Sarah Palin does a photoshoot

Here, we see Sarah Palin playing hide-and-seek. I'm not sure whether she's hiding or seeking, but surely she's cheating.

Sarah Palin did a photoshoot -- eight pictures -- for Newsweek, but the pictures are at The Daily Beast. The photographer is Emily Shur.

The photoshoot was done for a Newsweek cover story by Peter J. Boyer: "Palin Plots Her Next Move."

In Newsweek's story, Palin says that she believes she can win national office. Apparently, the story's writer didn't ask her, "Which office?" Of course, that is a "gotcha" question. "Any of 'em -- all of 'em," is the standard answer to a question like that, so I suppose he didn't really need to ask.

Update: The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart has written "Sarah Palin as Newsweek cover girl — again."


Update: The Christian Science Monitor writes that Palin doesn't look presidential:

What’s striking about the Newsweek feature is the photographs – not just the cover, but the two-page inside shot of Palin standing in a field of flowers, hair down, wearing a pink hoodie, hands in the pockets of loose-fitting work pants. It’s the Garden of Sarah.

Maybe the photos are Palin’s way of saying, “I’m not running.” Time was when a politically ambitious woman would agree to be photographed only looking “dressed for success” – usually in a suit, à la Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Newsweek cover earlier this year. Or the way Palin usually dresses on Fox News. But in this latest iteration, the vibe is more “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” than “West Wing.”

Sarah Palin As Pat Buchanan In Drag

Here, we see Sarah Palin thinking, "Darn! I've gotta get another picture taken."

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift is asking, "Are Sarah Palin's 'Mama Grizzlys' Feminists?"

... It’s nice [Mama Grizzlies are] embracing feminism after demonizing the term for so long, and I welcome them to the arena. Let’s see if they can do for women what their sisters on the left have done since the ’70s, breaking down the barriers for women in all areas of American life including politics. Palin has George W. Bush’s disdain for intellectual elites, and she lives the rhetoric. She’s undisciplined intellectually, but she’s got street smarts, and they count. ...

... The women candidates she considers Mama Grizzlies would have been out there anyway; I don’t think she inspired them to run. But she’s given definition to a movement that would otherwise be just a bunch of kooks, or one-offs. She’s fenced off a wing of the GOP that she owns, and in politics, when it’s your turn to ride the rocket, that’s what you do. A Republican source says Palin is nothing new, she’s really Pat Buchanan in drag—the same issues except that her reality show is a lot more gripping. The media went overboard for Buchanan in 1996 when he won the New Hampshire primary, defeating establishment favorite Bob Dole. But the insurgent campaign of a former Nixon speechwriter can’t compare with the ongoing soap opera of the Palins. Bristol and Levi together again!

When I ran the Palin-as-Buchanan theory past another Republican, a woman this time, she said that was an insult to Buchanan, who is deeply serious and has thought about these issues. She doesn’t agree with his conclusions, but he rode the rocket at a moment in time, just as Palin is poised to do. This friend does corporate focus groups that have nothing to do with politics, and at the end she likes to ask what the participants think of various people in the news: “When you mention her name, they all smile, even if what comes out of their mouth is that she’s terrible.”

A big part of Palin’s appeal is how well she works with today’s culture, which is shallow and quick. Twitter is 140 characters—which gets me back to the serious do-gooders who worry about girls in Afghanistan. They don’t have the same ability to get to the heart of things, plus they’re dealing with issues most voters would rather avoid, and that includes Palin, who quit public office when it got harder than tweeting.


In "Feminism is Alive and Well ... Even Sarah Palin Wants to Be One," Gloria Steinem says, " ... yes, you can be a feminist who doesn’t agree with abortion, who would never have an abortion. But you can’t be a feminist who says that other women can’t and criminalizes abortion." That would seem to disqualify Palin, who, although she claims to have considered her own options as any ordinary pro-choice woman might, while she was pregnant with Trig, doesn't trust other women with that choice.

Clift says Sharron Angle isn't pro-choice. What about the other candidates Palin has endorsed? Are any of 'em feminists?

Are 'Mama Grizzlys' a big deal?