Governor Palin 4 President

Ashley / West Palm Beach, FL: What do your kids think about their mom starting a new job at Fox News? Do you plan on bringing them to the city often?

SP: My kids think that this is great, because kids are sharp enough to know that the questions have to be asked. What would we do without Fox News? And they’re excited about this; they watch the network, too! They like NY … they like the energy and the activity here. As long as they can stay grounded with the roots that are so strong in Alaska, it’s going to work out. We’ll do some back and forth!

Ashley / West Palm Beach, FL: It’s a long plane flight!

SP: It is a long plane flight … plenty of reading time!

Brian / Marblehead, MA: Will your previous job as a sports reporter in Alaska help you with your new role on Fox?

SP: Yes – and so much has changed though in the past 20 some years, technology has so changed. Yeah, I think my parents are going to also finally be able to say, “Right on! You’re finally putting that college education to work!” So, we’re excited about that and very excited to be able to pull on some of those things I learned all those years ago, and I loved working in the business way back then ... and I’m going to love this go around, too!

I mean, we had typewriters back then! We had no blackberries back then.

Victoria / New Jersey: Your book, Going Rogue, sold out shelves and clearly resonated with people. What’s your favorite book?

SP: Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin ... how Lincoln formed his team as he administered the policies that helped to secure the union and win the war. Goodwin did an amazing job of research and compilation of so much information. I love that book.

Chad / Forest City, IA: With the success of your book, will we be seeing another Sarah Palin literary work soon? 

SP: I loved writing a book – I’ve always loved writing. It’s just been a part of me -- keeping journals for my entire life, penning whatever I could, whenever I could. And I will do another one.

Bonnie / Boston, MA: You have a big family, yet you’re in such great shape! How do you do it?

SP: Okay, let’s be really honest ... Coming off the Christmas holidays, thank you for saying that! But, I have the same resolution as everybody else. I’m going to chill a little bit on the junk food, and I’m going to work out a little bit more… I need to. I love to run, I love kickboxing classes, I love weight lifting. Sweat is my sanity. I love to stay active. But thank you for the compliment … it’s not entirely accurate, though!

Pat / Fort Pierce, FL: How has having a special needs child affected your views both as a mother and as a policy-maker?

SP: Surprising to me, I would have this no other way. When we found out that Trig would be born with down syndrome, we were scared to death had no idea what to expect, I even dreaded some of the unknown, and yet when he was born, I discovered that God had answered my prayer .. my prayer was that Lord, please just make my heart ready for this. And my heart was ready. I have become a more passionate and a more patient person, and more committed than ever to make sure that individuals, groups, families become empowered to assist these beautiful individuals who do need and deserve a little bit more care than others – not necessarily looking for government to provide, but empowering those who have that compassionate heart – and I do think that every American has that in them, the desire to make this world more welcoming to these individuals – I would never have had that perspective on this issue, had Trig not been gifted to our family.

Pat / Fort Pierce, FL: If you could say one thing to your fans, what would that be?

SP: I think the supporters of the message that I’ve been articulating, a message of common sense conservative values and ideals and ideas -- values and ideas that I think American can and should embrace again. I would just thank people for supporting that message, not me as an individual because it’s not about me, but the message that so many of us share and want to see perpetuated ... I just thank them so much for that support!

According to the Los Angeles Times, Republican strategist David Carney seemed to question Palin's constitution, suggesting that the less she has to do, the better. Limited appearances are "probably safer . . . than a daily show where she'd have to come up with something innovative and entertaining and provocative for 42 minutes, five days a week."

Only in the glossy, rarefied and coiffed world of television is 42 minutes of thinking considered a challenge.

Nonetheless, David Wallechinsky also seemed to fear for Palin's stamina in a Huffington Post screed. Like Carney, he took comfort in knowing the little lady wouldn't have to carry a program all by her lonesome: "Okay, she won't be having her own show - that's probably too darn hard for Palin." Washington Post blogger Jonathan Capehart worried, too, that the television gig would test Palin's mental mettle, discharging some heartwarming advice: "Palin will learn how to think on her feet. She should get used to getting to the studio thinking that she's going to talk about one thing only to find out that she's talking about something else."

Horror of horrors, anything but that.

Excuse me, but what century are these guys from? The idea that a former governor, a seasoned politician and a mother of five from Alaska isn't capable of chiming in every now and then on issues with which she is already intimately familiar is downright archaic. It's also preposterous. When did television punditry become the vaunted decathlon of the political Olympics? As a pundit myself, I can tell you it's a job Sarah Palin can more than handle. In fact, it's a job at which she can excel. But this kind of hyperventilating over Palin's skill set isn't just antiquated and uninformed. It's also sexist. Back in the 1800s, female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis for a wide range of symptoms - from nervousness to stress, insomnia and irritability - thought only to manifest in women. Hysteria itself comes from the Greek word hustera, or uterus.

Until Freud came along and reclassified most hysteria diagnoses as general anxiety disorders, women were treated as fragile, delicate, temperamental creatures who couldn't handle the rigors of life as aptly as men. In 1873, Harvard physician Edward Clarke even suggested that educating women would physically overwhelm them - creating women with "monstrous brains and puny bodies."

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