Here's The Sarah Palin Photo Shoot That Everyone Is Talking About
Redeem now Less than two years ago, Newsweek featured on its cover a photo of Sarah Palin in running shorts, her elbow leaning delicately on an American flag draped over a chair. The use of the photo (which was originally taken for Runner's World magazine, and seemed to highlight Palin's well-toned legs) was controversial: would a news magazine ever pair a story on a male politician with a photo of him at the gym or in a bathing suit? Palin called it "sexist" and derided Newsweek as emblematic of a news media willing to "do anything to draw attention."
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.Either Palin has reconsidered her contempt for Newsweek or she has decided that she wouldn't mind grabbing a little attention, too. She graces the cover of the magazine again this week, having granted an exclusive interview to Peter Boyer in order to announce that she—unlike other, actually-announced Republican presidential candidates—could beat Obama in 2012.
She also posed for a series of photos that have left some baffled as to what her motives might be.
"Folks want to be able to envision someone sitting in the Oval Office," writes Jonathan Capehart on the Washington Post's blog. "They don’t necessarily want to envision them in the pages of Esquire magazine’s 'Sexiest Woman Alive 2011' or Maxim."
Click here to see the Palin photos that are setting the political class abuzz >
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