Why isn't Sarah Palin ever called "arrogant?"

[EffieBlack]

She's been strutting around the national stage for the last 5 weeks as if she invented politics. She sneered and snarked her way through her first major speech, attacking men and women with much more experience, accomplishments, and commitment to the public good than she has managed to muster in her meager career.

She followed that up with a 3 week whirlwind tour of Republican bastion rallies where she preened and sashayed like a homecoming queen at halftime - in fact, like a real queen on Coronation Day.

She sat across from interviewers and behaved as if she really thought she was getting over on them with her rambling, bullshit responses. When caught in lies, she just kept lying. When she didn't know an answer she bluffed her way through with gibberish. And through it all, that smirk stayed firmly in place.

And I have no doubt that she's going to stroll onto that stage tonight as if it is time for her closeup (like she hasn't had enough of them already), behaving as if she has every right and the full ability, not only to go toe-to-toe with a man of Joe Biden's caliber, but to attack Barack Obama, a man who stands so far beyond her in every respect that she couldn't see him from her house with the Hubble telescope.

So why is Sarah Palin never called "arrogant?"

Hmmmm . . .

[Bread and Circus]

1. It's a very good question. Aside from being cocky and acting like a smartass, she hasn't got much

[renie408]

2. Why are you so sexist? A woman can't be confident?

That's why.

[Curtland1015]

7. Bingo!

We have a winner!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Her stupidity is so overwhelming

one tends to forget other words to describe her actions.

[bdamomma]

4. there is definitely a disconnect when she is asked a question

she interprets the questions that she is given to answer turns it around totally.

[Cosmocat]

5. Because she is a republican ...

In the last two decades:

1) EVERY major democrat at the national level has been labeled as arrogant, whether they were or were not.
2) Not a SINGLE R that I can take note of has been labeled as arrogant.

The established right wing, therefor MSM memes are as follows:

1) Ds, out of touch, arrogant elitists who hate America.
2) Rs, salt of the earth, middle america patriots.

Reality is not a factor.

[NatBurner]

6. cuz she's white?

just guessing

[Solomon]

15. Ta da da boom te ey. Ta da da boom te ey. We have a

winner! (Lots flashing, sirens going off, balloons cascading)

[RoadRage]

8. Because "IDIOTIC" defines her even better.. and in this case it's even more damaging...

Arrogant is something we're used to in politics... IDIOTIC frankly is as well with Bush II... but it's the Idiotic part that people dispise most about him. The arrogance is a close 2nd though.

Frankly - I describe her as both.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. For what it's worth, I called her arrogant right after her RNC speech.

The fact that she would even accept the VP offer with such thin qualifications proves her industrial-strength arrogance.

[jules1962]

13. If you will notice

that when Palin stands during interviews(Couric) she keeps her hands in the upside down praying hands position that forms a triangle in the center. I was informed years ago in psych class that this was a prime body language sign of arrogance and self-importance. Seems to be true, from what I have seen. My former boss used to do this frequently until she got demoted. I never saw her do this again. Hmmm? I will have to see if Palin has this stance on 11/05.:popcorn:

[eshfemme]

10. To be frank, with how gender coded America tends to be

Seriously, in other cultures, men can act in ways that would be considered "gay" or effeminate and still be considered masculine in their native cultures. So, I think that behaviors and attributes tend to be divided in America along more definitive male or female lines (like pink for baby girls and blue for baby boys). I think that in America, arrogant is considered a masculine trait-- I see it attached to more men than to women. With women, it tends to be "bitchy" rather than arrogant. Conversely, Hillary was a weird success in that she had men saying that she had balls and that was their way of complimenting her (and thus emasculating Obama) but it was problematic because it was also a symbol of the split in feminism as it implied Hillary had to become one of the boys to succeed rather than retain her femininity and succeed.

It's harder to be nuanced in public life with criticism of individual women too because of the prevalence of extreme epithets about women in general and this inability to even safely criticize someone who happens to be female because of this ingrained prejudice is a reason for why the feminist movement has a lot of room for improvement. Chauvinism and chivalry share an uneasy border because of this and probably why it's such a headache for gender relations in America.

[mscuedawg]

11. My question: What happened to the GOP's Family Values?

Anyone else remember Quayle going after a fictional television character, Murphy Brown...b/c she was a single woman having a baby. I remember a day that had a person like Palin been chosen as a running mate for the Democratic side, the RW would have called Family Values...you would have heard that she couldn't possibly be an effective VP with a husband and a family...and what kind of mother would she be that she would chose the job over her special needs infant...

Palin is not only arrogant, but she is vile...and just like the bullies on the the playground, rarely do they come ahead. If she were a REAL woman she would leave the snide comments and fight the nay-sayers with her intelligence, IF she had any. I dont even care that she has a speech writer...as a woman put up there as a "representative" to all those joe-hockey-moms out there, she has FAILED...

:rant:

[renie408]

14. They never had them in the first place? n/t

[symbolman]

12. I prefer what one right wing author called her

a "MENACE"..

and it was a lady that said it, even better..

[krkaufman]

16. This DU cross-post from Townhall.com (yes, that site) takes a step in that direction

... chastising Palin, through statistics, for her denigration of urban dwellers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7277815