CP on SP

I can't say I always agree with Camille Paglia. In fact, I find her musings nutty as often as I find them penetrating. But I generally find them fascinating. And, though she definitely is a feminist, it's also clear she stands outside conventional feminism.

In fact, one of the best lines in her latest essay on Sarah Palin deals with this:

...that's the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism -- a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be.

Paglia supports Obama and doesn't think much of McCain. The question she asks--that we're all asking--is does Palin represent something different, or is she just a flashy, empty choice (from a desperate campaign)?

A bit later she notes:

Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

I couldn't agree more, though I think you could just as easily replace "Democrats" with "Republicans."