When he betrayed her with adultery in the Oval Office, she became the victim, and rode "wifely vulnerability" into the U.S. Senate. When she came close but fell short of the Democratic presidential nomination, feminists cried "sexism" was to blame.

But all that was then, and now John McCain has chosen as his running mate an obscure governor from the far north woods. Sarah Palin, the first woman picked for a Republican ticket, hasn't been asked about her recipes, but she joshes that she can make a mean stew of the moose she shot. She was photographed holding a big fish that for a lot of men would have been the one that got away. As a Feminist for Life, she speaks movingly of giving birth to a baby she knew was afflicted with Down syndrome.

Then, like a bolt of lightning from the Alaskan sky, we learn that Bristol, her 17-year-old daughter, is five months pregnant and intends to bring the baby to term and marry the father. Bloggers spread ugly rumors about the governor that were quelled only by the announcement of Bristol's great expectations, and Barack Obama had to remind them that he, too, was born of a teenage mother, and ugly speculation "shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Palin's performance as a governor or potential performance as a vice president."

The Palin family has reignited the Mommy Wars, with a vengeance. Can a mother of five, about to be a grandmother of one, have it all? In the abstract, she's a feminist's dream. In the particulars where most of us live, it's harder to say. McCain doesn't think any of these particulars disqualify her. They surely wouldn't disqualify a man.

So the wheel of sexual politics turns again. Mother Nature will out, as she always will, and if biology is not destiny she sure has a lot to say about how men and women live their lives -- even candidates for president and vice president of the United States. But Sarah Palin's parents were right: This is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity.