid gloves because she’s a woman and, god forbid, we go after a woman candidate and appear sexist.

And that’s the problem - treating Palin as a ‘woman candidate’. So let me be as clear about this as possible:

The most pro-feminist thing to do is to hit Palin hard.

There are a myriad of reasons why she’s unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. We shouldn’t talk about her voice (and I’m looking at you, Jon Stewart) or her ability to manage her home life - but we should nail her ass to the wall on every issue possible.

She’s the Republican candidate for Vice President. I expect the Democratic Party to treat her as they would have treated Romney, Ridge or Lieberman.

The McCain campaign chose her because they thought they could pick up Clinton voters with an unqualified woman, and counted on Democrats being a) too dumb to notice or b) too scared to touch her.

Let’s make them pay for that condescension.

The point of feminism is not space in an ivory tower; it’s equality and the right to be judged on our merits.

Sarah Palin deserves to be treated as we would treat any other veep candidate. She’s unqualified and unvetted.

Have at her.

Sphere: Related Content

Vaguely Related

• Sarah Palin’s Relationship to Me, as a Woman
• Privacy and Publicity at the GOP Convention