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In today's pages: admiring Sarah Palin, killing Afghan civilians, and paying for failure

September 12, 2008 |  6:58 am

Let's see, where to start? A gleefully inappropriate take on Sarah Palin's attractiveness, or a weighty editorial about redistricting in California.... No contest! Columnist Joel Stein writes a mash note of sorts to the GOP vice presidential nominee, saying she's hot enough to be in a Robert Palmer music video. Don't be haters, read the piece. He mixes more than a little feminism in with his usual doses of adolescent male hormones and irreverence:

It seems as if the prudent thing to do would be to ignore Palin's hotness -- to refrain, unlike Rush Limbaugh, from calling her "a babe" or, unlike Joe Biden, from saying she's "good-looking." Sexualizing Palin is dangerous because it shifts the focus away from her leadership skills, diminishes her from a subject to an object and could anger that insane-looking, snowmobile-racing husband of hers.

As if to make you feel bad for laughing at Stein, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation offer a blistering take on the high civilian death toll from NATO airstrikes, which they say is damaging the war effort. They blame the shortage of NATO troops, which has led to an overreliance on air power, and the Taliban's "execrable tactic" of hiding operatives amid villagers.

The editorial board throws its support behind Prop. 11, which would create a balanced 14-member commission to draw the boundaries of the state's Senate and Assembly districts. Hey, if Willie Brown's against it, we're for it! The measure isn't perfect, but it's a marked improvement over the status quo:

Voters are supposed to choose their representatives, but in California, political parties select their voters. That kind of power is destructive and inherently anti-democratic. It must end, and Proposition 11 will help end it.

Finally, the editorial board opines that the golden parachutes for Fannie Mae's Daniel Mudd and Freddie Mac's Richard Syron reflect the poor corporate governance that's widespread in this country:

What's lost amid the din of protest is that Mudd and Syron secured their fabulous parting gifts on the way in, not on the way out. That's a common practice in corporate America, where chief executives often persuade compliant directors to insulate them from the financial pain of an ignominious exit. And no matter how many angry statements lawmakers crank out, executives will continue to be rewarded for failure until public companies' boards and shareholders insist that it stop.

Oh and yes -- Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles offers his take on the lipstick-on-a-pig controversy. Sooo-eee!

Tom_toles_wp_lipstick_pig


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Comments
1.

Spiro Agnew, altho he actually WAS elected.

2.

Sarah Palin's" Hubris
The classic definition of hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance. It is often associated with a lack of knowledge combined with a lack of humility. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow.;ie "pride goes before a fall"

3.

Is Sarah Palin the first VP candidate to possibly be indicted? I honestly cannot think of another candidate this has happened to.

History being made.

4.

Palin.....Ms. Hubris
In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of knowledge combined with a lack of humility. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional pairing of hubris and nemesis in the Greek world. The proverb "pride goes before a fall" is thought to sum up the modern definition of hubris. In reference to someone being in hubrity: hubrity is a fulfillment of being hubristic or a continual behavior of being prideful. Victor in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein exudes hubris in order to become a great scientist, but is eventually regretting this previous desire. Faustus in Christopher Marlowe's play Dr. Faustus exudes hubris, all the way until his final minutes of life.



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