No more about kid gloves, please!

If I hear one more pundit say that Joe Biden must handle Sarah Palin with kid gloves in the VP debate, I think I'll scream and organize a bra-burning. How far haven't we come as women that we must be protected in debates against opponents who are cautioned not to "talk down" to us because we are women?

I ask you, would anybody say that to an opponent debating Hillary Clinton? No of course not, because we know that Hillary can handle anything, which is why many of us voted for her. A debate is a debate and treating the other differently because of gender is absurd here in the 21st century.

Palin has a lot to answer for from the press and from the opposition. Although McCain didn't vet her, everybody and her brother are digging up the stories about the real Sarah. Have you heard the one about a speech she gave at her church this past June? Via the wonderful folks at HuffPo:

Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."

She also has a pastor problem. Ed Kalnins senior pastor of the Wasilla Assembly of God church preaches that those who voted against Bush will end up in H E double hockey sticks, that we are in the end times and that Jesus is calling for us to die. In his own words:

"What you see in a terrorist -- that's called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die."

The bets are on -- how long before Ms Palin decides to respectfully decline the nomination because her family or Alaska or the new oil pipeline needs her more?