Alicia Colon writes a good opinion piece at American Thinker that gets to the core of Sarah Palin's immense popularity. Excerpts:
Ms. Quinn went on to question how Palin could be a good mother while maintaining her duties as a V.P and her post garnered a lot of criticism. She was invited to appear on the O'Reilly Factor to explain her hostility and she unwittingly revealed what really ticked the media off. Seems her biggest complaint was that Sarah Palin was not mentioned early enough for the media to vet her properly.
Nevertheless, these catty and vicious comments on Palin prove what I've always known. Women are women's worst enemies.
What Sarah Palin brings to the national scale is a glimpse into the lives of the real women of America. There are more women who resemble her than resemble the Steinems or the Quinns. One young woman, who faced an unplanned pregnancy, kept the child and married the father, told me that she never thought she would ever see someone like Palin in such a high office. "She's someone I could really relate to, "she said, "because she shares my own values."
What Sarah Palin's critics do not understand is that large families evolve and the more can be the merrier as long as there is a supportive husband as a partner. Older children become mother's helpers and in so doing become independent and competent. I ought to know. My husband and I raised six children and are reaping the rewards with seven grandchildren.
A few weeks ago I wrote that the first black president would probably be a Republican. Now it's plain to see that the first woman president will be one too.
By now some of the Sarah Palin hoopla will have died down and people can view her candidacy for the Vice President more realistically. While it's fair to say that the mainstream media was surprised -- no, make that stunned -- by the Governor of Alaska, those of us charter members of the vast right wing conspiracy are not. Sarah Palin is not that special. In fact, she's typical of the conservative American women who don't whine about how difficult it is to wear so many hats. We just do it.
Feminists like Gloria Steinem who have never had children simply cannot imagine how mothers of large families cope. The idea of allowing a mentally challenged child's birth to proceed is inconceivable. Ms. Steinem denigrated Gov. Palin in a commentary for the Los Angeles Times -- Palin: wrong woman; wrong message.
Steinem wrote, "This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need."
Unqualified?
Sally Quinn, hostess with the mostest of the Beltway dinner clique, savaged Palin's selection as a choice that made her "angry." She wrote,
Feminists like Gloria Steinem who have never had children simply cannot imagine how mothers of large families cope. The idea of allowing a mentally challenged child's birth to proceed is inconceivable. Ms. Steinem denigrated Gov. Palin in a commentary for the Los Angeles Times -- Palin: wrong woman; wrong message.
Steinem wrote, "This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need."
Unqualified?
Sally Quinn, hostess with the mostest of the Beltway dinner clique, savaged Palin's selection as a choice that made her "angry." She wrote,
"McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical and calculated move. It is a choice made to try to win an election. It is a political gimmick. And it's very high risk. I find it insulting to women, to the Republican party, and to the country."
Ms. Quinn went on to question how Palin could be a good mother while maintaining her duties as a V.P and her post garnered a lot of criticism. She was invited to appear on the O'Reilly Factor to explain her hostility and she unwittingly revealed what really ticked the media off. Seems her biggest complaint was that Sarah Palin was not mentioned early enough for the media to vet her properly.
Nevertheless, these catty and vicious comments on Palin prove what I've always known. Women are women's worst enemies.
What Sarah Palin brings to the national scale is a glimpse into the lives of the real women of America. There are more women who resemble her than resemble the Steinems or the Quinns. One young woman, who faced an unplanned pregnancy, kept the child and married the father, told me that she never thought she would ever see someone like Palin in such a high office. "She's someone I could really relate to, "she said, "because she shares my own values."
What Sarah Palin's critics do not understand is that large families evolve and the more can be the merrier as long as there is a supportive husband as a partner. Older children become mother's helpers and in so doing become independent and competent. I ought to know. My husband and I raised six children and are reaping the rewards with seven grandchildren.
A few weeks ago I wrote that the first black president would probably be a Republican. Now it's plain to see that the first woman president will be one too.
Colon is right. Palin isn't that special. Millions of women accomplish similar deeds on a daily basis, but never get credit for it. Palin is representative of those women who do what they do because they believe that's how they should live life. They do what they do because it needs to be done. To suggest that Palin can't juggle her personal life with a high-profile career is to suggest that no woman can do that juggling act, and that's simply not true, especially for a healthy, well-adjusted family.
Jonathan Last goes into some more detail on the root of the Left's hatred of Palin, and the reasons are distinctly un-political:
Last offers a lot more detail in the article, so go check it out. The point is that the reasons the Left hates Palin is precisely because of who she is and what she stands for. Unfortunately for the Left, much of what Palin stands for represents a wide cross-section of the American people. This is why the public has been taken with her. The reason the political world has been shaken to the core is that this woman is from the 'wrong' party. The establishment has been back-handed - Palin is a successful, accomplished, competent, and pretty woman that has a realistic chance to achieve new heights for all women in this country, but they can't give her those accolades without acknowledging their incorrectness of many of their positions. Thus, the liberal elite (who hate her) has been revealed to be completely out of step with the American people (who love her).
Even worse, the decades-old schtick that the Republican party is a hotbed of sexism (as portrayed by the liberal Left, of course) has been completely blown out of the water. It's not that the GOP wouldn't follow any woman, it's simply that the GOP hadn't found the right woman to follw. Palin is that woman, and the time for following is now. She stepped up, and the base is following her with great excitement. The Right has long said it values what a person has to offer rather than to which demographic that person belongs, and the talk has suddenly been converted into walk. If McCain and Palin win in November, it could cause such a huge upheaval in the way minorities perceive their party affiliations that the effects would be felt for decades into the future.
By continuing to attack Palin, the liberal Left risks only the further alienation of the increasing numbers of Americans who identify with her and her family. By all means, I hope they keep it up, because they'll create the landslide election they've been hoping for since 2006...it'll just be a landslide in the 'wrong' direction.
There's my two cents.
Jonathan Last goes into some more detail on the root of the Left's hatred of Palin, and the reasons are distinctly un-political:
1) Trig Palin's Down's Syndrome is a challenge to their ideas about what represents worthwhile life. The fact that this Down's baby was carried to term and not aborted is statement that his life has the same value as all life. This is an idea with which the left vehemently disagrees.
2) Which leads, of course, to abortion. Palin's family is a double-rebuke to the culture of abortion. First, there's Palin's decision not to kill Trig because he has Trisomy 21. Then there is seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin's decision to not to kill her baby.
Contrast this with Barack Obama's statement that he would keep abortion legal so that if one of his daughters were to "make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." This statement is freighted with meaning: Obama views out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a mistake (which is sensible); he views such a resulting baby as punishment (which is less so); and he has strong feelings that should such a situation occur, he would not want his daughter to carry the baby to term. It is, objectively speaking, a pro-abortion statement.
3) Then there are Palin's religious views. She is a lifelong Christian who belongs to an evangelical church. No further explanations should be needed about the provocations which emanate there from.
4) Finally, there's the fertility. The Palin family's five children would have been unexceptional forty years ago, but today constitute something of a fertility freak show. They're the type of people for whom the epithet "breeder" was invented.
Why the worry about this? First, there's the fact that few of Palin's tormenters can understand the fact of her large, traditional family. That is certainly not the way in which they have structured their lives.
Second, there is the left's long-standing concern about overpopulation, which has become a staple of modern environmentalism, beginning with Paul Ehrlich's 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich preached a Malthusian near-future in which hundreds of millions would perish by famine as the world's unchecked population growth spiraled to infinity. As it happens, Ehrlich's predictions were entirely incorrect: Not only has increased food production reduced famine to a weapon of political conflict, but the world's population growth has slowed to a crawl.
And finally, there is the concern that the amped up fertility of people such as the Palins will lead to a less progressive future. In an influential 2006 essay in Foreign Policy, demographer Philip Longman warned of the "Return of Patriarchy" as religiously orthodox and fundamentalist populations were reproducing at much higher rates than post-modern and secular populations. The result, Longman worried, will eventually be a return to a less politically and culturally progressive era.
2) Which leads, of course, to abortion. Palin's family is a double-rebuke to the culture of abortion. First, there's Palin's decision not to kill Trig because he has Trisomy 21. Then there is seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin's decision to not to kill her baby.
Contrast this with Barack Obama's statement that he would keep abortion legal so that if one of his daughters were to "make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." This statement is freighted with meaning: Obama views out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a mistake (which is sensible); he views such a resulting baby as punishment (which is less so); and he has strong feelings that should such a situation occur, he would not want his daughter to carry the baby to term. It is, objectively speaking, a pro-abortion statement.
3) Then there are Palin's religious views. She is a lifelong Christian who belongs to an evangelical church. No further explanations should be needed about the provocations which emanate there from.
4) Finally, there's the fertility. The Palin family's five children would have been unexceptional forty years ago, but today constitute something of a fertility freak show. They're the type of people for whom the epithet "breeder" was invented.
Why the worry about this? First, there's the fact that few of Palin's tormenters can understand the fact of her large, traditional family. That is certainly not the way in which they have structured their lives.
Second, there is the left's long-standing concern about overpopulation, which has become a staple of modern environmentalism, beginning with Paul Ehrlich's 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb. Ehrlich preached a Malthusian near-future in which hundreds of millions would perish by famine as the world's unchecked population growth spiraled to infinity. As it happens, Ehrlich's predictions were entirely incorrect: Not only has increased food production reduced famine to a weapon of political conflict, but the world's population growth has slowed to a crawl.
And finally, there is the concern that the amped up fertility of people such as the Palins will lead to a less progressive future. In an influential 2006 essay in Foreign Policy, demographer Philip Longman warned of the "Return of Patriarchy" as religiously orthodox and fundamentalist populations were reproducing at much higher rates than post-modern and secular populations. The result, Longman worried, will eventually be a return to a less politically and culturally progressive era.
Last offers a lot more detail in the article, so go check it out. The point is that the reasons the Left hates Palin is precisely because of who she is and what she stands for. Unfortunately for the Left, much of what Palin stands for represents a wide cross-section of the American people. This is why the public has been taken with her. The reason the political world has been shaken to the core is that this woman is from the 'wrong' party. The establishment has been back-handed - Palin is a successful, accomplished, competent, and pretty woman that has a realistic chance to achieve new heights for all women in this country, but they can't give her those accolades without acknowledging their incorrectness of many of their positions. Thus, the liberal elite (who hate her) has been revealed to be completely out of step with the American people (who love her).
Even worse, the decades-old schtick that the Republican party is a hotbed of sexism (as portrayed by the liberal Left, of course) has been completely blown out of the water. It's not that the GOP wouldn't follow any woman, it's simply that the GOP hadn't found the right woman to follw. Palin is that woman, and the time for following is now. She stepped up, and the base is following her with great excitement. The Right has long said it values what a person has to offer rather than to which demographic that person belongs, and the talk has suddenly been converted into walk. If McCain and Palin win in November, it could cause such a huge upheaval in the way minorities perceive their party affiliations that the effects would be felt for decades into the future.
By continuing to attack Palin, the liberal Left risks only the further alienation of the increasing numbers of Americans who identify with her and her family. By all means, I hope they keep it up, because they'll create the landslide election they've been hoping for since 2006...it'll just be a landslide in the 'wrong' direction.
There's my two cents.
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