The winking is flirting.
If that’s your point, you haven’t read anything I’ve written here.
If Palin trades on her appearance to advance her political positions (and I agree that she does), it is perfectly acceptable to comment on that. Laudable, even, I’d say. What is not acceptable is to recycle those same sexualized images and juxtapose them, without relevant commentary or analysis, on an otherwise unrelated article.
AFAIK, it’s only against the rules to wish death on another member of the SDMB. Somebody was doing a (bad) job of junior modding if they were trying to suggest you were breaking the rules, unless I missed something.
Now that’s a debate I’d actually love to watch.
It’s got to be Obama’s people themselves trying to get the Palin/Beck talk going. That would be like somehow getting to play the Detroit Lions in the Superbowl.
Perhaps you ought to read the article, because you’re wrong on every count here.
Just once, which was more than sufficient.
(“Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!”)
I have to agree. I loathe Palin, but this cover fooled me. I first thought “Why the hell did Palin agree to pose like that for the cover of Newsweek”? When I found it was pulled from Runner’s World and put into a completely different context with no explanation and the subtext of “don’t take this woman seriously, she’s just banking on her looks,” it’s hard for me not to find this anything but sexist and, not only that, overly editorializing for what’s supposed to be a hard news magazine, not an opinion publication. If you’ll notice, there’s even a caption on the cover saying, in small type in the bottom left corner: “A photo taken for Runner’s World, June 2009,” as if to admit that the editors knew people would be a bit fooled and taken aback by the photo. Normally, photo credits for cover go on the inside of the magazine.
Since when does anybody pose for the cover of Newseek at all? They always use photos from other sources. Why would anybody think Palin would be an exception?
deleted irrelevant joke regarding Detroit Lions
WTF? Where did you “find” that out?
Folks, it’s not that hard to actually go and read the damn article before making false statements about what is in the article or not. There’s an explicit reference to how Palin looks in running clothes, and the gist of the whole thing is that Obama is probably happy to have a vapid attention grabber like Palin overexposing herself while also vying for the nomination in 2012.
Now, I think most of what Evan Thomas writes is complete shit, and this is no different, but at least we can agree about what is in the article or not. You have to read it first, though.
Edited to provide a link to the article: How Sarah Palin Hurts the GOP And the Country.
Not so.
Winking can be a sexual gesture. It can also be interpreted as a sexual gesture where no such connotation is intended. It can also be completely harmless and devoid of any reasonable sexual association.
So no, he (or she?) is not alone in his opinion.
I think Palin is very attractive. I don’t think she’s sexy. There’s a difference, and I think what Palin does is play up her attractiveness. I also think that accounts for much of her popularity with women. Women in general don’t seem to care much for sexpots.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with her doing this. If the Democrats had any attractive female candidates I’d be happy to see them playing that up as well. 
All this talk about her sexuality is, IMO, sexist in and of itself. It’s an attempt to explain and dismiss her popularity by portraying her as a one-dimensional sexpot when she is in reality a woman of considerable accomplishment compared with most people, starting out as a sports reporter (a job beyond the capabilities of many) and moving on to involvement in local government and culminating in her becoming her state’s governor.
Now, you can be dismissive all you want as to the relative importance or difficulty level of these various jobs, but it’s undeniable that she’s accomplished much more than your average everyday soccer mom. (Or dad, for that matter.)
If you want to argue that she isn’t qualified for high level national politics, that’s one thing. If you only want to make fun of and dismiss her by characterizing her as a sexpot, that is indeed sexist.
Actually, no. It was an explicit reference to how she looked in a skirt. The running attire was parenthetical. That sentence only served to emphasis the sexism in play. ‘She’s just a good looking broad, no way will she make it to the top’.
Would you happen to have a cite for that? Newsweek has a staff of photographers. Why would you assume that they don’t use them for covers?
Note the difference between Palin’s cover and Biden’s. I wonder why they didn’t use this one instead.
She got to choose what images ran in Runner’s World? Cite?
And while it may be clear from past covers or to anyone in publishing that Newsweek doesn’t hold photo shoots, I don’t think it’s common knowledge. Doing a Google image search turns up several collages, what looks like stock photography (but could have been shot in-house) and some covers that look like they could have been shot exclusively for the magazine.
What in the hell are you saying here? Did the words “running clothes” appear in the article? Then they were mentioned explicitly. Contrast with implicitly. Consult Webster’s as needed.
It emphasized the point that Sarah Palin is marketing her politics, such as they are, on her appearance, such as it is, which will likely not win her the presidency.
Haven’t read the thread, so I’m posting at my own peril. That said, I think the picture makes Palin look silly and cutesy, rather than a serious political thinker, and that may well have been the intent. I don’t see anything sexist about it.
In Palin’s case, it was pageant flirting.
Palin is significantly more popular among men than among women. What do you think accounts for her unpopularity with women?
Where did I find what out? The Runner’s World thing? In the article linked to and the thread. It wasn’t obvious from the cover photo as shown on the linked-to site. I’m uncertain what you’re getting at.