Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You have to love this quote from Sarah Palin when asked if she considers herself a feminist:
"I'm not gonna label myself anything, Brian," she responded. "And I think that's what annoys a lot of Americans, especially in a political campaign, is to start trying to label different parts of America different, different backgrounds, different ... I'm not going to put a label on myself."
Right. She's opposed to labeling different parts of America differently (yes, governor, you need an adverb there). Unless, of course, she's labeling one part of America "pro-American" in contrast to other parts of America. That's entirely different.
Politics
Comments
McCain campaign insider leaks defining Gov. Palin:
"She won't listen to anyone, including her own family."
"Diva"
"Whack job"
This was the obvious the night of the announcement merely using Wikipedia (the GOP version) and Google to do a little research.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 29, 2008 9:38 AM
"Brian, mavericks like me and John McCain don't like labels. Those are for elitists like Barrack Obama and liberals like the media."
Posted by: Odie | October 29, 2008 9:40 AM
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | October 29, 2008 9:41 AM
This must be why she never labels Obama as "Marxist."
Posted by: Markus | October 29, 2008 9:47 AM
Of course not, she lets liberal media elites like Barbara West do that for her...
Posted by: Vic | October 29, 2008 10:01 AM
She may hesitate to label herself feminist because of the pro life (anti choice) position on abortion of the ticket. So for her to say she supports womens rights except the right to control thier own bodies is contradictory. With this in mind consider the next president may select more than one supreme court justice. Any indication on her part to be pro choice would surely cause consternation in her conservative base but, still she must try to appeal to the womans vote. I've been reading this blog for months but never posted because all my thoughts were already up here.
Posted by: ed | October 29, 2008 10:10 AM
Herod, you forgot "Foreign Policy Expert" - Hey I can see Siberia from my house! - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 29, 2008 10:15 AM
Palin-Couric interview, September 2008
What has changed in the last month?
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | October 29, 2008 10:44 AM
Fish in a barrel, boys, fish in a barrel.
But all the rejoinders here are no less amusing for it.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 29, 2008 10:46 AM
You don't understand. She's declared parts of American as un-American. So they aren't actually parts of America, they're parts of un-America. She's only against labeling parts of America, it's perfectly acceptable to label parts of un-America.*
*This explanation brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.
Posted by: Taz | October 29, 2008 10:51 AM
I think SteveP wrote that response for her.
Posted by: Goldbrick4 | October 29, 2008 11:03 AM
She bought a dictionary and discovered that feminists support equal rights for women?
Posted by: Alex, FCD | October 29, 2008 11:25 AM
If you call yourself a feminist but also call yourself anti-choice (I refuse to say pro-life any longer) then you are NOT A FEMINIST. Period.
So, you know. The fact that she's not labeling herself a feminist any longer is a good thing, in my book. Since she's not one.
Posted by: marilove | October 29, 2008 11:37 AM
This is somewhat tangential to the topic at hand. But I thought I'd share this video of one of Palin's answers from the Couric interview. The piano's interpretation of her words is brilliant.
Posted by: Abby Normal | October 29, 2008 11:40 AM
I dunno if anybody caught her speech today or not. "Americans" "America" "drill baby drill!" "maverick" "America". Lots of sentences that said practically nothing at all. It was all in there. Just like she was doing a Tina Fey impersonation. It was the most amazing thing I ever saw!
Posted by: 386sx | October 29, 2008 11:56 AM
Ed, you had to link to a news story from Beaver, PA? And it's probably just me and my juvenile sense of humor, but the placement of the Palin photo makes it seem like she's laughing at the joke, too...
Feminism doesn't perpetuate the myth that all women are alike. Palin somehow suggests - in all she does and says and IS - that there is The Way to be an American Woman, and so everything else is, I guess, Anti-Woman? As a woman I'm not a woman? She does not get to be the model (sotospeak) of what is womanhood. Yet she believes she's representative? I'm sorry if I'm ranting nonsensically, I admit the gender thing is personally upsetting to me in deep, complex ways.
Posted by: marnk | October 29, 2008 11:57 AM
She seems pretty keen to put a label on "Joe the Plumber".
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | October 29, 2008 12:12 PM
Aside from being anti-choice, let's not forget the other anti-feminist issues. She supports "abstinence-only" sex ed as being the only even vaguely acceptable information to offer in schools. She aligned herself against the family and medical leave act, making it more difficult for both men and women to get time off from work to care for ill children or elderly, and she has spoken out on several occasions against equal pay provisions, saying that businesses should not be "required" to do this and that it would hurt businesses.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | October 29, 2008 1:06 PM
On September 30 she told Katie Couric when asked Palin whether she considers herself a feminist:
"I do," Palin said. "I'm a feminist who, uh, believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed, and to try to do it all, anyway. And I'm very, very thankful that I've been brought up in a family where gender hasn't been an issue. You know, I've been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood and you're out hunting and fishing and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family. So it kinda started with that."
From: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/30/eveningnews/main4490618.shtml
She was OK with labeling herself less than a month ago. Oh Noes, she's a Flip-Flopper!
Posted by: Brent | October 29, 2008 1:37 PM
Luna, the fact that she supports abstinence-only sex ed does not make her anti-feminist, it proves her stupid. She has a pregnant seventeen year old in her house hold. Supposedly she would have have taught the youngster that lesson, yet the child is with child. A person that wants to sit next to the president needs to be able to recognize when a program does not work and opt for a better solution.
Posted by: ed | October 29, 2008 3:17 PM
Uh, the question. (or at least the context)
But things like "real America" and "terrorist" and "Joe the Plumber" aren't labels. They're tags, or designations, or brands, or any of a dozen or so other near synonyms I found in the thesaurus.
Posted by: BaldApe | October 29, 2008 4:33 PM
I don't know, when the two versions of the question were the Moment of Zen the other night, they sounded identical. It looked like the only things that changed were the gender of the person asking the question and the fact that she was next to McCain (in other words, on the short leash) in the Williams interview.
Posted by: Djinna | October 29, 2008 6:03 PM
ed,
I agree that it makes her stupid. The aspect of it that makes that particular thing "anti-feminist" is that every feminist I've known (that I can think of, anyway -- I may be forgetting someone, but honestly, every feminist that I've known and can recall) has supported kids having MORE information when they hit adolescence and the hormones start raging, not less. (Best place I've seen it summed up is at http://www.scarleteen.com/article/politics/what_is_feminist_sex_education .) There seems to have been a consistent "feminist platform" fighting the abstinence-only programs as being programs which don't protect girls from either pregnancy or STDs. So, taking a pro-abstinence-only platform is another one of the issues on which she sides against the view that I've seen mainstream feminism take, ipso fact another "anti-feminist" stance.
FWIW, I also recognise the problem with preferring ideology over assessment of facts as being pretty much the same problem behind her abstinence-only-education stance, her creationism, and her lack of qualification as VP on multiple smaller fronts.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | October 30, 2008 6:04 AM
Re: Abstinence only sex-ed.
Its success or failure depends upon the goal of sex-ed. For most it is meant to reduce teen pregnancy, STDs and, for those wishing to have a family, how to control child production rates.
For those advocating abstinence only sex-ed, its goal is to ensure ignorance among the children so that they are incapable of choosing their own sexual futures. By that light this kind of sex-ed is eminently successful!
Martin
Posted by: MartinDH | October 30, 2008 2:10 PM
Speaking as a female born in 1950:
Many younger folks don't know about the shit we went through to get educations/jobs/careers.
In the '70s and '80s I heard (from women in jobs not imaginable in the '50s) "I'm not a feminist".
Then why the hell are you here pulling down a pay check (and taking a man's job) when you could be home baking cookies for your 4 children?
Posted by: khan | October 30, 2008 7:01 PM
Taz:
You don't understand. She's declared parts of American as un-American. So they aren't actually parts of America, they're parts of un-America. She's only against labeling parts of America, it's perfectly acceptable to label parts of un-America.
I'm just waiting for the day when one of these flapjaws decides to label anyone who merely disagrees with them as being openly treasonous.
Oh. Wait. Almost forgot: Coulter.
My bad.
(And yeah, I fully realize the difference between a candidate running for office and a professional loudmouth. A real pity the gulf between the two is getting narrower by the day, isn't it?)
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | October 30, 2008 8:55 PM
I think this Palin should be running for pres.
http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/
Posted by: Lorne | October 31, 2008 2:19 PM
Palin's first appointment:
John Cleese - Secretary of State for Silly Walks! -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 31, 2008 2:25 PM