The XX Factor

Authentically Fake

Marjorie Valbrun — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:37:00 GMT

Dahlia, I also agree with you about Sarah Palin being a divider not a uniter. Over the last few days she has been going after Obama in racially coded language in her attempts to link him to 60's era radical Bill Ayers. I find this dismaying and dangerous....(read more)

Palin and Uniters and Dividers

Rachael Larimore — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:50:00 GMT

Dahlia, You're absolutely right , of course, to say that Sarah Palin has been a divider, not a uniter. I didn't see it because I wasn't looking for it. Even though I'm in a bit of a unique situation—I'm geographically planted in Ohio while spending my...(read more)

Palin: It's Us vs. Them

Melinda Henneberger — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:29:00 GMT

Dahlia , you've put your finger on the reason my initial enthusiasm for Sarah Palin evaporated the minute she opened her mouth; it isn't her conservatism that rankles, but her bile. (Today, for example, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists...(read more)

E.J. Graff Sends in This Post

Dahlia Lithwick — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:18:00 GMT

My apologies, all, for being late with this. I'm en route to San Francisco for the wedding of dear friends—two fabulous and widely, deeply loved women—who've been together for 26 years. (It'll be my first Chinese wedding banquet!!) I dearly hope and pray...(read more)

Home Is Where the Heartland Is

Dahlia Lithwick — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Rachael , I think you’ve put your finger on Sarah Palin’s “heartland” problem, but perhaps not in a way for which you will thank me. Accepting your premise that Palin deploys the term not in a geographic sense, but to express her “experience, ideology,...(read more)

The Quasi-Cave

Hanna Rosin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 01:36:00 GMT

Meghan: Yes! She is a George Saunders character, with her Simuhair and Todd "the Lovemeister" Palin. But there's one important difference. Saunders' characters are drowning in some ocean of adspeak they can't find the source of and that leaves them helpless....(read more)

Heartland: A Place or a State of Mind?

Rachael Larimore — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:34:00 GMT

Noreen , You ask why it doesn't bother me that Sarah Palin claims a connection to the "heartland." I would chalk it up to a couple of reasons. For one, every time I see a picture from Wasilla, I'm reminded of the small town in North Dakota that my husband...(read more)

Is Being Tolerant Acceptable?

Abby Callard — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:24:00 GMT

I couldn't help but cringe last night when Sarah Palin said the word "tolerant" three times within seconds in the debate. I hate that word. Tolerance is widely accepted as an admirable virtue, but it still feels cheap to me. Essentially what Palin is...(read more)

Heartburn

Noreen Malone — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:40:00 GMT

Marjorie , I couldn't agree more about Sarah Palin's convenient geographic confusion—why are people letting her get away with saying her Alaska roots give her a "connection to the heartland"? And Rachael, fellow Ohioan, why doesn't that bug you? I get...(read more)

Asked and Answered

Melinda Henneberger — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:09:00 GMT

Couldn't agree more, Ann , on Joe Biden's manner and competence and show of feeling: the real deal all around, it seemed to me. (Well, except for the cosmetic dentistry. Just like you can so be too rich or too thin, you can also have chompers that are...(read more)

Joe Biden, Regular Guy

Ann Hulbert — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:49:00 GMT

I know this debate was mostly about Sarah Palin, but let's not be sexist and forget about Joe Biden. I thought he was great, not least because he came across as what Palin pretends to be but isn't—and what this campaign could really use: a regular person...(read more)

D'oh! That's Who Sarah Palin Reminds Me Of

Meghan O'Rourke — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:43:00 GMT

I have been racking my brain to figure out who Sarah Palin reminds me of ever since she came on the scene with her bright smile, her folksy-corporate style, and her Silly Puttied authenticity, which mirrors back at the viewer whatever talking point she's...(read more)

Returning to the Eros Question, Biden vs. Palin Edition

Meghan O'Rourke — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:14:00 GMT

I was teaching a class tonight (on T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," of all texts) and so I just got home to watch the debate and read everyone's responses. A number of my XX Factor colleagues here said that the debate tonight wasn't "about" gender. I guess...(read more)

All Style, No Substance

Nathan Heller — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:13:00 GMT

Posted on behalf of XX Factor contributor Marjorie Valbrun, who's experiencing technical difficulties: Sarah Palin pandering to Jewish voters while simultaneously being hyperbolic about the threat that Iran poses to Israel: We can't allow "a second Holocaust"...(read more)

Not Exhibit A

Rachael Larimore — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:43:00 GMT

Posting on behalf of Emily Yoffe , who's traveling: Biden won, but more important, Sarah Palin rehabilitated herself from being a national joke. If she’d been performing as she did tonight during her big media interviews, she would have saved all of us...(read more)

She Did What She Had To Do

Rachael Larimore — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:32:00 GMT

The debate is over, and the Republican base is breathing a huge sigh of relief. Sarah Palin didn't make a royal mess of the debate, something that a lot of us feared might happen after her disastrous sitdown with Katie Couric. Yes, she benefited from...(read more)

She Shimmied. He Choked Up. But Did They Swing?

Emily Bazelon — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:55:00 GMT

Does it make any sense to say that as expected, Sarah Palin exceeded expectations? She didn't flail. She didn't lose her train of thought or all semblance of recognizable syntax. She powered through her answers, airy and bloated as some of them were....(read more)

PowerPoint Sarah

Dahlia Lithwick — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:54:00 GMT

I think it’s fair to say that gender was just not an issue tonight. Biden didn’t get all weird about it. Palin didn’t, either. Also fair to say that both sides exceeded expectations. By a lot. Biden was as good as I have ever seen him. Palin was almost...(read more)

Her Only Achilles' Heel: Lack of an Achilles' Heel

Dana Stevens — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:53:00 GMT

The most telling moment for me: Gwen Ifill asks both candidates to acknowledge their own worst flaws, their “Achilles' heels.” Biden jokingly thanks Ifill for suggesting that his worst flaw may be a lack of self-discipline before citing his “excessive...(read more)

Why She Didn't Mess Up

Hanna Rosin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:50:00 GMT

We waited the whole night for her to mention Runner's World or mispronounce Ahmadinejad, and it didn't happen. The best we got was "nucular" and a few botched names. So, we have to admit that on the most important count she acquitted herself. Whether...(read more)