"The sign that feminism is dead..."

\" ... is that women are no longer compelled to vote for a woman running for office.\"

Or so went the rhetoric when Hillary and Barack were duking it out in the Democratic primaries.

Well, now we have Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as the Republican nominee for Vice President, and the discussion has turned to whether Palin should even be running for office when she has a baby with Down Syndrome and four other kids at home, one of whom is pregnant and unwed at 17 years old.

I find it appalling that someone would vote for ANYONE who is not capable of doing the job. In my case, I would never vote for a man who wasn't qualified to be president, so I refuse to vote for a woman who isn't qualified to be president either. As much as I disliked Hillary, for example, I have to admit that she would have made a DAMN FINE president.

But as much as I think Palin lacks the qualifications to run for office, I nevertheless believe that her qualifications as a MOTHER are no more relevant to the race than Barack Obama's qualifications as a father are relevant to whether HE will make a good president.

The bottom line is this:

If Ms. Palin were a man, we wouldn't be having a discussion about whether she is a good mother or whether her family life will interfere with the job of Vice President.

However, if Sarah Palin were a man, neither would we be having a discussion about whether she is qualified to be a Vice President because if she were a man, John McCain would not have asked her to run to begin with.