This presidential election is one of the most exciting in American history. Not because this election could be either an end to the past eight years or a continuance of them. Not because we are at war.It’s because for the first time in our nation’s history, we are guaranteed that there will be a previously unrepresented group in our executive branch of government.As the Democratic primary took shape and Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton emerged as front-runners I was impressed. The party of Reconstruction, Jim Crowe and segregation turning the page?Really?What was more amazing was how this was treated in the press. When Obama and Clinton were the centers of attention it was an idea and issue focused campaign. When Delaware Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden said that Obama was not qualified when they were running against each other in the Democratic Presidential Primary, it was because Obama was undoubtedly too inexperienced to lead our nation. It was not because of his race.The same standard applied to Clinton. When her national health care system was bashed it was because it was and is a bad idea. It was not because she was a woman.When John McCain announced that he had chosen Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, I was worried. She is not a known commodity in national politics. Saying that she is experienced enough to lead our nation from her one term as governor of Alaska is like saying that my two semesters in LSU’s student senate qualify me to be the U.S. Senate’s majority leader.It doesn’t fit.With so many holes in her resume, I never thought she would be attacked for her gender.Ordinarily I would never have known of an article published in US Weekly. Celebrity gossip isn’t something that interests me. When it decided to attack Palin it took me a while to hear about it, but once I did it was already a national story. A magazine that isn’t interesting enough to be good bathroom reading suddenly became relevant and discussed in newspapers from The New York Times to the L.A. Times.Talk shows on every channel from Fox News to CNN were talking about an article that should have never seen the light of day.The magazine alleged almost everything imaginable and none of it flattering. It said Palin’s youngest child, who has Down syndrome, is actually the first child of Palin’s pregnant daughter Bristol. It begins the article accusing Palin of being a dirty politician. What I found most disturbing was their attack on Palin’s gender. It asks how she could be a mother to five children and serve as Vice President.This was troublesome because it isn’t a question that has been asked of any other politician in this election. No one asks how Obama could simultaneously be commander-in-chief and a father to two young children. No one asked any of these questions to any other former president.When this happened I found myself thinking that for once I could not wait to hear what the National Organization of Women had to say about this article. Since NOW’s policies are distinctly opposed to Palin’s, I hardly expected an endorsement for the McCain/Palin ticket. I did expect, much to my unending regret, an organization devoted to achieving “Equality in pay, job opportunities, political structure, social security and education,” to offer a principled defense to such a slanderous comment.Surely if the ACLU can defend clients most of us would spend a lifetime opposing like the KKK or NAMBLA, then NOW can defend Palin. Am I crazy?Instead, I found a letter written by NOW’s Political Action Committee Chair, Kim Gandy, titled “Not Every Woman Supports Women’s Rights.” In this letter Gandy asserts that the choice of Palin was a cynical effort to garner women’s support which was against their own self-interest. Gandy states that women in our country won’t support Palin. Most alarmingly, just because Palin’s idea of feminism differs from hers, Gandy states that Alaska’s governor doesn’t support women’s rights.Fortunately for the rest of us living in reality, Gandy does not in fact speak for all women. In polls following the naming of Palin as the Republican’s VP candidate, McCain’s numbers have gone up among women. He has taken an 8-point deficit and turned it into a 12-point advantage 53 percent to 41 percent lead.The National Organization of Women has done much to help women in the past. Unfortunately, until they can effectively fulfill their promises to all women in our country — not just those who share their limited view of feminism — they will remain a fringe group at the beck and call of the far left fringe.Then again I could be wrong. No one ever accused me of being a woman.—-contact Matt McEntire at [email protected]