Damned If She Does, Damned If She Doesn't

The latest criticism of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin this past week has been brutal. Not only has she been attacked by many for her purchase of $150,000 of clothes from such department stores as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, but she has also been attacked because she is attractive. Mind you, these attacks are not necessarily from liberal, pro-choice women but from women from her own party, Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker.

On the issue of the clothing, which McCain has said would be donated after the campaign to a charitable cause, how exactly would the public have responded to seeing Sarah Palin in wool while campaigning in humid Florida? Alaskans rarely wear any tropical clothing. She has a yearly income of $166,000 and has five children, hardly enough to purchase a new wardrobe worthy of a vice-presidential candidate. Elitists from Eastern ivy-league universities have already diminished her for getting her college degree from a state school. Who knows how they would have reacted to seeing her campaign in fur in late summer?

In regard to the conservative women attacks on Palin, I can only say that it is common to thrust daggers into the backs of other woman, particularly if the attackers are Southern (a fine long-held tradition). Both Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker are far past the age where they themselves are considered attractive anymore by men. They have no doubt noticed in recent years that men don't tend to look at them anymore, sometimes don't even open doors for them. These pathetic women may continue to flirt as if they are 18, but the grapes have withered on the vine. Instead, they take great delight in putting other women down who are now in their prime. Off-camera in September, Peggy used language certainly not becoming to a woman about Palin's selection, calling it "political bullshit about narratives and youthfulness." Parker, likewise, has indicated that McCain chose Palin for her attractiveness only. These two commentators (hardly journalists) are among the many sad, pathetic women who hide their wrinkles with their long hair and bangs, apply too much makeup, and long for the days of yore for their "many beaus" like Amanda in Tennessee Williams' famous play, The Glass Menagerie.