Okay L - with McCain's campaign imploding, it seems like a good time to revisit the Palin phenom of a few weeks ago. What happened to the "Frontier Feminist" that Camille Paglia, FOX News and most of the US Corporate media warned (read: hoped) would spell doom for Obama and 21st century progressivism?

Where are the hordes of Hillary supporters and "traditional" female voters, we were told, would flock to McCain because of his inspiring, visionary, magnetic No. 2?

It was all desperate, cynical BS. No substance whatsoever.

Indeed, McCain's Palin selection marks the start of his campaign's collapse, turning media coverage into a tabloid circus about her bizarre personal life and a pathetic game of hide-and-seek from the media. The lightweight Palin quickly became an embarrassment, caught-up in numerous lies about her record, and stumbling incoherently when asked rudimentary interview questions.

Despite being obviously unfit, Palin was selected *simply because she was a woman* and the McCainiacs thought they could hype her personal story to win white female voters. This attitude is profoundly anti-feminist and dismissive of women voters' intelligence... which is why it backfired.

Prediction: the Palin selection also will go down in history as the the proverbial stake in McCain's political heart. Noting this now is important, because it's the classic phenomenon that Americans forget (or pretend never happened). For a time there, corporate media elites DID try to hype Palin to US voters...

As for political/cultural mythology --yes, these are important to Americans, and Democrats must improve their understanding and mastery of them. But they only work as tools of deception
against the citizenry (e.g Dubya pretending to be a rancher, Reagan faking he was a cowboy) with extensive help from elite media collaborators.

And that's where the flatulent outbursts of Ms. Paglia come in.

For years, the Right has promoted & funded a cottage industry of cultural critics to be the rare public face of attacks on their own apparent self-interest: African-Americans like Alan Keyes who oppose civil rights and defend Apartheid, gays who support "cures" for homosexuality, women who oppose equal pay, etc. Paglia long ago decided to work as this kind of shill for conservative Republicans, publicly praising the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge while denouncing the likes of Hillary Clinton and pro-choice Democrats in articles like the one you cited in Salon.

While she was once a brilliant historical-cultural analyst, Paglia's political commentary is propaganda and spin.

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that Palin has failed to live up to the mythology she was trying to channel -- thankfully the Democrats have stepped back and let her self-destruct on her own. Still disagree with you about Paglia. I think her contrarianism is a refreshing change of pace from the party lines of both left and right and that she raises important issues that get lost in the ideological platitudes of both sides. But I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree on that.