The liberal campaign to seek to diminish Sarah Palin by sexualizing her continues. Yesterday, I described how Frank Rich used a number of sexualized terms in reference to Palin's relationship with McCain: "shotgun marriage," "speed-dating" and "embrace." Chris Matthews employed a similar tactic this evening, claiming that Palin is running "somewhere between a VP and a First Lady."During the first segment of this evening's Hardball, Matthews tried out his theory, with no particular success, on pollster Stu Rothenberg and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd. For the record, Matthews did stop short of telling Palin to iron McCain's shirt:CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me try my theory about why Sarah Palin seems to be catching on. I don't think she's running as a traditional VP, which is no big deal. She's running as kind of like the other partner, somewhere between a VP and a First Lady, maybe.Imagine the liberal/feminist outrage if a Republican had sought to portray a sitting governor and VP candidate as a First Lady.Note: Matthews was on quite a roll tonight, trying to undermine Palin and the McCain ticket at large. As my colleague Geoffrey Dickens has noted, Matthews wondered whether Republican mention of "community organizer" is akin to "welfare queen" or even "outside agitator," the segregationsists' term from the '60s for civil rights activists.
