As callow as Sarah Palin is (which is plenty callow), I doubt such is really the issue for Katha Pollitt. Sure, Pollitt wants "people running the country [who are] smarter and wiser and more judicious and more knowledgeable than [she is]." But if it were only that, she wouldn't have revisited the occasion to stick the knife into Ralph Nader as she's done the last three elections. Nader, after, is all those things she professes to want in a president--as is, come to think of it, Cynthia McKinney. But anyone familiar with Pollitt's work of the last few years would know that's not all she wants. She wants the next president to defend and increase the usual bevy of measures that can help women be at the forefront in this frightening age of winner-take-all capitalism: abortion rights, Title IX, access to nifty careers (mere jobs are for suckers, aren't they, Katha?). Oh, for Thomas Frank to weigh in on Palin and Pollitt, too!

Douglas Presler

Minneapolis, MN