I was interviewed on PBS last week about Palin’s book release. I said that Palin had an especially serious problem with women voters. This is just fact, again recorded in every survey...And yet this attested statistical fact is shrugged off with comments like, “when I saw her campaign in N.H., I was surrounded by moms with strollers”

[...]Sarah’s constituency is a relatively small cohort of conservative men.
I offended a lot of these people last week by suggesting that there was
some sexual dynamic at work in the enthusiasm for the politician whom
Rush Limbaugh used to describe as “Governor Babe.” So let’s put it this
way: Whatever impulse it is that so excites Palin supporters, it is not
shared by their wives.

Just a reminder. December 2006:

I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really
focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new
deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances
that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe.

My italics. Today:

“I want our president and this administration to listen to the advisers
who they hired. McChrystal, for one, back in March, telling
the president, 'Here's what we're going to need there' and then ramping
up that advice lately, saying, 'Mr. President, here's what we need in
Afghanistan to win, to make sure that those terror cells don't grow, so
that those terrorists don't come back over to the homeland in America,
on our soil, and kill innocent Americans.'”

"Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this."

This story about Palin’s meeting with Billy and Franklin Graham tends to bolster the End-Times possibility:

The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate told Billy Graham about how she came to faith in God as a girl in Bible camp.

She quizzed him on the presidents he’s known and wanted his take on what the Bible says about Israel, Iran and Iraq, Franklin Graham reported.

David Brooks: Asians place emphasis on context while Westerners place more emphasis on individuals. This seems like a gross generalization but it is robustly supported by hundreds and hundreds of studies. Richard Nisbett’s book, “The Geography of Thought” summarizes some of the evidence.

If you show Americans a fish tank, they’ll talk about the biggest fish in the tank. If you show Asians a tank they will make, on average, 60 percent more references to the context and the features of the scene. Western parents tend to emphasize nouns and categories when teaching their kids, Korean parents tend to emphasize verbs and relationships. If you show Americans a picture of a chicken, a cow and grass, they will lump the chicken and the cow, because they are both animals. Asians are more likely to lump the cow and the grass because cows eat grass. They have a relationship.

The mode of thought more common in Asia is better suited to the complex networks that make up the modern world. The contextual, associational style is simply more valid. The linear style we’ve inherited from the Greeks is less adaptive toward the modern age. I think the West may be doomed.

David Brooks: I haven’t even mentioned gender differences yet. I think the same things I’ve said about Asians can be said about women as compared to men.

I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read this stuff as part of your book research, but my understanding is that the cognitive processing of male and female brains is mostly the same except for in one area: social cognition. Women, on average, pick up more social signals.

Um:

When she got off the bus, wearing her familiar uniform of black skirt, high heels and red blazer, she waved with one hand and held her son Trig, dressed in a striped green sweater, in the other. The group erupted in applause. She walked to a small platform in the middle of the crowd, said "Thank you so much for showing up," and handed Trig to an aide.

What is the point of carrying the baby to the platform and then handing him to an aide? Why not leave him on the bus with an aide? Is he just a prop?