Slog

You'd prefer "yeasty" maybe?

Seriously, Erica? Seriously? Like, oh my GAWD! HOW COULD THEY FUCKING WRITE THAT?!

SERIOUSLY!!!? I MEAN AM I RIGHT?! OMFG!

You're so fetch!

I am outraged! OUTRAGED I tell you! This aggression will not stand!

The headline should have been,

"PALIN: PIT BULL WITH LIPSTICK"

My arms are up and I'm up in arms!!!!

feisty:

showing courage; "the champion is faced with a feisty challenger"

huffy: quick to take offense

yenacious, energetic, spunky; belligerent; prepared to stand and fight, especially in spite of relatively small stature or some other disadvantage

What's not to love about Sarah Palin and her speech last night? Who wants to hurt their head thinking about the complex, daunting problems facing this country today when we can have fun instead just fighting the culture wars again and again?

@4 Awesome, you should be a headline writer!!!

Feisty is mild praise for what was a very, very good speech.

The media isn't fawning over her, they are being fair in this instance.

And the media unfairly slammed her by seizing on the daily kos falsehood that she faked the pregnancy.

And it's the crazed liberal bloggers like those who compare Palin to Hitler -- hello? -- who are deluing us, the Obama supproters about what's going on here.

Stop whining about Palin, this is what the tough competition looks like. (ITYS). Stop whining about the media. Get back to the positive Obama message.

We are not going to win a culture war and all attempts to turn the election into a culture war against a mother of five who got a better deal from oil companies and got a natural gas pipeline going and who fought corruption is going to.......

fail.

Where's Obama's ouster of a corrupt Illinois governor?

Nowhere.

Where's Obama's gas pipeline?

Nowhere.

Where's Obama's plan to get $4000 into the hands of the middle class?

You have to fucking read a policy paper from Brookings to hear about it.

"It's. The. Economy. [Amigos.]"
=
Palin. Is. A. Distraction. She's. Where. McCain. Wants. Us. To. Go. You. Are. Playing. Into. Rove's. Hands.

Obama has weaknesses; the GOP will masterfully exploit them; being a community organizer who didn't actually accomplish all that much is one of them.

How dare they say she was feisty! There we see the sexism inherent in the system!

According to Webster's dictionary, "feisty" means alternatively "full of nervous energy" or "having or showing a lively aggressiveness".

While her speech suffered from a total lack of substance, I would still characterize her demeanor as "full of nervous energy" and "having or showing a lively aggressiveness", regardless of whatever hidden meaning you want to infer from the Times' word choice.

So...what the hell are you mad about? Seriously, pick your battles. This is not worth a Slog post.

I have only lived in Seattle a few years. Is it me or does the Seattle Times really double as a press release clearing house.
I noticed how all of their hard-hitting, award-winning journalism is directed at individuals and other parties that have no advertising budget.

Ha. I saw that headline on seattletimes.com last night and immediately said "Feisty?! Seriously?" It's a pretty dismissive word, which as a Democrat I sort of appreciate but as a woman I find irritating. A male candidate would never be described as feisty (unless maybe he was over 90)--it implies a weak creature kind of stepping up to the plate. Bah.

(At least they didn't use "bossy"...)

Erica, it's sort of hard to understand what, exactly, you're objecting to. Is the word not serious enough for you, when applied to a female politician? Is it too adoring? Is it the etymology of the term (if you're even aware of it)?

There's a reason people get confused (in addition to annoyed) when you express your opinions through SNL catchphrases.

Really.

I heard Westneat give a vague mea culpa this AM on KUOW. Seems like he regretted his Valentine.

Ha. I saw that headline on seattletimes.com last night and immediately said "Feisty?! Seriously?" It's a pretty dismissive word, which as a Democrat I sort of appreciate but as a woman I find irritating. A male candidate would never be described as feisty (unless maybe he was over 90)--it implies a weak creature kind of stepping up to the plate, even if the dictionary defintion makes it sound more neutral. Bah.

(At least they didn't use "bossy"...)

The genius of the Palin pick is that it's just such an enormous distraction. Now we can all be fixated by Sarah Palin's gender, her small-town roots, her teenage daughter's pregnancy, whether she can serve as VP and raise an infant with Down syndrome, whether it's sexist for us to ask that question. Better we talk about these things than abstract, boring subjects like health care, Medicare, climate change, peak oil, and Iraq.

After the speech, CNN wasted 15 minutes debating whether Harry Reed's press aide was being sexist in using the word "shrill" to describe Palin's speech.

Obama's one spokesman Robert Gibbs had just the perfect tone on Larry King last night. Instead of being suckered into a debate about gender and personal attacks on Obama, he noted how in her whole speech Palin didn't offer any real solutions to the problems facing this country. (Um, I don't think she even acknowledged the problems facing this country.)

Erica, it's sort of hard to understand what, exactly, you're objecting to. Is the word not serious enough for you, when applied to a female politician? Is it too adoring? Is it the etymology of the term (if you're even aware of it)?

There's a reason people get confused (in addition to annoyed) when you express your opinions through SNL catchphrases.

Really.

Hernandez--I disagree, actually, and I feel like this could be one of those cases where the word's implications aren't as apparent unless you're, well, a woman. Now, I feel like those occasions are pretty few and far between, but this might be one of them.

Feisty is a word for old people, ladies, and....community organizers.

@10: Help, help! I'm being oppressed! Did you see him there? Oppressing me?

Erica, it's sort of hard to understand what, exactly, you're objecting to. Is the word not serious enough for you, when applied to a female politician? Is it too adoring? Is it the etymology of the term (if you're even aware of it)?

There's a reason people get confused (in addition to annoyed) when you express your opinions through SNL catchphrases.

Really.

Erica, please honey you are making a fool of yourself. Stop. You are embarrassing both yourself and all the recently laid off Stranger staffers as well.

same sexist stereotypes Hillary was attacked for

Rs like predicability, sameness. Give them the carbon-copy sterotypes, they are happy (OMG, blacks really are good b'ball players!!). Give them a sterotype with a wrinkle, they get nervous and take-a-wait-and-see attitude (Muslims are as true-to-the-bone american as a christian). Give them a broken sterotype and they go ape-shit (a woman as president, over my dead body, women are always up to sum-thin! No good for me from it !!)

Palin has to be the cutesy gal. Palin has to be family woman. If Hillary comes across as manish, or masucline, Palin needs to come across as womanly, or feminine. Palin has to play, no wait be (ie, embody) the wrinkle in the sterotype if she wants (and she does want) to convince that an R woman is ready to change the world (even, if not, in a forward moving progressive manner like HRC wants).

ECB and leek:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/08/28/2008-08-28_feisty_joe_biden_sails_smoothly_in_bill_.html

Apparently though there is an influential anti-"feisty"-in-the-media campaign, because if you search Google News for "feisty" you will find two stories where the Google News headline describes a male as "feisty" (Rick Hillier and Campbell Brown), but after clicking through to the original website the word has either been removed or changed to "confrontational", respectively.

Feisty is the perfect word for her.

What's much more interesting is how in a real sense it doesn't matter whether it's a good speech or not or whether she's a good pick or not. Even if she's the greatest VP candidate in the history of the world, bad processes sometimes produce good results. Gamblers sometimes win.

The real lesson is that McCain is impulsive, heedless and thoughtless. Did he connect on his Hail Mary? Maybe he did. But he still demonstrates exactly the wrong kind of character for the job of President. He is fundamentally NOT A SERIOUS PERSON.

When did the Times adopt the whole format of the National Enquirer? The fonts, the colors, the layout, all scream "tabloid" to me. That being said, I'm not surprised they have their tongue up Palin's ass; the Times always kowtowed to Evil Ted Stevens too.

Erica, you should've followed the front page story to its interior page -- the TOP article on the inside page was about Troopergate. Sitting right there looking aggressive, right above the continuation of the article on the feisty speech, as well as Westneat's column (which was by no means a valentine -- did you even read it?).

I've been impressed by the ST's coverage of all the negative Palin stuff, frankly.

Cool! From now on everyone officially refer to the "effeminate mr. poe" and the "geezerly fnarf." Or do you guys only like insulting slurs against women?

You people disgust me.

Frank Blethen has a boner over Palin and it's as creepy as McCain's boner.

I no longer bother with the SeaTimes. No one should. To the dustbin of history with you!

So ... seriously ... reviewers across the political spectrum, across the campaign sophistication spectrum, and across the nation figured it for a home run, and a few Stranger regulars thought something else -- and this makes the Stranger crown, well, sane?

That's not "sane", in its conventional meaning anyway.

For those of you who don't get the connotations, "feisty" is diminishing; it implies a fighter, but one that is small and cute and not very intimidating. Many women don't see it as a compliment, but as a means of "damning with faint praise".

And I have to agree with Fnarf, I think it's perfectly accurate here. Palin IS feisty, and that's all she is, and she's making him look like a fool. He looks like a rich old man showing off the trophy wife who everyone knows is going to screw him in the end.

w7ngman: I just learned this two days ago, but isn't Campbell Brown a woman?

you presume everybody understands that feisty is an anti-female slur. you throw it out there with plenty of outrage, but no explanation or context [thank you, leek, for doing that].

off the bat, it doesn't sound the least bit offensive to me, particularly when describing a politician, but i'll take your word for it. just don't be too surprised that a lot of people [men] don't get it.

#32, when a speech lacking any substance and full of gross distortions, lies, and "gotcha" moments is considered a home run, you think its wide approval is a good indicator of sanity?

#34, touche. I saw the still from the video and thought it was Brown but it was McCain's advisor.

Keep it up, ECB. Yeah, so it is only one headline with a vaguely insulting component...but only by pointing out these minor things can you desensitize people to just how pervasive sexism (or racism, or homophobism, or bicyclist-ism, or whatevs) really is.

That said...man, I really dislike that Palin. Ick.

Seemed feisty to me.

a few years ago my mom was completely undone when he heard a friend of mine refer to a woman as a 'gal'. i thought it completely innocent and bland until, she explained it as having a history that was racist and sexist and still in usage in the south where she was raised and still lives. i explained that i thought she might be overreacting which made her madder and i finally gave up and conceded. but since i've heard it used a bit and it sounds entirely diminuitive, dismissive, and derisive.and not just in the south and not just for women of color. i bristle when i hear it now - just like when i hear 'chicks' and 'broads' and sometimes 'females'.
i see what erica means about 'feisty' and even though gov. plain might welcome the description as flattering, when she meets joe biden in the ring, she's gonna want to sum up an attribute that's a bit more substantive.

I get it: You guys are barely getting any hits on your "political" coverage so you have to go with the ol' standby, criticizing the local media. And behold: 39 comments on this one. Everything else? 9, 10, yawn. Yeah, you've got your groupies.

Next up: Fat people, for-real pitbulls (not the lipstick ones), female journalists and how they suck, HIV travel bans, and critical mass.

i meant 'palin'... gov 'PALIN'

@ rev dr dj riz
I did not know that about the term 'gal'. I had always thought it was just an affectionate and retro term that indicated closeness. I guess I feel pretty sheltered growing up in the PNW. I didn't know dyke was a derogatory term until mid-HS.