Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Yet More Palin   [Rich Lowry]

A friend e-mails:

I rarely agree with Bob Herbert, but the thrust of his op-ed in the NYT today was right on. If the Democrats aren’t careful, they can take the year Hillary almost won the nomination (and probably the White House) and use it to set the cause of women in politics back by a decade. The feeding frenzy on Sarah Palin has reached insane proportions. The NYT says that the revelation in the media that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant brings McCain’s vetting process into question. Some Dems have said that her family life is too complicated for her to be a good Vice President. Others have said that she was only picked because she’s a woman. The last two points should bring a shocked gasp to anyone who has followed the recent Democratic nomination campaigns. The world would have ended if anyone had said that Hillary was unfit because she’s a woman, which is what these attacks amount to. But Sarah Palin apparently isn’t a "woman" according to the meaning of the word in Democrat-land, because she’s a not a Democrat. "Female" is not apparently an anatomical issue, but a political one. And the glee with which Democratic women have felt free to lampoon Palin ("A Veep in Go-Go Boots…") tells us more than anything else in this debate about where the Democrats really are on the role of women in politics—they’re fine as long as a) they agree with us, and b) they aren’t really women.

How does Hillary actually feel about all that, I wonder?

But the attack on McCain about Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy is the most unbelievable of all. To begin with, since when does the Democratic Party think that having a child become pregnant out of wedlock disqualifies someone for high office? From the standpoint of the religious right, one would think that the facts that she’s going to keep the child and marry the father are more important than the timing of its conception. But what does all this have to do with Sarah Palin’s fitness for the vice presidency? … We’re learning that being a woman isn’t about chromosomes. It’s about politics. The Democrats may think that they are hereby setting back the prospect of women’s progress only in the Republican Party, although why anyone should think that that’s o.k. is beyond me. But they’re wrong. In three days, the Democrats have established the precedent for belittling all professional women, using irrelevant family arguments to attack their ability to pursue traditionally male careers, and in general re-establishing the glass ceiling for all women. Will Hillary come to Sarah’s defense? Of course not. How sad.

09/02 05:46 PMShare