Here’s an excerpt from Erika Jong’s public letter to John McCain, in which she takes the senator from Arizona to task for assuming that Vice Presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, will lure women solely on the basis of her gender, despite a history of policies that directly hurt women. You can read the letter in its entirety on the Huffington Post.

But to take the struggle for equal rights that has gone on for two centuries and embody it in the person of Sarah Palin is not just misleading but abusive. Charging rape victims for rape kits is a travesty of equal rights. Insisting that government impose your own views of abortion on others is anti-equality. Cutting funding for black teenage mothers is anti-feminist and racist. Lying to the electorate about your record is insolent. Do you think we’re too stupid or indolent to check?

We have checked. You are lying and so is she. But you must think that a big lie repeated over and over becomes the truth. And it seems that many Americans are with you on that.