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HALLI CASSER-JAYNE - bio
RED, WHITE 'N TRUE™
SARAH PALIN DOES NEW YORK
Posted, September 24, 2008,  12:01 p.m

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While the New York financial market burns and the rats and super rats play politics with your financial future on Capitol Hill, Miss Sarah of the cold Alaskan Tundra was warming up her relations with the likes of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Alvaro Uribe of Columbia and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger her meetings an attempt to shore up the vice presidential nominee’s foreign policy credentials, of which she has none.

Looking more schoolmarm than Governor, her caramel streaked hair styled in her now signature up-do, her comely eyes hidden behind the now famous designer frames, and clad in a circumspect dark suit, her look is the result of a concerted effort to disguise her natural beauty. Why? Because even in the 21^st century, young, pretty women aren’t politically credible according to societies’ rules.

I say young women, because once a woman reaches a certain age, she may remain attractive within her own generation’s standards, but society rarely feels threatened by post menopausal women. Consider Hillary Clinton, attractive but past sexy, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a beauty in her time, but now just another crone trying to look her best. Nevertheless, young or old, women who seek power are treated by a different standard than men.

Men, are never forced to disguise their youth and inexperience and men, unlike women, only seem more attractive as they age. Men seem to earn more stature with their accumulated years, not true women. There is no question that the world seems to take handsome men more seriously than attractive women.

Consider candidates John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, even George W. Bush, and now, Barack Obama, all young men, all with questionable resumes in pursuit of the presidency, and none forced to cover their good-looks with strange hair-do’s, disguising eyeglasses or dark suits.

And while one of our current nominees for president, Barack Obama, has a resume as lacking in foreign policy experience as vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s, did anyone question Barack Obama’s summer World Tour meant to lend credibility to his flimsy foreign policy credentials as he vied to become not the vice president but the Leader of the Free World? Was Obama’s Berlin speech any less a pr stunt than is Palin’s photo op with Karzai and the formidable elder statesman, Henry Kissinger, meant to bolster her lack of foreign policy credentials?

How soon one forgets that Barack Obama’s campaign was so concerned about their candidates flimsy foreign policy resume that Obama’s pick of the foreign policy wonk, Senator Joe Biden, was made for the singular purpose of enhancing Obama’s foreign policy gravitas, of which he still has none.

I smell a double standard here as I watch the MSM have a field day with Palin’s downscale foreign policy tour taking place in the international city of New York rather than the upscale Obama tour played on the international world stage.

What may be fueling the Palin fire is that John McCain’s campaign has done everything that it can to keep Palin away from the press. It is no wonder considering her abominable treatment by the same media who now want the women who can beat the formidable Barack Obama in a rally’s attendance, and, who, therefore, can no longer be pushed aside as irrelevant, as the feature of their stories.

Yesterday a battle royal ensued between the networks and the McCain campaign over how the networks would be allowed to cover Palin’s meetings with the world leaders. The networks had arranged for a “pool” camera – one camera to cover the meetings, whose video would be pooled or shared with all networks.

Such arrangements are standard in situations such as intimidate meetings with high level leaders and candidates.  Normally, however, at least one print reporter, one radio reporter and one television reporter would accompany the videographer as well. But, the McCain campaign who originally said it would allow only one editorial person inside then said there would be no editorial presence. The networks objected and voted to ban any use of photographs/video in protest.

Ultimately a producer was allowed in and the situation was described as a “miscommunication.” However, McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” has been renamed the “No Talk Express.”

And now CNN anchor Campbell Brown has weighed in on the subject.

"Tonight I call on the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment," said Brown on her cable show. "This woman is from Alaska for crying out loud. She is strong. She is tough. She is confident. And you claim she is ready to be one heart beat away form the presidency. If that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now. Allow her to show her stuff. Allow her to face down those pesky reporters... Let her have a real news conference with real questions. By treating Sarah Palin different from the other candidates in this race, you are not showing her the respect she deserves. Free Sarah Palin. Free her from the chauvinistic chain you are binding her with. Sexism in this campaign must come to an end. Sarah Palin has just as much a right to be a real candidate in this race as the men do. So let her act like one."

I'd like to remind Ms. Brown that Palin did agree to face down “those pesky reporters.” You might remember ABC News Anchor Charles Gibson was granted full access to Alaska’s Governor. And during the course of that interview Mr. Gibson treated Governor Palin as an idiot, a moron, the little woman from Alaska, and he addressed her in a voice no news anchor would dare to have used on a man of equal stature.

These are changing times. OK, maybe not on Capitol Hill where the political games stay the same, the top-tier candidates, both Senators who call themselves reformers continuing to play fast and loose with the Nation’s economy in their presidential pursuits.

But there is no question the press and its role in presidential politics is changing. It’s clear that the press does not understand the alterations they need to make in these shifting times.  As women take center stage in politics, the press is going to have to learn to adjust. They haven’t yet and that may account for the approach the McCain campaign is taking with Sarah Palin.

They aren’t protecting Sarah Palin from the questions the media ask. She’s already proven that she can hold her own despite her nominal experience. And if they were worried about her sounding like the idiot the press would have us think she is, they wouldn’t parade her before foreign dignitaries, all, by the way, who had only nice things to say about the Vice-presidential candidate after their meetings.

No, what the McCain campaign is protecting Sarah Palin from is the arrogance and disrespect she’s been shown by the press, which is more dangerous to Palin’s long-term reputation than all the verbal policy slip-ups she can muster. As long as the press treats her as a faux vice-presidential candidate, she will never be granted the gravitas she deserves.

So, as my old fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Carlson used to tell me when I was getting out-of-line (often), “You mind your p’s and q’s,” you members of the press. You need an attitude adjustment.  When you have one, maybe you’ll get to have free access to Governor Sarah Palin.

No adjustment and you stand to remain relegated to the corner of history, wearing the Dunce Cap your patronizing behavior toward women candidates has so earned you in the election cycle of 2008.