"Scary, grown-up thoughts have shriveled his video game sack..."

Masculinity tied to video game prowess tied to the consumption of Slim Jims in this ad, discussed here:

Jonathan Byrne, an associate creative director at Venables Bell & Partners in San Francisco, which is creating the campaign, said the ads are intended to balance promoting manliness with hanging on to the joys of boyhood.

“It’s not just about manliness, it’s also bucking responsibility,” Mr. Byrne said of the ads. “Avoiding the growing-up thing is a big part of it.”

Whatever you think of video games and Slim Jims, what do you think of conflating manliness and boyhood?

An animated sequence shows a kidney-shaped organ called a video game sack in a man’s midsection, which collapses as it collides with items like a wedding cake, minivan and baby carriage.

In this trope, actual adult manhood is feminizing. Arguably, this is the point of marriage and the reason why heterosexual marriage is held out to be the building block of society: The overly masculine young man needs to be diluted with femininity in order to do the things that we as a whole want him to do — be economically productive and produce the next generation. In this view, playing video games — and generally camping out in everlasting boyhood — is a preservation of full manhood. A transgressive thought... but that's a big part of advertising, making the consumer feel that they're a big old rebel for purchasing some unremarkable product... this dessicated strip of meat...

What is the most pathetic dessicated strip of meat?
	The 30-year-old guy who sits around playing video games.
	The married man who drives a minivan and pushes a baby carriage.
	A Slim Jim.
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"This will be my last political campaign, no matter what. I've got nothing else to run for."

President Obama, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, yesterday. The "I've got nothing else to run for" is a response to a sad "oh" that follows the "last campaign" remark.

Via Drudge, which is continuing its black-and-white theme, now with Putin top and center — crouching and exposing his muscular arms — above a smiling Romney and an eye-blacked Drew Brees. The picture of Obama is, as it was yesterday, in the right-hand column. Today, it's a photograph — a nice photograph, with a hint of a smile. Also in Obama's column, Chinese ideograms above a link "China Ascends to No. 2 on FORTUNE 500..." Maybe the ideograms say "We're #2" (or "We try harder"). The stack of links between Obama's image and the Chinese writing reads:

'This Will Be My Last Political Campaign No Matter What'...
GALLUP: APPROVE SLIPS TO 44%...
Women outnumber men on US Olympic team...
Swedish billionaire's son arrested as U.S.-born wife found dead...

I'm getting a decline-of-Western-civilization theme out of Drudge's new black-and-white trend. There's Putin on top, looking hyper-masculine. The Chinese are rising up (economically). And Obama's all used up. Nowhere to go. We talked about that back in April, after I received email from his campaign saying  "In a few days, I'll be hitting the trail for my last campaign." I said:

The man is 50 years old. His career is young. He's packing it in so early? This troubles me. Why no more stamina in the political arena?

I mean, what if he loses in November? He could run again. He could let 3 presidential terms pass and come back and only be as old as Romney is right now!

But even if he wins, what's he going to do? He can't run for President again, but there are other elective offices. Look at John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, and Andrew Johnson. All of them went on to seek other elective office and to win....

Why doesn't Obama have more gumption? It makes him seem too weak even now as he seeks reelection. Last campaign. That's annoying.

By contrast, Putin has gumption. Stamina. Staying power. And, by the way, he's sending warships to Syria.

But what's in Drudge's column 1? The only photograph of a person is Obama's brother — George Obama — the one who lives in a hut. (Rush Limbaugh's been riffing about that for years.) The other Obama is being used in some right-wing propaganda film. Easy pickings.  The man needs some money.

The top photograph in column 1 is Saturn. (Yesterday's Drudge had us worrying about the sun.) There's a "Strange Vortex Discovered on Saturn Moon...." Just above Saturn is "Wasserman Schultz: 'It Would Be Nice If We Had Candidate for President Who Was Committed To America'..." Yes, yes, let's stick with the strange vortex that is the American presidential election. For some reason, the Wasserman Schultz line is the only thing Drudge italicizes. Perhaps that's a prompt to read the quote sarcastically.

Clicking through, I see that Wasserman Schultz has radically changed her hairstyle since her appearance on Fox News Sunday (June 8). Did someone decide she needed to look more conservative/conventional/feminine?

Wasserman Schultz point, in this new clip, in this new hair, is about Mitt Romney stashing money outside of the United States:

Mitt Romney needs to come clean and release multiple years of his tax returns so we can see why he invested in a Bermuda corporation and transferred it to his wife's name the day before he became Governor of Massachusetts.

So we can see why he's invested in Swiss bank accounts and accounts in the Cayman Islands. And you know, we also need to know why does -- what is the allure of investments out of the country. When he headed up Bain Capital, he was a pioneer in outsourcing and shipped jobs overseas.

It would be nice if we had a candidate for president who was committed to America. Mitt Romney is committed to making sure that either he makes the most money as humanly possible, or his investors do. 

Imagine a man who tried to make as much money as possible! The Democratic Party is hoping Americans have been trained to think of that as a bad thing.

It's the decline of Western civilization, when we no longer flex muscles, we give up and let China take over. There's nothing else to run for.

We can always run for... cover.

Well-behaved women don't deserve a spot at Princeton.

The Atlantic has a long article with a title I feel like I've seen a hundred times: "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All."  It's very putting-the-duh-in-dull. I'm not saying you should read it. I just want to talk about the penultimate paragraph:

I continually push the young women in my classes to speak more. 

The author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Somebody please tell me why Princeton University — Princeton University! — is admitting women who need to be continually pushed to speak more. In the 21st century. They don't deserve the seats they fill. They shouldn't be coddled. They should be flunked out. You get into Princeton and you sit there too timid — or too withholding — to speak? Unacceptable. The teacher shouldn't be prodding you.

They must gain the confidence to value their own insights and questions, and to present them readily. 

Is this kindergarten? This is Princeton! How many applications for admission did Princeton turn down in the process of matriculating these ladies?

Yesterday, I saw the old bumper sticker: "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History," and we had a conversation about whether the sentiment had any relevance today. I took the position that it did, because women still succumb to the cultural expectation that they should be pleasing and well-liked. It's a problem. Get over it or don't, but why are you occupying classroom space that could be used to good effect by someone who doesn't need a university professor to nurture her to the point where she can "present" her "insights" "readily"? If you'd confessed your limitation on your application form, the university could — and should — have rejected you.

My husband agrees...

A classic feminist line!

... but he actually tries to get the young men in his classes to act more like the women—to speak less and listen more. If women are ever to achieve real equality as leaders, then we have to stop accepting male behavior and male choices as the default and the ideal. 

Yes, men. You need to back off and behave more like the women who need the professor to continually push them to value their insights so that they may present them readily. The future depends on your going beta.

We must insist on changing social policies and bending career tracks to accommodate our choices, too. We have the power to do it if we decide to, and we have many men standing beside us.

Insist. Try a petite stamping of the foot while you insist. Yes, you can, little lady. And little men: Behave yourselves!

Absurd!

"ok lets see if that thing with glasses chicks suddenly becoming super weird feminine when they whip off their glasses works."

Oh, my! It does!!!

(Via Metafilter.)

"But when I'm shooting a gun, I guess I feel empowered, and empowerment is sexy."

So says a woman, so isn't it adorable? From a very silly CBSnews.com article about women and guns and how "feminine" and "girly girl" they feel. Replete with New Age nonsense:

"I'm a yoga instructor, I work at a vegan bakery — and I also like to shoot guns.... Yoga's Zen-like quality can be applied to shooting guns in a lot of ways... Shooting guns takes focus, concentration, and it doesn't always have to be about violence."

Imagine a man going on in a similar fashion about guns making him feel "sexy" and "empowered" in some "Zen-like" way.

Wendy Kaminer "can't find feminism" in the charges of sexual harassment aimed at Yale...

"... at least not if feminism includes independence, liberty, and power for women."

 Instead I find femininity -- the assumption that women are incapable of fending for themselves in the marketplace of epithets or ideas, the belief that women are rendered helpless by misogynist speech and the sexist tantrums of their male peers....

What accounts for such feminine timidity, this instinctive unwillingness or inability to talk or taunt back, without seeking the protection of university or government bureaucrats?...

Decades ago, when Catherine [sic] MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin, and their followers began equating pornography with rape (literally) and calling it a civil-rights violation, groups of free-speech feminists fought back, in print, at conferences, and in state legislatures, with some success. We won some battles (and free speech advocates in general can take solace in the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding the right to engage in offensive speech on public property and public affairs). But all things considered (notably the generations of students unlearning liberty) we seem to be losing the war, especially among progressives.

"[A]ny male at any time will be permitted in girls’ bathrooms, showers and change rooms as long as they have an ‘innate feeling’ of being female..."

That's what opponents say about Bill C-389 would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to forbid discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" or "gender expression."

The bill probably won't pass, but here's a column favoring it. Excerpt:

Society takes for granted that there are two distinct sexes, with two corresponding ways of expressing gender identity. And we have concocted a range of stereotypes to reinforce the supposed chasms of difference between men and women, boys and girls.
Despite the fact that biologists such as Brown University professor Anne Fausto-Sterling have demonstrated that “nature” itself yields not two distinct sexes but as many as five in a small but still significant number of cases, we still think male or female is something constant and unchanging. Sex is not only something viewed as uncomplicated and self-evident, but masculinity and femininity are tied to one’s birth-assigned sex.

Transsexual and transgendered individuals expose the shortcomings of our narrow categories. Because they trouble this vision of male and female, they have been “socially erased,” to borrow a term from Concordia Professor Viviane Namaste...

As faculty members teaching in the sexual studies minor program at Carleton University, we are not surprised by the comments offered by Charles McVety, president of the Canada Christian College in Toronto in The Globe. [see blog post title, above.] Mr. McVety’s use of the language of pedophilia, and other forms of sexual predation, criminal opportunism and violence within female-specific spaces serves as a perfect example of the pathologization, criminalization and fear-mongering that continues to mark the lives of those within the trans communities.

I demonstrate ladylikeness with a Badger hat and Green Bay Packers cheese.

Sissy on "sissy."

Yesterday, I had a problem with Rush Limbaugh using the word "sissy" over and over again to express his feelings about Julian Assange. That, understandably, caught the attention of Sissy Willis. Because she's a Sissy but not a sissy, she did not react with I Feel Bad About My Name: And Other Thoughts On Being a Woman. She wrote to riff on something I said in my listening-to-Rush-Limbaugh video:

"To say men are being like women when you want to say they're being cowardly and weak — I don't like it ... Also, some chickification is a good thing. Women have a lot to offer. Think about it."

Sissy says she's been saying it for a while: "postmodern, identity-politics 'feminism'" is not the same thing as "feminization." And that makes me want to remind Rush and everyone else that there are many different manifestations of the feminine. You have something in mind when you say "chickification" or "feminization." I get it. But if you want to be able to criticize the forms of the feminine that you loathe, don't sweep all women into a stereotype. If you do, you are, ironically, acting like a cartoon of a radical feminist — a woman who thinks of men as sexist brutes.

Now, I know that Rush Limbaugh isn't a sexist. I listen to the show. I know he doesn't think women are all alike, and I think he loves women. He's first in line to promote the women who embrace conservatism. That's his thing: He loves conservatism. He's enthusiastic about conservative women in politics and critical of those who try to drag down Sarah Palin (and, for example, Christine O'Donnell). He does the thing that I do: He points it out when a liberal says something about a female conservative that liberals would call sexist if it were said about a female liberal. He notices — as I do — the way liberals expect women to be liberal and discipline us harshly when we are not.

Also, Rush isn't exactly the model of stereotypical masculinity. And I'm not just referring to the fact that he hasn't kept his body in optimum shape over the years. I'm talking about the hours of show time he's spent telling us about the details of his wedding. The times he's admitted getting emotional over some movie. And just yesterday, he went on and on about his pets. He's got 2 dogs and a cat. And the dogs are because of his wife. When he was living alone, he was living alone with a cat. A pussy!

What's with powerful women and thick bumpers of bangs?

Drudge is — I think — implicitly asking with this alignment of photographs:



What drives intelligent women to that hairstyle? Are they thinking something like I don't want those feathery bangs...



... or the classic Louise Brooks straight-across look...



... but I can't have my forehead just out there to be gazed at!



What's wrong with foreheads? Is it that the forehead symbolizes the mind, and a woman can't have you looking straight at that? The intelligence must be filtered. There must be a buffer zone of femininity, so there must be some hair veiling the forehead — the theory seems to be. But why the bumper look that we see in the Drudge trio of Angela Merkel, Condoleezza Rice, and Maureen Dowd?

Althouse in the NYT.

Talking about feminism and the First Lady. (A Bloggingheads clip.)

"'Chick Cars' Don't, in Fact, Castrate Men."

That's Mother Jones objecting to some press release purporting to identify the top 10 "chick cars" that men should never drive. MJ sayeth:

I suppose it’s not that surprising that the idea of a gendered car exists or that certain members of the doucheoisie wouldn’t be caught dead in a Mini Cooper. After all, driving is fraught with gender stereotypes and assumptions....

[I]sn’t it time we shifted male virility away from large, gas-guzzling automobiles, especially in light of the recent, horribly costly, and damaging oil spill in the Gulf? Maybe the sexes will never agree on who’s the better driver; but can’t we at least, for the sake of humanity, retire the phrase “chick cars” and the embarrassing PR it inspires?

I don't see anything wrong with thinking about the masculinity and femininity of the inanimate objects you associate yourself with. I can decide to wear a frilly dress or a mannish pantsuit or to paint my living room a girlie pink color or a manly dark gray. So what's wrong with shopping for a car and thinking about whether I want a chicky Mini or a tomboyish pickup truck?

Ah, I see. The real problem isn't the gendered object. It's the way men avoid feminine things.

"Racist Harvard Law Email: The Cat Fight That Turned Into a National Scandal."

Oh, no!

We cannot absolutely rule out the the possibility that women are, on average, genetically predisposed to be....

Ha. How horribly, embarrassingly messy for everyone at Harvard who took the bait. They got sucked into the vortex. They got played.

AND:  David Lat has some details. And some opinion:

Heck, this episode probably won’t even stop Steph from landing a Supreme Court clerkship. If I were in her shoes, I’d focus my efforts on Justice Clarence Thomas. Of all the members of the Court, he’d probably be most open to hiring the victim of what some conservatives might call, to paraphrase CT himself, the “high-tech lynching [of conservative females] who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.”

He also has an update from the woman whom some accused of leaking the email. She writes:

There was no fight over a guy (this isn’t Mean Girls). I certainly didn’t yell that I would ruin Stephanie’s life.

Moreover, I didn’t forward the e-mail to BLSA, anyone in BLSA, or ATL....

I know that you would prefer anything related to two girls to be a catfight... but that just isn’t how it happened.

***

If you're trying to remember the "Seinfeld" reference for "cat fight," it's "The Summer of George":

Jerry: Did you tell Peterman about this?

Elaine: Well, I tried, but he thought it was some sort of cat fight.

Kramer: Cat fight?

Elaine: Ok, why? Why do guys do this? What is so appealing to men about a cat fight?

Kramer: Yeye cat fight!

Deglamorizing Sarah Palin.

Wow.

Okay, now I'd like to see a set of pictures of the little dweeb leaning over a computer screen, working on photographs of Sarah Palin, cropping her long hair and neutralizing the makeup colors. Because I bet he/she is not sexy at all.

I'd like to see the smirk on the photoshopper's face as he/she decides to make the supposedly natural lips a ghoulish purple and the short hair completely clunky. (It reminds me of this.)

By the way, to be realistic, if you take off the glasses, you need to enlarge the eyes to undo the distorting effect of prescription lenses. But what the hell? Smaller eyes are less pretty, and this exercise is all about stripping away Sarah's prettiness. Honesty is not the point. It has very little to do with what Sarah Palin would look like if she chose a less glamorous look.

This is an effort at defeminizing Sarah — like drawing a mustache on her. In fact, there's a good chance that Sarah Palin would look more beautiful with subtler makeup, no glasses, and a well-designed, more professional hairstyle.

Having said all that, let me add that Sarah Palin's looks obviously are part of her popularity. And I can list many other politicians — female and male, Republican and Democrat — who have won favor in the hearts of the people through their looks. One of them is sitting in the White House.

IN THE COMMENTS: Akiva said:

Actually, her degamorized look distinctly reminded me of former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.

That was when women were trying to look serious and slightly manly to be considered a valid politician.

I thought it was ok for a woman to look like a woman and still be taken seriously nowadays. Sorry, my bad.

"[T]he IAAF now have the whole ANC and the whole of South Africa on their backs."

After the International Association of Athletics Federations finds that runner Semenya Caster lacks a womb and ovaries and has internal testes and that this is reason to disqualify her from women's competitions and strip her of her medals, South African politicians are saying it's "racist and sexist":

[A]n IAAF source was today quoted as saying: "There certainly is evidence now that Semenya is a hermaphrodite.... Everything is going to have to be done absolutely by the book, no question of a challenge to our findings. There's all sorts of scans you do. This is why it's complicated. In the past you used to do a gynaecological exam, blood test, chromosome test, whatever. That's why the findings were challenged, because it's not quite so simple. So what they do now is they do everything, and then they can say look, not only has she got this, she's got that and the other. The problem for us is to avoid it being an issue now which is very personal: of the organs being a hermaphrodite, of not being a 'real' woman. It's very dramatic."

And the family sees it in terms of religion and their own personal history:

"It is God who made her look that way but she IS a girl."...

The athlete's uncle Lesiba Rammabi, 51, said her relatives were 'very humiliated' by the reports.

He said: "I believe Caster is normal, inside and out. What does it matter whether she can have babies or not? Many people cannot have children, why else do parents adopt? Are those women not women also? We are a normal family who looked at a child when she was born, saw that she was a girl and raised her as any other family would do. Are we now being told that we are wrong? We are very humiliated by what has been said and do not understand how it can be true. This is a woman who was raised a female. She will always be female, no matter what people say."

That would all be fine except for the fairness to the other athletes. And there is also the question of what Caster herself wants to do. You could be raised as a female because that's what your parents thought you looked like but on reaching puberty decide they made a mistake. She didn't dress in a feminine style but she did go along with this makeover and photoshoot for You magazine:

 

But what does it mean? Quite aside from whether she looks feminine in that picture, it was, after achieving high status in women's running, in her interest to encourage people to think of her as female. 

Why did the White House select this photo of Sotomayor for its website slideshow?

Here's the whole slideshow — which is labeled "Sotomayor Bio."

An emailer calls this to my attention saying: "I don't think you should post about this, but why would they put in this photo where you can see all the way up her skirt??"

Well, I am posting about this, and I wouldn't say "you can see all the way up her skirt." You can see that Sonia Sotomayor wears a skirt and crosses her legs in a relaxed and casual way that lets you see some leg. The photo also has her smiling prettily, with her hair in relaxed ringlets, one of which falls gently into her eye. Her left hand is devoid of any relationship-manifesting rings, but she's wearing long dangling earrings, and the hand is unclenched and draping gracefully.

Get the message? She's a woman. A womanly woman, fully embodying womanhood — even as she is not married, she's wearing a professional suit, and she's at home with the law books.

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian, who has expertise in art, writes:

Her knee looks like a giant grey Idaho potato hovering in the foreground. The arm of the chair repeats the shape on the right of the frame, making it look like her other knee, which in turn makes it look like her hand is dead center in her enormous crotch, pawing at her cooch. You avoid those things in portraiture. Also not good to crop her right arm off. It implies that she's an amputee.

He is right, of course, but that isn't the answer to my question why the photograph was selected.

ALSO IN THE COMMENTS: Andrew Koenig said:

My first thought was of this famous picture of J.P. Morgan...

... in which the light reflecting from the arm of his chair makes him seem to be holding a dagger.

The photo is by Edward Steichen. The effect was accidental, but in this case, we love it (as much as Morgan hated it). The important thing is to have an eye not just for what you are hoping to capture in a photograph — such as Sotomayor's femininity — but also for the accidental imagery that others may notice. See what can be seen and then decide if you want to use a photograph.

"A strong bias toward the father pushes a developing brain along the autistic spectrum..."

"... toward a fascination with objects, patterns, mechanical systems, at the expense of social development. A bias toward the mother moves the growing brain along what the researchers call the psychotic spectrum, toward hypersensitivity to mood, their own and others’."

Perhaps mental disorders lie along a continuum from autism to schizophrenia, and this continuum represents "an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg." This theory is revoltingly sexist, and yet, what if it is true?

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade questions my use of the term "sexist" when he doesn't see "how this theory discriminates against women any more than it discriminates against men." The sexism is in the stereotyping, irrespective of whether the 2 sexes are equally disadvantaged.

Camille Paglia, still a big Obama supporter, loves Sarah and Todd as "powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism."

She writes:

... Todd and Sarah Palin... have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.

... During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn't -- judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.

Paglia says the anti-Palinists have "behaved like snippy jackasses." Snippy jackasses! Don't you hate when jackasses get snippy?

The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.

Quivering green Jell-O mold? Is that what Obama had behind his ear? (Transcript: "Now, Sen. McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible.") Or what McCain was trying to nail to the wall? (Transcript: "Well, you know, nailing down Sen. Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. ")

Back to Paglia:

And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex -- I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal.

Paglia must be overjoyed to have a real-live political figure who fits her theories so well. After 2 decades of analyzing Madonna, she must be ravenous for this new subject matter. No wonder she's sick of the media elites serving up candy-tutti-frutti-Jell-O. Finally, a full-course meal.

Paglia speculates that Sarah Palin may be part Native American and savages the people who think Palin might be dumb. I'll skip some of that and get to the part about feminism:

The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother -- without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.

The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition -- without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite -- which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend.

Well said.

In a similar vein, here's what I said about why Palin is great for feminism:

[F]eminism is something that transcends party politics. Women have interests that the parties should have to compete for. I want a vivid debate about what is good for women. Sarah Palin represents one argument, and her feminism will require Democrats to improve their argument and not take women for granted. Sarah Palin brings feminism to a lot of people who've been scorning feminism -- because feminism has seemed like a strand of Democratic party politics.

Sarah Palin, the VP pick! [ADDED: And the live-blog and profusion of comments continue here.]

10:25: Thought you'd like to see a picture. The handsome guy is her husband (and Bill Clinton's chief competition on the face of this earth for future First Gentleman).

And this post can be used for commenting on the [first] live-blog post, when the comments there hit 200 (and become hard to see).

10:30: Here's almost the whole family. (There's a new baby now.)



Wow. Beautiful. Including the mountain!

10:44: She named her kids Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. Does that seem like something a Commander in Chief would do? Why not? It's bold. Crisp.

10:47: In the comments, Sloanasaurus writes:

Palin is the common man's dream wife. Smart, accomplished, beautiful, was a sportscaster, loves to hunt and fish.

Perhaps Palin is the "post-feminist" woman. She competes in a mans world being governor of the largest state, but she can still be feminine (a mother and wife).

Hmmm... maybe Ann will have fun with this analysis.

It's not perfectly feminist, Sloan, but I understand what you mean, and I think it's something that will appeal to many of the swing voters. As a feminist, I love that she did not leverage herself into power through her husband and consider this an important improvement over Hillary.

10:53: David Gergen -- on CNN -- is saying the media thought McCain was going to make a "safe pick" and that it would be Pawlenty.

11:13: "We're the ones with a babe on the ticket," says Rush Limbaugh, who's been enthusing about the "inspired," "brilliant" choice. "Alaska is about as far away from Washington as you can get."

11:17: McCain comes out. The music is "Right Now."

11:18: Big cheers. "Happy Birthday" signs make him say "Thanks for reminding me," which is an old-guy response to "Happy Birthday." Really big cheers. He's glad to announce in Dayton, where people are "hard-working" and "honest." He's picking up what was the biggest theme of the Democratic convention: Fighting for hard-working people. He wants to "shake up Washington." He's found "the right partner to help me stand up to those who value their privileges over their responsibilities, who put power over principle, and put their interests before your needs."

11:24: He's found someone who's stood up to special interests, he says, fought against government spending, and has executive experience. A huge cheer comes when he says Palin's parents were both coaches who "raised their children to excel at sports."

11:28: She's been a union member and her husband is a union member. "In the week we celebrate the anniversary of women's suffrage," she's a "devoted wife and a mother of five." She's got the "grit, integrity, good sense and devotion to the common good" we need today. She doesn't let anyone tell her to "sit down." (Is that a reference to something? Did someone tell Hillary to "sit down"?)

11:31: Here she is, in a dark, skirted suit. (No pantsuit.) Behind her, a daughter is holding the new baby. Palin is wearing a HUGE, glittering flag pin. She's got that trademark hairdo. (Want to wear that hairdo? I'm going to be looking around on campus to see if any of the young women are wearing their hair in the Palin style. If you see me, let me take your picture!)

11:33: She introduces the hunky hubby Todd. And it's their 20th anniversary, and she said she was going to give him a little surprise. He's a fisherman. He's a world-class snow-mobile racer. Four of her children are there with her. The 5th, Track, enlisted in the Army last September 11th. This September 11th, he's deploying to Iraq. McCain won't talk about his sons in Iraq. He's made a principle of it... one that she obviously doesn't share. A "U.S.A." chant. She introduces the kids that are there, including Trig, "a beautiful baby boy."

11:31: She's speaking extremely well, and she's presenting herself as a McCain-style maverick. She seems like his perfect counterpart. She enumerates achievements in Alaska that involve taking "risks" and "challenging the status quo." She rejected "the Bridge to Nowhere." Now, she's praising McCain extremely well, and he's fiddling with his wedding ring, a reflex married people often have. Her speech is amazingly clear and strong, passionate and devoid of any hesitation or filler "uhs." The sign on the lectern reads "Country First." It's fitting, she says, that this privilege of running with McCain has been given to her almost 88 years after women got the right to vote. She wants to honor Geraldine Ferraro, the first (and up until now the only) female, major-party VP pick and Hillary Clinton, who "showed such determination in her presidential campaign." Palin loves to point her index finger and jab it about, a gesture that you don't see that often in a politician anymore and that you almost never see done with a pointy polished fingernail. It's especially striking as she talks about Hillary and urges us to join her cause.

11:49: Wow! Great performance! Fabulous first walk onto the national stage!

11:51: On the radio, Limbaugh calls the speech "magnificent." "Her story is real." She doesn't have to "put any holes" in her story the way Obama does. He's been emphasizing that we should be comparing Palin not to Biden, but to Obama. Biden and McCain are more comparable as long-experienced Senators, and she, as a relatively inexperienced outsider who would be a first, is more comparable to Obama. "Middle America is going to love her. She lives their values." He speculates on questions she'll be asked -- about how to shoot a gun, whether she baits her own fishing hooks, and if, when she found out her unborn baby had Down Syndrome, she considered an abortion "before or after it was born."

12:05: I see we're getting up close to 200 comments again, so I'm going to put up an new post, so please spill over there.

"Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 9%/Likelihood of you being MALE is 91%."

Okay, thanks for the info.

Via Instapundit, who's much more likely to be female than I am (50%), via Megan McArdle, who's practically all female (99%).

ADDE: The websites I read that are really masculinizing me are Drudge (2.08 male/female ratio), PGA Tour (also 2.08 — they don't know I have a family member on the tour), Real Clear Politics (1.82), and Rush Limbaugh (1.99). I read a lot of things that are very close to 1. The only really feminizing thing that got counted is Television Without Pity (0.32).