With Caroline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin still making almost daily news, both the Old and New media are falling back on the old standby: the comparison piece.

Is Kennedy being treated differently than Palin? Is Kennedy's bid for the Senate like Clinton's? And isn't Michelle just like Jackie Kennedy, right down to the sheath dress?

These four women represent four different geographical regions, four different religions, four different socioeconomic classes, two or three different generations, two different political parties....and a partridge in a pear tree. (Sorry. Happy Holidays, everyone!) About the only thing they really have in common is that they have all, at one point or another, borne human young.

These are not trivial distinctions. Hillary Clinton, for example, is a decade or more older than either Caroline Kennedy or Sarah Palin. Her worldview was shaped by her upbringing in postwar suburban Chicago and later, by the social revolutions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. By working her way into the Ivy League, she fulfilled the modern paradigm of the working-class kid doing better than her parents, and became a lawyer when it was still fairly novel for women to join law firms (particularly in Arkansas). She started in the Democratic Party as a field operative, and almost four decades later, came within a few million votes of running it.

Her experience of growing up in Park Ridge, Illinois in the '60 was much different than Michelle Robinson Obama's experience of growing up a few miles away in Chicago's South Side in the '70s. Michelle, too, fulfilled the dream of making herself into more, attending Princeton and Harvard and returning home to Chicago to practice. Largely because of the gains made by women like Hillary Clinton, her entry into the legal profession more of a expectation than a novelty. She's been more of a traditional political spouse, part of her husband's career, but not necessarily part of the party's machine.

Even though Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama are the same age -- born within a month of each other in the opening days of 1964 -- their lives couldn't have been more different. Born in Sandpoint, Idaho and raised in the Mat-Su Valley of Alaska, like a lot of Westerners, her life was spent among big, dramatic backdrops, but a with fairly limited range of options. The daughter of a schoolteacher, she graduated from college, married and had children while young. Although she started younger than most, her public career has followed the common path of modern female politicians: city council, mayor, govenor.

Jacqueline and Caroline Kennedy grew up world apart from all of these women. Their lives were -- and in Caroline's case, continue to be -- shaped by their birth into the wealthy, East Coast, Catholic elite. Obviously, this offered them no protection from the loss of loved ones to violent deaths, horrific accidents, and terminal illness, and they've suffered the added pain of having to live out their grief in the public eye. But looking at them as 20th Century women, in comparison to other 20th Century women, they had a different set of options to shape their lives.

Like Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy has a degree from Harvard Law, but unlike Michelle, she was a Harvard legacy. (The John F Kennedy School of Government -- on John F. Kennedy Street -- is about a mile away from the Harvard Law School campus.) While Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama spent a good portion of the working lives in law offices, Caroline Kennedy has never practiced. She's never had to. Like her mother, she's devoted herself to raising her children, to supporting worthy causes, to writing middlebrow books, and to keeping her life as private as possible.

Maybe after a political season of "Iron My Shirt" and "Cariboo Barbie" and such, I've become overly sensitive. We often compare male politicians -- "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them." -- but those comparisons don't have that ah-hell-let's-just-pitch-them-in-a-kiddie-pool-full-of-pudding-and-may-the-best-woman-win feeling to it.

When we, as voters, are looking at politicians, we're looking for those individuals that resonate for us: Will Candidate X understand my struggles and help me when I'm in need? Will Candidate Y bring jobs to my region? Does Candidate XY share my social values? Can Candidate YX clearly articulate their positions? Will Candidate Z move outside their comfort zone to show that they want the job, that they are worthy of my vote? These are not gendered issues. Media, Old or New, would do better by the voters in focusing on those questions -- and not these bogus "Rrrow Catfight!" stories.

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Previously on "High-Sounding Words": a history of women appointed to the Senate in the 20th Century, the un-drama of Hillary Clinton, and the challenges that face Michelle Obama in the White House.