Running for cover: Newsweek's Sarah Palin mistake

Sarah Palin doesn't need us to defend her. She has an army of REAL AMERICANS who LOVE GUNS, HATE TAXES, EAT VELVEETA with their BARE HANDS and probably IMAGINE SHE SMELLS PRETTY DAMN FINE. We, on the other hand, think she was stretching herself as mayor of Wasilla. President of the United States? Do you remember Jennifer Jason Leigh's exit scene in "The Hitcher"? That's the kind of stretch we're seeing there.

Still, we have to wonder what they were drinking at Newsweek when they picked the cover picture for their Palin article. It's from a shoot she did for Runners World a few months back. Weird pose, tight runner pants, flag over the back of a chair next to her (her urge to wrap herself in it must be overpowering), plus something in her hand that we didn't look close enough at to identify (Taser for liberals? "Greatest Hits of Lee Greenwood" to run to?).

We saw when Runners World posted it with other pictures and some Q&A stuff online, back during a stretch when Palin wasn't doing much press. We thought some of the pics, well, odd, but we had never heard she was a runner during the campaign, so it was news to us, and oddly humanizing news about a person we thought might have been built on a secret far-right assembly line. (The line has since been upgraded, we heard, and is now producing Carrie Prejean.)

Newsweek's excuse -- "most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover" -- sounds weak. We haven't seen the story yet, but given the description on the front, using this pic might be another of those Jennifer Jason Leigh stretches. There are plenty of "interesting" photos of Palin that don't look like rejects for the cover shot of J. Crew's late-summer clearance mailer. Maybe the story brings it all together, but we could have used a hint on the cover as to why that image was used other than to embarrass her, if that is indeed possible.

Palin's saying it's sexist (for all the Rush-rants against the cult of victimization, it's nearly a fetish for some of the far-right types). We'll stick with questionable, and maybe dumb.