Sarah Palin is Trailer Trash and Hillary Clinton Has Thick Ankles

Musings Over the Treatment of Female Leaders in American Politics

What do you do when you don't like a female politician but are clueless on the political issues of the day and really do not even know how to hold your own in any issue driven discussion, if you do not have your partisan talking points memo close by? Easy: you attack on a personal level!

She is the Republican pick for vice president and already Sarah Palin has to endure smears that impugn her looks, her youth, and even her children. What has happened to us that we allow such vile terms as trailer trash to be employed when describing a politician?

Mitch Marconi of the Post Chronicle likes to refer to "Sarah Palin Trailer Trash Photos" because - be still my beating heart - she wears hoop earrings! Nice! John Aravosis of the America Blog cannot help but post a close up of the offending ear wear.

It appears that the choice of a woman for a McCain running mate is sending these pundits into a tizzy, and it is obvious that they are woefully incapable of approaching Mrs. Palin's political record on its own merits; the best they have to offer is a cheap shot at her earrings. So she looks different than your average, stuffy politician? But I thought you wanted change?! Or was that "just words?"

An observer to the process who actually gave this serious thought is Nicholas Kristof of Live Mint who mused why female monarchs seemed to do so much better than female leaders in democracies. Mind you, his writing stems from February of this year, well before Mitch and John realized they were playing in a sandbox where the wind of change was shifting the sand around a bit.

Putting forward the very interesting theory that within a democracy a woman is forced to undergo public scrutiny based on little more than gender prejudice, Mr. Kristof also showcases that it is not only the men who have a hard time with a woman in the leadership position, but her own gender mates - for lack of a better word - that would seek to rip her apart.