Newsweek Fail

I'm with Ta-Nehisi on this. Newsweek's cover -- and incessant focus on Sarah Palin's body -- does seem sexist to me. On the other hand, it's just the ever-evolving Newsweek trying desperately to hang on to relevancy. Joel Achenbach:

First Newsweek had that ridiculous cover "In Search of Aliens" a few months back, a wild exaggeration of a story about the Kepler mission to find Earthlike worlds. Then Newsweek had a cover asking if your baby is racist. Now we have the Sarah Palin cover, using a sexy photo taken for Runner's World.

...In a single editorial decision, Newsweek has called attention to its own editorial judgment rather than to the Bizarro-World rise of Palin as an allegedly credible leader of the world's most powerful nation. That's got to get a flag and 15 yards and perhaps, pending a review by the league, at least a one-game suspension.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2009/11/newsweek-fail/30456/