Here’s more from that essay from the irrepressible Camille Paglia on Palin. She’s no fan, of course, of John McCain, or for that matter, Sarah Palin’s politics, but that makes her commentary on Palin, and the reaction to the Palin candidacy from some on the left (“a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies”) all the more fascinating. And then there’s this:

It is certainly premature to predict how the Palin saga will go. I may not agree a jot with her about basic principles, but I have immensely enjoyed Palin’s boffo performances at her debut and at the Republican convention, where she astonishingly dealt with multiple technical malfunctions without missing a beat. A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn’t worth a warm bucket of spit..

Paglia goes on to contrast Palin’s “brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism” (good heavens!) as:

a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.

Indeed. And, by the way, reinforcing that “brand” is a very good reason why this whole “lipstick on a pig” thing looks more than a little overdone.