Today's firestorm is around a picture of Sarah Palin on the cover of News Week magazine that was originally taken of Sarah Palin by Runners World magazine to promote physical fitness & health. Sarah Palin is an avid exerciser & runner. Runners World stated that they DID NOT give permission for News Week to use.

In my opinion it is tacky of News Week to do this, & I kind of doubt they would have used a picture of Hillary Clinton in shorts & tennis shoes & used it in the same manner they did Sarah Palin. Also note the commentary at the bottom of the cover.

Oddly enough--the liberal women on The View actually agree. Maybe--because some liberal women have finally realised this could easily happen to them.





Your thoughts?

Its a bit odd, unless they were intending to suggest she's "running" for president or something like that.

At least she looks hot. They could have had a picture where she had a noodle hanging out of her mouth or something. I actually agreed with her critique of it on the Oprah show although I wouldn't necessarily call it 'sexist'. I could see newsweek having a male politician on the cover in his gym clothes or something.

Males in gym clothes & women in running shorts are quite a different scenario. The context of Palin's policies are not shown in running shorts.

Out of the thousands of pictures News Week could have used, they actually dug this one up--& without permission from Runners World to use. Obviously their text comments on the front cover show their distain for Sarah Palin.

News Week has confirmed they are nothing more than a TABLOID magazine.

I'm not sure how relevant Palin's policies are at all since he doesn't hold any office and hasn't said she's running for any office.

How would you show a policy in running shorts? How would you show a policy in a business suit?

The bottom caption does appear pretty vile, but I haven't read the article either.

Could you explain why this is sexist and how it makes or breaks (or confirms) whether or not News Week is a "TABLOID" magazine?

I'm not into the women's lib crap so the picture really isn't a big deal to me. In fact, I think it's kind of cool that she's a mother and grandmother and still looks good enough to pose for pictures like that...afterall, there's not that many politicians, male or female, that could pull it off the way she does.

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It's a stupid picture. I just can't believe that we can't find a more compelling candidate that Sarah Palin. WTF? Are we going to be talking about the same lame cast of retreads again - and Sarah Palin?

I give Newsweek credit for not showing us Hillary in shorts. That would just be cruel..to us.

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Hate to say so but I agree, not a big deal (a bit sexist but nothing major...) and she does look decent in it. MILF...

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Sarah Palin's Political Instincts: Hitchens | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com

That link belongs to the better of the two essays behind that cover, written by Christopher Hitchens.

He hits the nail right on the head: it's about the irony of Palin's propensity for imagining herself as a populist when clearly she isn't one. She does not represent the average person out there or their interests, but she stubbornly clings to the false-persona of one who represents the common man, not in ideas or principles, but solely on outward appearances.

Sexist? Of course not. Sarah Palin is responsible for her own image, and in how she projects herself to the country it underlines the irony about the woman: on a book tour a populist doesn't skip the big cities (where most people live) if one considers themself a populist.

Best part of Hitchens' essay:

"Look at the charges that surfaced against Palin during the past election, and then look at how they played out. It was alleged that she was a member or supporter of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP); that she had been an endorser of Pat Buchanan's "Reform" Party candidacy in 2000; that she was a skeptic about man-made global warming; that she thought God was on our side in Iraq; that she favored the teaching of creationism in schools; that she attended a wacko church where exorcism of witches was enthusiastically celebrated. Later fact-checking modified a number of these allegations—Continetti is on better ground here—and we can now say that Palin did no more than attend a couple of conventions of the AIP, of which her husband was a member, and send it one friendly video message while she was governor of the state in question. It further turns out that she attended that Buchanan rally, wearing a pro-Buchanan button, only because she thought it was the polite thing to do. As for Iraq, all she meant was that she hoped God would be on our side, or we on his. On global warming she now splits the difference: it could be cyclical or it could be man-made. As for the theory of evolution, the most she really asks is that both sides of the discussion be taught. (On the witch-exorcism stuff, not even her stoutest apologists have been able to help her out: it's all on YouTube, as is the quasi-coherent speech with which she bid farewell to her governorship without a word of warning to her voters or backers. I would urge you to scan both links and see if they don't make you feel suddenly much more elitist.)"

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“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-Sarah Palin, not having a clue once again about what she is talking about.

In the marketing world, percetion is everything and that is how any political office is run in the United States. Policies just add fuel to that marketing scheme.

So, if you saw Ms. Palin in a professional suit, you would tend to think of her as someone who is serious, has a level head, and probably knows what she wants. If you saw her in running shorts, then you would tend to think of her as a hobbyist, leisure, and not serious. Thsi is also assuming you know very little or nothing about her policies or use your own political ideology to influence your decision.

But here is the problem, Ms. Palin has a tainted image and I do not think anyone can rebuild that image whatsoever. That is the real problem. The other problem is the media. They are sexist. And it is not just Sarah Palin or conservative women in general. Just look at what the media did to Ms. Clinton and how they drug her name in the mud.

It would depend on how one defines populist. Most people who tend to think of themselves as populist will believe Theodore Roosevelt was never one.

I don't know if the media is sexist so much as it is a reflection of who we are now (which is unfortunate since the media should be an outlet that reflects a deep questioning of things, not the status quo). Women are still objectified to be sure, but on tv today every other commercial features men acting like buffoons, or male characters on sitcoms who are complete bitches in the family dynamic that sees today's soccer-mom types as being the men of the house while dad is absent-minded, doesn't understand today's kids let alone today's "lingo", forgets his own anniversary/wife's b-day etc.

Palin's image is a real problem. What sank that ticket and made the moderates swing towards Obama was the fact that 70% of the country just doesn't take her seriously as a potential presidential candidate. We kept looking for some signs of intelligent life behind the outward appearance, and it was never revealed to us.

The other irony facing her is that she represents a wing of the GOP that so detests Washington and everything about it, but her ambition appears to suggest to us that she really, really, really wants to run for President and run the campaign her own way, advisers be damned. Why would you go against your own basic instincts about Washington and then want to move there and govern when your entire philosophy is about how much you hate governance?

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“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-Sarah Palin, not having a clue once again about what she is talking about.

It's not "sexist", but it is kinda' tacky.

And she looks pretty hot, so I don't have a tremendous problem with it.

Now, if I were the publisher of Runner's World, I would have a tremendous problem with it. Newsweek didn't have permission to use the photo and, as such should be sued into fucking bankruptcy...

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Religion flies you into buildings.

Sarah Palin can no more control her public image as a publicity seeker than she could as Alaska's governor. She posed for the picture, it was purchased legally by Newsweek, Palin has no say over what they put on their cover. I would say the expression "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" applies, but Palin's family has already told us she is never in the kitchen.

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just another failed attempt to marginalize her.

the gross desperation is hilarious.

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