From Huffington Post’s OfftheBus: “Witches, Werewolves, and Sarah Palin”

The misogynist assault on Sarah Palin continues. In an earlier post I linked to an LA Times article reporting the lynching of Palin in effigy, supposedly as a Halloween prank. Today, the Huffington Post is soliciting photos of Halloween pranksters dressed as political figures for its OfftheBus feature. The subject line of the email I received from HuffPo reads: 'Witches, Werewolves, and Sarah Palin."

Evidently, this “fun” OfftheBus feature was inspired by a Caucus (NY Times) post reporting that Palin is turning out to be one of the most popular costume figures of the Halloween season. Here’s the first comment to the Caucus post - obviously from an Obama supporter:

“A pig mask, or a pit bull mask, and a cheap tube of lipstick, are the low budget way to do the low budget Palin.

“Your choice whether to go the porcine or canine route.

“It likely depends on your preferred animal noises.”

In the ever-swirling cesspool of vulgar attacks on women throughout the 2008 campaign, there has been no limit to the depravity. Check out this article in the Guardian titled Fair game? "She's the subject of a porn film and a sex doll has been made in her image. So why hasn't there been a bigger backlash against the misogyny aimed at Sarah Palin," asks Kira Cochrane.

Cochrane writes:

“Over the past few days, a music video entitled Red, White and Milf (short for "Mom I'd like to fuck") has appeared all over the internet. It features a cowboy singing a novelty song about Sarah Palin ("she came to us from the hills of Wasilla / the babes are hot, but the winters are a killer"), while three women resembling the Republican vice-presidential candidate dance in skimpy outfits in the background. Actually, dancing is the least of it. One runs her tongue along the barrel of a rifle, one whips another with a US flag, one dips her finger into a pie and feeds it to another, before smearing it over the woman's face and licking it off. It's a lot of suggestion, basically, leading to the moment when the cowboy opens a beer, holds it to his crotch and sprays it over the three women. They respond - how else? - by smearing it ecstatically across their chests.

“For better or worse (I would say the latter), Palin is the highest-profile female politician in the world now, which makes the constant objectification of her particularly galling. This began within days of her nomination, of course, when doctored pictures of her showed up on the internet, head superimposed on to a rifle-toting model in a stars-and-stripes bikini. At the same time, a company started manufacturing a "naughty schoolgirl" Palin doll.”

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