The Editor’s Desk

It has been a classic "American marketing" product: Sarah Palin, despite her dismal national and foreign affair experience relative to any vice president candidates ever, has energized and turned the Republican Party around, and became the overnight front-page "pageant-like" celebrity. Now, the hottest items in stores are Palin eye-glasses, Palin dolls, Palin shoes, and on and on. It is almost unthinkable that she may even become the first woman President of the United States (she can't even respond with knowledge and insight in her first interview by Charles Gibson of ABC), should "God forbid", anything happen to John McCain, the oldest presidential candidate other than Ronald Reagan. It is where the pageantry, charm, image, ability to relate to others and crafty communication (despite her accusations to her opponent and claims of her credentials were not always truthful) are not the only things, but everything that count. -- isn't that Scary??



Luke Tao

In response to the statement -- first column, middle page 32 -- "whatever party, Palin is one of them, a working mother whose values resonate with other working mothers even when her views do not."

How simplistic -- and how utterly wrong.

Although I wear lipstick and eyeglasses, Sarah Palin absolutely does not resonate with me and I absolutely do not share her values. Although I am a working mother, Palin's narrow-minded conservativism -- including her pro-NRA lifestyle -- and her hypocricy frighten the four-letter words out of me. She's not like me at all, except for the lipstick and eyeglasses.

Good for her that she's been able to advance to the position of governor. Obviously that means she is intelligent. Many women are. And lucky for her that her part-time fisherman husband can stay home and help with the kids while she's at the office, except when he's off wasting gas racing his snowmobiles.

I am a single mother -- not by choice but by the death of a husband who left me with two young children to raise alone, with the help of my mother. So my values resonate more with Barack Obama, whose mother also raised him alone with the help of her parents.

My working-mother values absolutely do not resonate with a woman who has an in-home husband and their dual-parenting skills can't prevent their own kid from getting knocked up at the age of 17, but she wants to prevent me and every other woman in America from making a personal choice about having an unplanned or unwanted child, or even a disabled child.

No, dear Newsweek -- this faithful female 20-year-plus subscriber absolutely disagrees with you. Sarah Palin's values horrify me. I'm running the other way. Hopefully faster then the bullets in her rifle.

Evelyn Kanter, NYC

I just read the 'Soundbites' that appear each week and I am troubled. The photo and caption of Gov. Palins'
" Perhaps so" response to Charlie gibsons question of the US going to war with Russia over Georgia is misleading at best. Newsweek failed to report it was a hypothetical question that opened with "if Georgia was admitted into NATO and Russia reinvaded Georgia" That is just dirty pool on Newsweeks' part. I receive Newsweek because I suspected it would give some insight to the charge that Newsweek was a Liberal leaning publication, printed with the usual "fair, balanced and accurate" seems I picked a winner. I would not be surprised to see this post was 'edited'.

My disgust with MSNBC, Newsweek, et al continues to grow. The recent butchered photo of John McCain is beyond the pale of reality. At some point you people must grow up and be the professionals you trained and aspire to be. Please!!!

Read this for your daughters!

Senator Clinton and Governor Palin are proof that women can and do diverge on important issues.

Even on the question of whether women should vote!

Most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won votes for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.

Suffragettes were opposed by many women who were what was known as 'anti.'

The most influential 'anti' lived in the White House. First Lady Edith Wilson was a Washington widow who married President Wilson in 1915, after the death of his pro-suffrage wife.

The First Lady's role in Wilson's decision to jail and torture Alice Paul and hundreds of other suffragettes will never be fully known, but she was outraged that these women picketed her husband's White House.

I'd like to share a women's history learning opportunity...

"The Privilege of Voting" is a new free e-mail series that follows eight great women from 1912 - 1920 to reveal ALL that happened to set the stage for women to win the vote.

It's a real-life soap opera about the suffragettes! And it's ALL true!

Powerful suffragettes Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst are featured, along with TWO gorgeous presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan and Alice Roosevelt.

There are tons of heartache on the rocky road to the ballot box, but in the end, women WIN!

Thanks to the success of the suffragettes, women have voices and choices!

Exciting, sequential episodes are great to read on coffeebreaks, or anytime.

Subscribe free at

www.CoffeebreakReaders.com/subscribe.html

Did any journalist ever tried to find out, why Sarah Palin -- when her water broke in Texas during her pregnancy -- chose to go on with business as usual, board the plane to Alaska and then drive 60 miles to her home town to get into a hospital? Which pregnant mother would risk the life of her child in an already high-risk pregnancy by not immediately seeking help from a nurse? Pro-life? Right!