The XX Factor: What women really think.

Only Nicolle Knows for Sure ...

Do you mean, Maureen, that women in politics may have to be nine times nuttier and more narcissistic than even your average hey-look-at-me male of the species, just to get elected? Not sure I'm with you on that, having known some really menschy women officeholders. (And I know you're not saying there aren't any.) But maybe I would be with you if I'd had the job you had and seen all you have, right? What your post did make me think: We have no idea whether these stories about Sarah Palin throwing fits and clueless about whole continents are true; we weren't there. I've had two batshit bananas bosses in my life, one a he and one a she, and I almost never talk about either one of them—not because I am so nice, but because it's such crazyola stuff I don't think anyone would believe it. (Plus, even I don't want to hear it.) So maybe that's what Palin's aide Nicolle Wallace, or whoever the source was for this stuff, is learning, too: Sometimes, even the truth can splash back quite nastily. But if that were the case, it would certainly be an ironic coda to a deeply dishonest campaign.

Update: Sarah speaks, denies divadom. "I never asked for anything more than maybe a Diet Dr Pepper once in a while," she told reporters. She also disputed tales that she didn't know Africa was a continent and couldn't name the signatories of NAFTA: "That's cruel. It's mean-spirited. It's immature. It's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away with it, taking things out of context [from debate prep], and then tried to spread something on national news. It's not fair and it's not right."

Is It Sexist, or Calling a Spade a Spade?

Going back to the discussion of yesterday, and at the risk of sounding like a sexist myself, I'm wondering if we can find a diva equivalent of Sarah Palin in a male politician. Palin is not alone in this type of tantrum/staff abuse behavior among female politicians (nor is it confined to her side of the aisle). While I haven't heard first-hand of female elected officials throwing things, it wouldn't surprise me at all. I once worked for a high-level woman who famously asked another staffer, on the way to a fundraiser, what dressing would be on the salad at the dinner. (And let me tell you, when you're fundraising, that's the last detail you're struggling to keep track of—and the last one she needs to be concerned about.) A friend worked for a high-level female politician who used to insist that her event information be presented in a specific-color folder, or there was definitely hell to pay. In neither instance is the rejoinder "I'm not sure" or "I can't guarantee that" something you'd counter with if you intended to stick around long.

So Sarah Palin is not the only diva out there. I'm not saying this is acceptable political behavior, and I certainly do expect the runner-up leader of the free world to know that Africa is a continent. But I'm wondering if all this diva-labeling is truly sexist, or are we just calling a spade a spade? I wonder if female politicians act out in ways that are particularly feminine and unpleasant. And I'm hard-pressed to think of a story of a male politician behaving this way from friends who've worked for high-profile ones, these kind of grande dame demands that make the average Jane think, "What??" I'm just wondering: Do we not hear about men throwing things in a rage because there's a sexist tendency to point such ticks out only among women or because women are the only ones who indulge in such extreme behavior?

I do think that anyone running for public office—male or female—has to be massively overconfident to be able to stand up to thousands or millions and say, "Vote for me; I know what's right for you." It's the nature of the beast. And I think women, since they still have to work harder than men to get as far in politics, have to be even more overconfident, to the point of being a little nuts. So maybe, sexist or not, we shouldn't excuse such diva behavior, but we shouldn't blame them either. How else would these women do a job that requires brass balls if they weren't a little imperious themselves?

Africa, the Country

Blaming Palin Is the Easy Way Out

Thank you, Melinda and Lauren, for saying what I wanted to say but was avoiding since I've largely been our lone Sarah Palin defender. Saying that Palin doesn't know that Africa is a continent sounds like something you'd say about your ex after a bitter breakup (which is perhaps what this is). It sounds far more sarcastic and bitter than serious, and it says more about the speaker than the target.  

John McCain might not have been able to win even if he'd put God himself on the ticket, given the standing of the Republican Party right now. And Palin surely didn't help him pull in as many women as he'd hoped. But still, as Chris Beam points out in Slate, he didn't have a lot of good choices (or rather, left himself with few good choices because of his rumored stubborn insistence on Joe Lieberman). I kind of wish in hindsight that it had been Mitt Romney, because he'd have brought credibility on the economic front. But the narrative would have been about their contentious primary. And I liked Tim Pawlenty, once I'd heard of him, but Chris is right that you would have been able to hear crickets chirping at rallies. And Joe Lieberman? Worse than crickets. The networks would have had to find a way to silence the echoes in the convention center during the acceptance speeches while the conventioneers were out at bars drowning their sorrows. Heck, I would have voted for Obama if he picked Lieberman. (No offense, Joe.) So, it seems a little unfair for all the blame to fall on Sarah Palin. McCain was trailing, he threw a Hail Mary, and it fell short. It's not like he was leading by 10 points and then she brought down the whole campaign.

Like Anne says, whether Palin is that dumb or not, this says something bad about the McCain campaign. The candidate himself gave a gracious concession speech Tuesday night. It's too bad his staffers don't have the same amount of class.

Palin in '12

Sounds like those McCain aides are fast-tracking their guy's return to pariah—I mean, maverick—status by alienating every last conservative who voted for him with their mean, sexist, and derriere-covering hooey about Sarah Palin. I'm sorry, but I do not for one second believe that she did not know Africa was a continent. If she threw those poor foot soldiers for democracy into a panic by appearing at her hotel-room door "essentially ... wrapped in a bathrobe''—grow up, people; it's not the first time a candidate has finished dressing on the run. And from what I saw of the crack McCain-Palin organization, somebody needed to engage in the dreaded "throwing of paperwork and things of that nature.'' I see this as the jump-start of her rehab with women voters: diva, shopaholic, temptress, hmmm. Keep up the women-hating insults, McCainiacs, and it'll be Palin in '12.

Toweling off

I, too, am fascinated by all of this postgame revelation, Anne and Emily. I'm having a hard time believing, though, that Palin—the governor of an American state surrounded by Canada—did not know what NAFTA was, nor that Africa wasn't a country. She's literate; her parents were teachers. It sounds to me like a sarcastic comment was taken as fact. That said, it's insane that we can even be discussing this; crazier still how O'Reilly leapt to her defense. As if the campaign didn't feel like satire to begin with.

Dahlia, while the diva-branding is surely sexist (like the c-word, there's no male equivalent), I'm not sure that the towel talk is, too. The fact that, as Newsweek has reported, when McCain's top strategists arrived at her hotel room to brief her for for the convention, she appeared wrapped only in a towel—well, that's pretty revelatory about how this woman uses her sex appeal as power in the most egregiously inappropriate circumstances.  I admit that I love the idea of such palling around with major governmental figures—if, say, we learned that Angela Merkel hangs with longtime advisers in her bathrobe, I'd feel giddy fondness. But this is another story, and if we're going to looking at a future in which Palin continues to sear our consciousness, I want to know how she plays her game.

Cue the Cleavage?

Anne and Emily: I was as riveted as you by Carl Cameron’s breathless dishing—as well as by O’Reilly's almost palpable desire to smash him in the face on live television—but I couldn’t help but balk a little at the substance of the McCain campaign's criticisms: Palin is described as colossally stupid. And a diva (prone to tantrums and throwing things). And someone who opens her hotel room door in just a bathrobe (inappropriately sexual) and also a shopaholic who already had far too many clothes to begin with. Just wondering if the sexism threaded through all that doesn’t make it a little less juicy and a lot more worrisome?

It's All ... Who's Fault?

It's All Sarah's Fault

Sarah Palin Ignorance Update

For those who haven’t seen it yet, this clip of Fox News political correspondent Carl Cameron talking to Bill O'Reilly is rather extraordinary, and not only for what it reveals about Sarah Palin. Cameron reports that McCain campaign insiders have told him that Palin was unaware that Africa is a continent, not a single country; that she could not name the three signatories of the North American Free Trade Agreement; and that she had refused point-blank to prepare for those infamous Katie Couric interviews. 

But O’Reilly’s reaction is even more gripping than these revelations. Even as Cameron—a Fox reporter!—is talking, he keeps grasping wildly at the “all-criticism-of-Palin-is-snobbery” narrative. “She could be tutored!” he says at one point and gets Cameron agree that the real problem with the Couric interviews was the way the elite liberal media spun them afterward. My prediction: If the Republican Party and its pundits sticks to this interpretation of Palin’s performance, they’ll be out of the White House for the next decade, if not longer.