Palin and her supporters boasting her 'historic' selection rivals Obama's ascent [View All]

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Anyone can 'pick' a vice-president. The fact that this one republican candidate decided to pick this woman from Alaska to run with him is no reflection of any 'progress' for women -- not even when compared to Hillary Clinton whose candidacy she tried to equate with her own opportunistic acceptance of McCain's offer.

She hasn't advanced to her candidacy by virtue of any of the votes in this election both Sens. Obama and Clinton worked for and achieved. She was just picked for the job. Not much history making there, unless you take the republicans' traditional disregard and disrespect for even the women who identify with their party.

Moreover, Palin's dismissal of and opposition to the issues that the majority of women support makes the comparisons as ridiculous and outrageous as Bush replacing Thurgood Marshall with Clarance Thomas and claiming he's advanced the cause of black America.

Palin opposes women's privacy rights (opposes the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy under all circumstances, even if caused by rape or incest in the earliest stages of pregnancy) and is a member of the radically anti-choice organization 'Feminists for Life'; she proposed cutting $1.5 million in child care subsidies in her first budget plan; she supports federal anti-gay marriage legislation; she believes schools should teach creationism; and, she's against equal pay for women.

Palin is just a pretender to the 'historic' imprimatur that republicans have constructed for her. Until she convinces a majority of voters to actually vote for the role McCain has assumed for her, Palin doesn't deserve the same credit for breaking barriers our leading Democratic candidates have already earned in this election.

Not unless we're just giving republicans unearned points for cynically departing from their indifferent attitude toward qualified women in their party they've been satisfied with in the past; or, somehow, validating their obstruction, neglect, and arrogance toward the issues women are concerned with as legitimate expressions of feminism.


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