Sarah Palin — the Angelina Jolie of politics?

(By Jim Geraghty, National Review Online) - Tuesday night on Hugh's program, we discussed the Vanity Fair article about Sarah Palin and why, eight months after the election, Palin still arouses such fury amongst liberals and so many rank-and-file Democrats.

After all, even if you think her election to the Vice Presidency would be the worst disaster to ever befall the Republic, Palin has, by and large, gone away. She's mostly focused on her work as governor of Alaska. She doesn't appear on many talk shows or do many interviews. She's been outside of Alaska... four times? Once to the National Governors Association meeting, once to a pro-life dinner, once to the Alfalfa Club dinner and once to Albany for an event raising money for a museum honoring William Seward, the 19th-century U.S. secretary of state who acquired Alaska for the United States. There's no clear sense of her future plans; the near-daily denunciation seems to be just in case she decides to run for national office, a far-from-certain promotion which would occur, at the earliest, three and a half years from now.

My first thought was that it tied heavily to her appearance; in liberals' minds, conservatives are supposed to look like the couple from the painting American Gothic: Dour and joyless, aged, spartan and frail. Political leaders aren't supposed to be young, really good looking women, full of energy, smiles and winks.