The XX Factor's coverage of Palin's selection as VP has left me thoroughly disgusted. I could easily rave for an hour about the Palin posts, addressing each stupid point made in each offensive post, but I'll keep it brief for the sake of my sanity. Here are a couple of my favorite lines of Melinda Hennenberger's.

1. "There's also that investigation into whether she did or did not try to get the state trooper her sister is divorcing fired ... but even if true, a lot of women in particular might not be outraged," to which I reply "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" If it's not true, then fine, I'm sorry she had to go through the public scrutiny. If it is true, however, that is a SERIOUS problem. Corruption is not ok just because one does it to make one's sister feel better. Any person (man or woman) who thinks otherwise should have her right to vote revoked. It's an insult to women to suggest that they wouldn't care about such a breach of the public trust and abuse of power as Palin is accused of.

2. "On the other side of the ledger, it seems that we could we wind up with another president who can't pronounce nuclear. But for some reason, it doesn't grate as much coming from her." Two huge problems with this. First, Hennenberger implies, here and elsewhere in her posts, that there are no real downsides to Palin. People who actually care about women's issues can't possibly agree with this sentiment, and one would think XX Factor bloggers and readers would count themselves in that group. Secondly, it all but says, "It's ok she's not that bright. We forgive her because she's a girl." I wish I were not in a library because I have a strong urge to scream right now.

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying people who mispronounce words are stupid. I'm saying if you look down on people who mispronounce common words, that shouldn't be dependent on the speaker's gender.)

It seems that the XX-factor cares more about someone with a skirt making it into office than it is actually advancing women's issues.

Dahlia, Melinda: You two are disgusting little sexists, every bit as ugly as Geraldine Ferraro. Your idiocy makes my suffragette ancestors spin in their graves, that you'd vote for an avowed sexist because he hitched up with a beauty queen.

Shame on you both.

What you said. Firing the trooper for petty personal reasons is supertacky and it's exactly the kind of thing that makes a female politician, and women as a whole, look bad. It's the female politician's equivalent of having an affair with an intern: tacky sleazy behavior that plays to the worst stereotypes of one's gender.

I'm disappointed in Melinda Hennenberger. I don't always agree with her, but until now I've always appreciated what she has to say. I'm chalking this up to what I think is her resentment for having to hide her prolife sentiments. I can't explain it any other way.

I don't think she's trying to say that women won't mind the corruption - I think she's trying to say that women won't mind that she tried to get a man fired who she believed was abusing her sister. Very few articles mention this, and I'm having trouble locating the source of that information, but I have heard it before (and feel free to contradict me, if I'm wrong). It's not that we don't mind corruption, it's more that we might not mind a strong woman using a little back-room arm twisting to get back at an abusive bastard. As for nu-cu-lar, it's less annoying because she's not Bush, not because she's female.

It isn't less annoying at all; it's ignorant.

She didn't "try" to fire somebody, she did in fact fire the boss of her brother-in-law because he refused to do something completely unethical. And if the brother in law is really abusing her sister (and not just another victim of the custody battle two-step) then let the criminal and civil service process play out. Sarah Palin is not a "strong woman," she is yet another female political figure who can do no wrong in the eyes of estrogen poisoned idiots who think with their genitalia. I have a feeling that a creationist anti-choice cretin without breasts (say, Mike Huckabee)would not have been gushed over by the XX factor.

And a female idiot like Sarah Palin is just as annoying to any intelligent person as a male idiot like George Bush.

Valmont, no need to be derisive or personal or, frankly, sexist (estrogen poisoning? Wow you are an asshat). I am not a Sarah Palin supporter (she's on the wrong side of the social policy perspective for me), but I get it when someone says women might overlook the firing issue once the word 'abuse' comes into play. And, I was wrong, he was accused of child abuse, not abusing her sister. Once you bring the potential abuse of a helpless child into the picture, you can kinda get away with anything to stop it in the mind of most parents. And, no, she's not an idiot. Her mispronunciation is less annoying because, at this point, we may not have to listen to it for the next eight years whether we want to or not. I'm sure if she gets elected it will quickly drive all of us insane.

I am not a sexist. I am holding Sarah Palin to the same standards I hold George Bush to; sexists are those who have wildly different standards for one gender as opposed to the other, such as the XX cheerleaders who are contorting themselves into knots complimenting the choice of a former sports reporter who thinks the founding fathers wrote the pledge of allegiance, who thinks creationist "science" should be taught in the public schools, who thinks global warming is just a theory, etc. Sarah Palin is indeed, like George Bush, an idiot. They should both be referred to as such.

And again, if her brother in law is a child abuser, that is what the criminal justice system is for. Sarah Palin has no business appointing herself judge and jury and carrying out private vengeance, let alone firing the troopers boss who obviously has abused nobody. As for "protecting the child," How would firing him or his boss keep him from abusing the child? Public officials abusing their power for their own purposes, no matter how well intentioned, are a threat to the rule of law and our whole system of government. I should have thought that the last 8 years would have made that emphatically clear.

As for getting personal, I find it amusing that you criticized me for getting personal and then proceeded to insult me personally. And If you don't like my use of the phrase "estrogen poisoning" remember that the next time somebody uses the phrase "testosterone poisoning." I'm sure that you'll be just as indignant. But regardless, male or female, those who think with their respective sex organs are sexist idiots who deserve public ridicule, and I think that Dahlia Lithwick's drooling over a far-right lightweight idiot like Sarah Palin (when she would have shredded a man with similar views and qualifications) puts her in the "sexist idiot" category.