The good stuff: you statement of understanding the other side.

The not as good stuff: you’re suggesting that people override the issues that are important to them just to elect a woman. I don’t much like that suggestion. That’s swapping out principle.

As for breaking the ceiling, she won’t be – she’s beneath it, propping up McCain whose head will be above it. That’s how I see it anyway.

But here’s the one thing that, if I heard it from her and saw evidence of it in the work she’s done as mayor and governor, that would shift me even a little bit:

You write, “Palin can finally bring about tremendous reforms for women.
As International abuses keep coming to light regarding women’s rights, including everything from burkas, to white slavery, to honor killings,…”

Gina – there is absolutely ZERO evidence that Palin cares one iota about any of that. She cracked a joke (not funny to me but apparently so some listeners) about community organizing. I simply do not see her as the policy champion of anything related to women’s rights. Not a thing.

And then of course there are the groups like Focus on the Family and Family Research Council and the GOp platform – women’s rights are not enshrined in a way, by those entities, that I can agree with.

I’m not sure why you say ” the feminists are so petty” – feminism isn’t a liberal thing. For one thing, Gov Palin belongs to Feminists for Life – as do many other women.

So – I’d be careful with those labels.

What you actually described was the “Intelligent Design” movement. Creationism is the subject matter being advocated; but it is not the political movement or legal strategy. Given the Dover decision, it’s mostly a matter of semantics anyway. I’m not sure it’s shark-jump worthy, unless of course Deirdre is a Cdesign proponentsist (of which I have my suspicions).

Consider: if you walked into a medical exam room and saw a tank full of leeches sitting on the table with a large astrology chart posted on the wall, would you expect quality medical care? Would you even stick around? If not, then why should children be subjected to the academic equivalent in science class?

Creationism is a bunch of quaintly parochial bullshit cooked up by Bronze Age semitic nomads who didn’t know any better. In the modern era, we DO know better, and that mythical nonsense has absolutely ZERO place in the science curriculum of any school. Comparative studies, sure. Science class, fuck no.

Why do you feel “this one jumps the shark”?

About Creationism being a construct for getting religion into school, here in Ohio? We have a VERY long history with the Intelligent Design folks, which became so convuluted that even the ID folks in Seattle were disavowing what proponents in Ohio were doing. And I feel very strongly that the entire ID thing is/was only a way to try and make Creationism into a science so as to get it into the public schools.

Likewise, I feel that – and maybe I could have been more clear in that post – that Creationism, when it’s discussed as something that should be “taught along side evolution” as though both belong in a science class, is indeed also a false construct for trying to get that type of learning or discussion into a public school classroom the only way it may seem to be able to get in there.

I promise you, as I sit with my kids’ religious school calendar at my elbow, waiting to be entered into their schedules, I’m quite aware of the history of Genesis – having just returned from Israel two weeks ago today where we visited the City of David, among many many other ancient Biblical places, I know about how long its been around.

But again – thanks for venturing here, thanks for the compliment re: seemed intelligent – but what is it you think jumped the shark?

You do realize that Genesis has been around a tad longer than the American school system, right?

Ugh. I’ve been following your comments over on blogher and decided to jump over here to see what else you had to say, as your comments seems pretty intellligent, but this one jumps the shark for me.

” . . . Clinton made those cracks because she was going for the top, not because she was asked to help a man get to where he wants to go.”

Later, you wrote:

“Finally, does anyone honestly believe that the GOP – or anyone else – will now and forever come forward and offer leadership roles to women with the exact same modicum of experience as Palin, and ask them to bring it on and challenge and get support from those ahead of them when they do challenge?

“For example:

“Bobby Jindal, age 37, newly elected Louisiana governor – which women would the GOP support against him?

“Kevin DeWine – would the Ohio GOP support any female Republican with the resume of a Sarah Palin against him?

“John Boehner – the Ohio GOP going to support small-town Ohio female GOP mayors against him?”

I have to ask: Did you get the memo that Palin is the current Governor of Alaska, not the current Mayor of Wasilla?

In doing so, she broke a glass ceiling in Alaska, and she was the top of the ticket, not second fiddle to a man.

She beat an entrenched incumbent within her own party.

So when you ask if I would support a woman to replace DeWine as head of the Ohio GOP, I’d say “sure.” I’d pick Mary Taylor, but it’s not because she’s a woman. It’s because she’s the closest thing we have to a reformer in Ohio, keeping government accountable no matter the political party of the office-holder, and because she demonstrated a capability and willingness to campaign all over the state of Ohio, not just in the SW corner of the state where the base is strongest. I worry that in the statewide contests in 2010, DeWine will rely too heavily on running up margins of victory in SW Ohio and end up on the short end of the stick, because I don’t see much evidence of him building the party in northern Ohio. Taylor’s resume is stronger than DeWine’s, but is weaker than Palin’s. Betty Montgomery has a stronger resume than Taylor or DeWine. Montgomery campaigns in all areas of the state, so I’d be inclined to support Montgomery over DeWine, also. Palin’s resume is stronger than Jindal’s, DeWine’s, Boehner’s, and Taylor’s. Most of the experience of those four are in the legislative branch, qualitatively weaker than the executive branch experience that Palin has.

This is a much longer discussion, I know – but I wanted to repeate what I wrote in this piece – this is affirmative action and the thought bubbles over Mitt Romney et al’s heads say the same things.