...ummm... how do I say this delicately?? I read the New York Times for intelligent, thoughtful and relatively objective news and news analysis. Unfortunately, after watching these two bloggers on video embedded within yesterday's NYT Online, I felt a wave of, well, confusion.

Why, you ask? Because, a discussion, by two adult women, two educated, sophisticated and opinionated women, each with a global online platform, regarding the "girliness" or "femininty" of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is, at best, ridiculous.

Opinion | Bloggingheads

Bloggingheads: Palin's Girliness

Megan Carpentier, left, of the blog Jezebel and Rebecca Traister of Salon discuss female politicians, such as Sarah Palin, who refuse to hide their femininity.

One reason is, and you have to actually watch these two women discuss this "important" topic, that women have to stop talking about issues of dress and feminine demeanor as it relates to the actual heft of a female politician. Ultimately, it is with this line of conversation that we begin to dig our very own ditches -- sink our own ship, shoot ourselves in the Prada stacked heel Maryjane with the alligator piping round the toe.

You know the ditches of which I speak. The one we love to complain about when men compare our "racks" or "junk in the trunk" while we are in the Ladies Room during a business meeting or seminar. It is demeaning, self-defeating and it raises the bar on most average looking women in a way that precludes them from focusing on global economic crises and wars. Again, we all need not be attractive and "girly" to be successful, respected, well-liked or even loved by men. Shocking but true.

In fact, women entrusted with the weight of the world simply cannot be examined in light of their femininity, it is counterintuitive. We don't want you giggling or worried about the back of your pencil skirt making "your butt look big " while the economy goes to hell in a hand basket.

Whether men find us attractive or not, while we attempt to draft a plan to withdraw troops safely from Iraq, shouldn't matter. If it does matter to that particular female politician, she shouldn't be in office. Why? Because, making men find you attractive is a full-time job. Being attractive and girly takes a whole lot of gosh darn effort. You'll have no brain space or time for anything else. Flicking your hair, winking at the audience or constantly pinning your hair up into a zany, back-combed beehive, with lightly razor cut fringed bangs, is a full day's work in and of itself. Just ask Madonna. Guy Richie complained that she works out 4 hours a day -- she had no time for nookie.

The second reason is, Sarah Palin is not "girly." So stop it, blogging heads. Just because she smiles, waves and wears high heels, does not make her girly. I am sure the moose she skinned and boiled in her backyard did not find her girly; nor did the endangered Alaskan Wolf she shot in the back from a helicopter and then impaled.

Trust me, I asked them both and they told me they found her quite the Neanderthal.