Gee, I’ve never felt the need to use my child with Down syndrome for political gain. I wonder why that is.

Children are off limits.  Unless I bring them along to a carefully crafted magazine shoot or stage photo-op.  Even then only I am allowed to talk about them and only in terms with which I feel comfortable.  Other than that, pay no attention to them unless you feel they make me look good.  But don’t talk about it.  My children are like a boob job in that regard, y’know.

The Obamas just released a photo of them walking across the lawn with their kids.  But I’m sure that’s completely and totally different.

That was just creepy.  Plus obviously overlighted.

To be honest, this is the sanest and most coherent thing I have seen here do.  Putting trog in a stroller and taking him along is not only something busy parents do, it is very therapeudic for a child with down syndrome, too.

But hey, move over moose ... she’s not a real runner until she goes to Nike’s Bear Butte Running Camp!

Elphie, I haven’t seen the Obama pictures, but I bet it’s different primarily in the fact that the Obamas aren’t doing cheesecake poses with their kids in tow.

Not that there isn’t a market for that, too.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with #1. She has her child?

And the concept…I mean, Sarah Palin sucks, but what’s so wrong with her being active and in charge of her body?  She doesn’t even say anything fatphobic (I only took a cursory look at her interview). I also like her recognition of the “trough” of makeup (though she’s got a full one on in the pictures).

Aside from that, #7 is kind of…cheesecake-esque. And her hair is not practical for a run.

Obviously Sarah Palin is a hypocrite, but I’ve really got nothing to say otherwise.

In the sixth pic, she looks like she’s about to spin around and turn into Wonder Woman.

Good for her for running and promoting exercise but wow, “cheesy” is right.  What’s with the pseudo-yoga pose?  She obviously doesn’t actually do yoga.  The photo with her desecrating the flag is just awful.  I don’t know who did the photos but what a hack.

I’ll say this about about #7:  That’s definitely not how you’re supposed to treat the US Flag.

@Ms Kate,

“Trog” made me guffaw out loud.  If I weren’t baptized I’d have bought myself into hell at that moment.

Ohhhhtayyyyy… remembering back to the wingnuts demonizing Kerry for daring to surf a board in the howling wind, I don’t blame you for having a little fun with Sarah and her self-consciously stiff-posed pics… but except for the gratuitous American flag thrown over all cazhhh over the back of the chair in #7… there’s no there, there.

Yeah, I’m kinda with RMJ here. My entire family is Republican and although their politics are, in my opinion, insane, they’re awfully nice people. I’ve always gotten that feeling from Sarah Palin, too. Maybe she just reminds me of my mom.

She’s got her trademark hair in the photos, which, yeah, you probably wouldn’t go for a run with a thousand bobby pins and an entire can worth of hairspray melting down your forehead, but running is good for you. At least she’s showing that it’s hard work for her to look as good as she does, instead of coyly suggesting that it’s effortless, doncha know she’s just from good pioneer stock, like lots of other attractive women do.

But I fully admit that I’m possibly missing something totally heinous that she’s doing or implying here. I did not read the full interview. Or any of the captions of any other pictures besides 1, 3 and 7.

Ok, the American flag in picture 7 is pretty ridic.

New career when her political career tanks will be a line of fitness videos and workout clothes.  Pic 6 actually looks like she did do some activity at some point before it. Not really much to mock, considering it’s photos for a running magazine.

Dunno.  She really is pretty hot.

s.

She looks fantastic.  The woman has 5 children fergodssake!  Give her some credit for personal discipline.  She’s still dumb as a bag of hammers, though.

Yeah, hate to contribute to an echo chamber but goddamn, she really looks great. Makes me want to take my ass for a run.

I’m just wondering why this crazy woman who is proud of her willful ignorance is considered interesting.

Yeah, I’m having to work to figure out what Jesse wants us to see here too.  I think the biggest problem is that all 7 pictures are vague, cheesecakey images that blur together.  There’s no *reason* they need to have all seven of these pictures—it’s not like each one shows us something different about Palin, or about the role of running in her life (the ostensible subject of the article).  One photo would communicate everything that this “slide show” has to say—if you want to push it, maybe the one of her with Trig and one of the others.  At the absolute most.  There’s no reason to include the other 5 or 6 shots (or to include not one, but *two* photos of her bending over) except her sex appeal.

I’m still trying to figure out how my son ended up in the Radical Rags T-shirt Ad to the left.  I didn’t give cloning permissions!

Nothing to say about the photos, but I particularly like the commentary to photo #2, where she makes fun of John McCain for his “exercise” regimen (which consists of wading).  I pretty much loathe McCain, but even I’d give his (72-year old, permanently disabled from 5 years as a POW who had multiple bones broken repeatedly) ass a break on the fact that he doesn’t jog.

I guess I don’t understand why there aren’t any pictures of her running.

I got this really weird softcore porno vibe out of the whole thing.

And yeah, she wasn’t, um, running.

Speaking of the McCain wading thing: water exercises are considered really good for people with disabilities. The water creates resistance, adding to the force you need to move, but it also makes it easy on the joints.

Re: the caption.  Geez Sarah, youze a dick!

They can’t show her running because it would not be ladylike.

I love her doing the yoga pose WRONG.  ugh, just stop.  And that AWFUL #7.  It could not be more poorly put together.  Polyester-looking flag flung over a chair like it’s a throw rug, tiny “army” flag in the back randomly on the wall. carpet depressions where furniture was moved for her stupid window shot, ridiulous beauty queen hair that you couldn’t even pretend was for exercise.  Completely crappy photoshoot.  And we GET it, running is soooo important to you. I know this is a running mag, but is there seriously nothing else about running she could discuss besides reiterate that she loves it?

I have to say, I don’t care about this one way or the other, but the one thing that struck me from looking at these pictures is that her legs are so tan when the rest of her is pale. I honestly thought she was wearing stockings or awkwardly photoshopped onto a different body or something.

I’m just wondering why this crazy woman who is proud of her willful ignorance is considered interesting.

Why do people slow down to look at an awful carwreck?

(Plus, you know, MOTAS in shorts.  Dunno whether that applies to Jenny and Donna, though)

Yeah, “Trog” was pretty obviously a typo.

It’s not just her legs that are really tan.  It looks like her arms are too, but not her hands so much.  I guess she doesn’t tan her face and hands to prevent sun aging?

I don’t see genuine niceness from her.  It all seems like an act to me.  She reminds me of the catty girls in high school who will be nice to your face, but will utterly trash you behind your back, or who will be nice to the “right” people, but will trash anyone who’s just a little bit weird or a little bit different.

the I and the O are right next to eachother on the keyboard so the Trog thing might be a mistake.
The rest of the interview Seemed like the most sense. Sarah Palin has ever made, maybe she is a future susane simmer.

Hey, don’t dis Suzanne Somers…

I dunno, sprug, sprog, trog, trogling, etc.  Slang for small children.

Why isn’t she writing?

okay, okay, I’m sayin’ it:  she’s damn fine…....There, I said it! And guess what else…...I’d tap Hillary too! Maybe its something about babes who want to be badasses…...I don’t know…...oh geez, what’s happening??  Help me!...I think I need an intervention!  Quick, get me to a hot 25 yr old lingerie model….STAT!

Can anyone tell what she is holding in her left hand on shot #7?  I can’t.  Which leads me to wonder what it is.  In such a contrived image it’s not unreasonable all the props are supposed to mean something.

Oh and please, palin is such a freak.  Nothing about appealing about her at all.  Seriously, how can you separate the end timer, quiverful freak from the rest?  Really, she’s repugnant.

Aside from the tacky pose with Trig, this photoshoot overall seemed pretty good to me. In pic #3 she says, “Sweat is my sanity”, and indeed, she seems more sane here than she did when campaigning. I still don’t want her in charge of anything, but as a runner she seems just fine.

In my mind, Palin makes a certain sense. Her statement about McCain’s wading could be taken as jokey, or sorta clueless, or as un-empathetic to his situation. Many of her policies seem to lack basic empathy: the attempt to make rape victims pay for their own kits comes immediately to mind. Maybe the lack of empathy and the odd cluelessness are two sides of the same thing.

I totally believe Palin as a runner, though. Her running in a tough environment harmonizes with her ‘pioneer’ view of politics. Her statements about moose seem odd, but they really only reflect Alaskan reality. As a kid I took a family vacation in Alaska and we also encountered moose in surprising places. I remember Alaska as oddly beautiful, cold, and surprisingly dangerous. Much, perhaps, like Palin herself.

I really wonder about people who say that Palin “seems nice”.

But most of all I wish they would fucking read.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/01/politics/main5128672.shtml

By the way, that is a link to emails which were just released between Palin and McCain’s staff.  The “nice” lady is a pathological congenital fucking liar.  Read her lying right to Steve Scmidt about “Todd” and his affiliation with a radical separationist group.  If Todd Palin were on the left he’d be Bill fucking Ayers. 

It galls me that idiots call her “nice”  She “seems nicccceeee”.  No, she’s not nice.  She’s a lying vicious fucker and just because she’s a woman it’s not wrong to say so.  We got stuck with george fucking bush and hundreds of thousands dead because morons said “he seems nicccceee”.

He wasn’t.

She isn’t.

They are both deeply disturbed people and if you can’t wake the fuck up then don’t subject me to your insipid whining about “she’s niccceee”

Fuck me man.  What is wrong with Americans?

ice weasel, the object in picture #7 appears to be a cell phone or blackberry?

It’s a Blackberry (probably a Curve—looks just like the one I have from work), but she seems to be holding something else behind it.

“And the concept…I mean, Sarah Palin sucks, but what’s so wrong with her being active and in charge of her body?  She doesn’t even say anything fatphobic (I only took a cursory look at her interview). I also like her recognition of the “trough” of makeup (though she’s got a full one on in the pictures).”

I thought the joke was that if you make any jokes about her, a bunch of flying monkeys will descend on you, screaming sexist! sexist!

And I’m with Caton. People who are vindictive as all hell aren’t nice, even if they might seem that way at first meeting.

You people are driving yourselves fucking crazy.

I got this really weird softcore porno vibe out of the whole thing.

Me, too, seriously.  As far as her legs being tan, she’s obviously wearing leggings in #7.  I find it demeaning that she’s doing cheesecake beauty pageant poses when she’s SUPPOSED to be a serious politician.  Show us Executive photos, behind a desk, on the phone, striding around Anchorage, etc.

Now, since she’s NOT a serious politician, and this is what she’s got going for her, I don’t think it’s a bad move for her PR-wise.  But that brings me back to “John McCain saw people liked Hillary, so he figured any chick would do, because women dig chicks and AHHHHHHHHH.”

The GOP makes my brain hurt sometimes.

Wow, wiz.  A whole menagerie of misogyny, eh? 

I love it when guys say they want to tap me.  So nice of them. 

And the screaming for a 25-year-old….heeeeelarious!  Cause old ladies are so gross with their gross old lady parts!

And let’s not forget the “babes who want to be badasses.”  Cause it’s a zero-sum game!  You can’t be a babe and a bad-ass, unless you’re in a porno flick!

I’m still holding my sides.  So funny.

Why are the adorable always so evil?

Thom, I call all her other kids the same sorts of things, mainly because I can’t keep their odd and same-sounding names straight.  I use that same one for all her kids.

And, yes, I have had care of special needs kids before - and you?

Oh, and for the record, it was a typo.  I have a netbook and even my speed typing ways get keys mixed up when typing around cats trying to lounge between me and the screen.  I know what a trogdalyte is, but what is a trog?

Isn’t this boy track or trip?  Or is tripp his nephew?  I keep thinking his name is triptrap or something ... the girls I’ve got figured out.

Leave it to Palin to take some actual sane thing, some area of her life where she appears to have competence, confidence, experience and knowledge, and turn it into a cheezy display of her wingnut assets.

From the first time I saw her, I could not shake my mother’s evocative phrase “Yee haw! She looks like an I-dee-ho grocery checker” from my head.  It is the hair and thinness and makeup that does it.

I like the caption to #7, part of which says, ” It cracks me up going to some running event and seeing some dude who campaigned so hard against me, or a lady who’s been blogging some mean comments about me. “

Palin is such a victim!  Must every public statement from Palin include a line about how someone was mean to her? Apparently so.

Trog would be short for “Troglodyte”, which means “Cave Dweller”.  It is used to refer to backward tribes of humans who lived in caves, sometimes to Neanderthals.  It is also in the scientific name for the common chimpanzee - Pan troglodytes.  It would be a rather heinous thing to call a Down’s Syndrome kid - essentially calling him a throwback, caveman, or chimp - ie, subhuman.

Give it up, rvman

And this son is “Trig”.  Trig Paxson Van Palin, according to one source I found.  Track is the son who is in the Army - last I heard he was in Iraq.  Her grandson (daughter Bristol’s son) is Tripp.

ms kate said she calls both of Palin’s sons “Trog”, and I’m noting that it isn’t a good choice.

or, if you actually read what Ms. Kate said, you’d see it was a typo born of the fact that the “i” and the “o” sit next to each other on the keyboard.  enough with assigning sinister motives that are only in your head.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/01/politics/main5128672.shtml

By the way, that is a link to emails which were just released between Palin and McCain’s staff.  The “nice” lady is a pathological congenital fucking liar.  Read her lying right to Steve Scmidt about “Todd” and his affiliation with a radical separationist group.  If Todd Palin were on the left he’d be Bill fucking Ayers.

Cannibals!  I’m sure these were released by Steve Schmidt the day after he was attacked by Scheuerman and Kristol the day after the VF article.  While this is not particularly interesting I find it hilarious that she wanted them to claim Todd meant to indicate he was a non-partisan Independent and not a secessionist.  In some ways it would be fun to watch her run again just because she seem incapable of not lying.

Incidentally, I remember Edwards appearing in Runner’s World right after (?) the 2004 election and boy his career took off after that.

I’m not going to criticize Sarah Palin for wanting to look nice in a magazine interview.

Thanks rvman - what the left really needs is more moral scolds.

She’s going to go on a serious run with her fashion frames on and her hair done? Sure.

Whoever called soft-core nailed it.

Hector, does she look nice?  She almost looks photoshopped into the scenery.  Why no shots of her actually looking nice while actually running?

I don’t doubt that she does go running and goes running fairly often - she just describes the experience too well (I’m not a runner, but there I am a cyclist and kayaker).  She just looks out of context in any number of those photos, if you read the actual interview ... like a Run With Me Skipper doll ad or something.

We need moral scolds a little more than Cracker needed folk singers but less than we need Runner’s World photo-fiskers.

exactly

They can’t show her running because it would not be ladylike.

Ms Kate on 07/01 at 11:37 PM

Or, could it be that she really doesn’t run outside and runs on a treadmill?  That might explain the funky tan.

OK- as the mother of a child with Down syndrome (wow, there’s an authority right?) I’m NOT freaked by the typo of Trog. If I thought it was an intentional thing I would be infuriated, as it would imply something “sub-human” (ie troglodyte). When referring to a person with mental retardation it would be highly offensive. Using it in another context, about kids in general, like I refer to my kids being demon spawn, is just silliness. Like calling active kids little monkeys.

I do think that’s a damn unfortunate typo and hope it gets fixed. And Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended (such a great name for Palin, wish I could take credit) should maybe reconsider saddling children with those weird-ass names.

Why no shots of her actually looking nice while actually running?

No makeup, sweaty, stringy hair? Not everyone understands that look to be “nice.”

Was she promoting exercise or Bump-Its?

I got this really weird softcore porno vibe out of the whole thing

Yeah, when is the tire calendar out for this ?

Meh, she looks nice. So does ex-Miss California. Both have shit for brains but that doesn’t stop right winger from lusting for them. Or left wingers. Is not like soft porn stars need to be members of Mensa…

Let them drool. she does nothing for me but if she does “it” for you, more power to you. Just don’t tell me she is ready to be VP or P.

There’s nothing wrong with the spread in itself: lots of magazines, including this one, have done photospreads/“interviews” with celebrities, male and female, and part of that is the posing and makeup for the camera.

There are two problems: one, as people have noticed, are her comments.  That’s a vicious, petty attack on McCain, and I don’t even like McCain at all.

The second: agreeing to this sort of shoot (cheesecakey, as opposed to, say, pictures of her actually running).  When one of the attacks on you is that you play up your appearance to make up for serious intellectual failings, why would you decide to agree to pictures that play to that stereotype?  It’s like a bad actress complaining about people saying she’s only in movies because of her body…while posing in Playboy.

My entire family is Republican and although their politics are, in my opinion, insane, they’re awfully nice people. I’ve always gotten that feeling from Sarah Palin, too.

Wow.  I’m so not on board with this.  I have never known a political figure who seemed _less_ “nice” than Sarah Palin.

And, honestly, does every Sarah Palin discussion have to reduce to “Fuckability, Yea or Nay?”  (I’ll stick to impressionistic snap judgments about her personality instead!)

I just loved the seventh photo.  The (mis)use of the flag just killed me.

I’m a middle-aged white man, and I just can’t understand this “She’s such a knock-out” stuff.  She isn’t bad looking, but I don’t think if I saw her IRL, in the state house, on TV giving a speech about killing wolves, or at my office working as a professional, that I would give her a second look.  Shannon Doherty is a Republican, or used to be, and she’s much better looking.  I would vote for her over Palin anyday.  And nobody could ever call her bitchy.  <snark>

If she’s such a gung-ho runner, why don’t I remember seeing *any* pictures of her jogging whilst on the campaign trail?

It’s a photo shoot for pics accompanying an interview; of course it’s staged. As for the whole Trog issue, I hope it is accidental, and not malicious or a Freudian slip (I’ll give the benefit of the doubt, as it is easy to hit one when going for the other). However, I find it funny that no one got offended and almost immediately accepted an apology without question, but when stated it MAY POSSIBLY have been intentional, heads were practically bitten off. Now, if it had been a republican commenting about a liberal/democrat, torches would have been lit and every attempt at apology and explanation would have been declared bullshit without consideration.

Oh, and according to my Canadian friend, you don’t fuck with a moose. If you seen one give it a wide berth.

I agree that her policies are mean and it does seem pretty clear that she has shit for brains. On Daily Kos she was getting taken to task for, um, “desecrating” or “disrespecting” the flat in that 7th photo, which really surprised me. I didn’t expect to see adherence to that kind of useless, stuffy protocol on the left, and it kind of reminded me of Michelle Malkin and her ilk clutching their pearls over Michelle Obama touching the queen.

But, I did think the flag picture was tacky, in the way that overly posed family portraits are tacky. Like, what, does she have an American flag draped across the back of every chair in her house? is she *that* American?

I don’t know if she’s gearing up for a run for prez in ‘12, but it would be nice if she just kind of faded away. I do realize that she’s the governor of quite a large state but right now I’m just having a hard time getting myself worked up over anything she does, least of all her silly spreads in running magazines.

Pretty is as pretty does.  Seriously, yes she looks like a nice attractive Dem soccer Mom, but we all know the ravening beast underneath.  Who said the Anti-Christ has to be a guy?  The wingnuts think it’s Obama but I think it’s some ‘nice’ woman in a running outfit, wink, wink.

It looks like the photos were taken by someone who read a couple of coffee-table book on photography, maybe took a couple of photo courses at the local Jr. College, and then: ta da!  They should have had at least one pic of Palin actually running.

But its her “humorous” comments about McCain not being a runner that is truly contemptible.

I’m starting to run more regularly, and this article isn’t going to change my mind, but after all the puff pieces about GWB’s running, and now this with Palin, a little part of me is linking the cult of running with vapidity.*

I might change my mind after doing it for a while, but right now my feeling about running is that it’s boring as hell (and the preponderance of iPods used by runners confirms this, IMO).  Time just seems to slow to a crawl while I’m running.  I’m doing 12 to 18 minutes at the moment, and I’m trying to imagine doing 30 minutes a day almost every day.  Right now, it seems that it would require a level of mindless discipline that people like Bush and Palin have in spades.

Like I said, this is how I feel about it right now, so who knows how I’ll feel in a few months.

* I always saw Bill Clinton’s running as a response to the jokes about his weight:  “The Presidency is well worth a jog”.

Oh noooooes!  Sarah Palin took a picture with her chiiiiiiiillllllllldddddd!!!  the evul biotch!!!

OMFG she made FUN of McCaaaaaaaaaain, the man CRIPPLED by the evul Viet Cooooooong!!!!

Mmmmmmm taaaaasty!!!!!

You are a parody of yourselves.

I do think that’s a damn unfortunate typo and hope it gets fixed. And Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended (such a great name for Palin, wish I could take credit) should maybe reconsider saddling children with those weird-ass names.

Funny how our little moralizer can’t deal with the typo, yet he or she avoids the issue of whether or not it is dehumanizing for Palin to be giving her child with down syndrome the kind of name one would give to a pet.

somebody let elphie out of her cage again.

Dude, who cares?

Thom, I was referring to rsvp or whatever the handle was that wouldn’t drop it.  In any case, Trig is cringe worthy if only because it makes a lot of people think of Trigger the horse.

The Palin girl names are unusual, but dignified.  The boy names?  Pets.

At least I’m not spending my time giving a shit what Sarah Palin named her kids.  I’ll leave that particular “criticism” to you, Queen of the inane.

Hey speedbudget I’m not a misy..a misog,...a mushimushi…a whatever(miso soup?) I love and respect women of all ages…..ask any of my biacthesses! 
Anyway, can’t stay and chat, have to get back to my porn.  The flick tonight:  “Badass babes do D.C!”  It’s the newest in the Ooh-la-la films “PBILF” series (politician babes I’d like to….vote for)
...featuring Sara ‘Impalin’ and Hilly Cl…(that’s just too easy)

Hey, that IS tooo funny!!  (SNL, MADTv,.....Reno911,  call me!)

.....on a serious note (8 second time limit)  Folks, don’t let the hi profile wingnuts get to you! See them for the whack jobs that they are and dismiss accordingly. I don’t think Ruper Murdoch has bought Runner’s World (at least not yet)

Okay, times up…...

Butthead: heh, heh, you said whack job….heh, heh…..