The Hot Chick

Everyone watched Palin deliver a powerful speech. I knew that last night would be a moment when both sexism and an assault on feminism would be coiled tightly together. As the cameras panned the crowd you could see buttons that read “Hoosiers for the hot chick” and “Hottest VP, warmest state.” The popular “hot chick” buttons were being sold as a fundraiser for hurricane victim relief.

The beauty queen warm up, to be fair, began with the nomination of Joe Biden as the Democratic VP when the first descriptor he used when introducing his wife was “drop dead gorgeous.” It’s not necessarily sexist to be called gorgeous, but when being introduced to the nation as the potential “second lady,” appearance is irrelevant at best.

Palin described herself as a pit bull with lipstick who was at war with the media. This morning I checked out the media bias. In all of the media coverage of Palin, the most prominent descriptor turns out to be “pretty,” followed by “tough” as a distant second and tied for third: “smart” and “hot.” Who wouldn’t prefer a VP who was pretty and hot while also being tough and smart? I suppose it’s impressive to get away with blowing kisses from the podium and simultaneously being positioned as “tough.” That Hillary campaign moment last winter when her eyes welled up for a second, sparking worldwide debate about whether almost crying would make her not tough enough, are firmly behind us. Palin didn’t comment on her spouses appearance but got kudos for hanging on to her “guy” since high school.

Matthew Scully wrote the Palin speech. As a professional he did an admirable job. Scully is a veteran values mudslinger, such as his past efforts to link the pornography industry to reproductive health care. Scully is experienced arguing the credentials of the inexperienced, having written for and about candidates like Dan Quayle and Harriet Miers. Among Miers qualifications for Supreme Court justice that Scully pointed to in a Wall Street Journal editorial was that she had “found time to prepare the will of a terminally ill 27-year old colleague, and to spend nights and mornings staying with her and praying with her.” Palin’s speech was classic Scully, elevating human interest aspects of a biography to sidestep hard questions about direct experience.

To Scully’s certain delight, conservative pundits have been arguing that any woman who could raise five kids could run this country. Jon Stewart said that the staunch anti-choice Palin had made her daughter’s pregnancy fair game in the pundit wars since Palin had noted in a press release that her daughter made her own choices related to her pregnancy. Just last week the elections were focused on the war and the economy but now it’s all about teens, sex, “traditional” marriage, God and guns.

Last night in his warm up act for Palin, Mike Huckabee warned us against allowing Obama to import European ideas. I’ve never been to Europe so I’m not entirely certain what scary ideas run rampant, but I hope he’s not talking about the teens and sex part. The U.S. teen pregnancy rate is nine times higher than in the Netherlands, and nearly five times higher than in Germany and France.

One of the most interesting editorials today is written by Bay Buchanan. She describes her efforts to make sure that her brother Pat Buchanan had a prime time slot in the 1992 Republican Convention, where he delivered his famous culture wars speech. Quotes from that speech not only helped Bill Clinton win his election, they fueled direct mail drives for progressive groups for more than a decade. Bay Buchanan’s editorial lays out the gamemanship used to elevate the most conservative messages in that Republican convention. That scenario seems to have played out, once again, in last night’s Palin payday.