Tag: politics of personal destruction

Palin And The Politics Of Personal Destruction

Megan McArdle has an eminently sensible take on the whole Sarah Palin “scandal”. Needless to say, when someone like Ms. McArdle—who is an Obama supporter—is so disgusted with the left’s rhetoric, it signals that these juvenile and disgusting attacks are likely to backfire. As she puts it:

Sorry, I must have been confused. I thought I lived in a civilized society.

This is news, of course. But it is not particularly interesting news. It’s hardly the first shotgun wedding the world has ever witnessed, not even of a prominent politician’s daughter. It has basically nothing to do with her fitness to be the vice president. The people acting as if this matters deeply should be as ashamed of themselves as they claim to be of Sarah Palin’s behavior. …

On Sarah Palin as a VP I have no particular opinion, except that she doesn’t make me any more interested in voting for John McCain. But the people criticizing her are making me considerably less interested in voting for Obama. If this sort of deranged logic produces unwavering support for Obama, I have to question my own judgement.

The MoveOn.org/Daily Kos crowd is playing with fire here. They have no idea—not even the faintest inkling of a clue—of just how badly all this will play for them. They honestly seem to think that all “values voters” match their stereotypes, and that the Palin issue is some kind of magic bullet against her.

Make no mistake: the left is afraid of Sarah Palin. They are afraid of having the most powerful woman in the country be a pro-life, pro-gun conservative. They cannot stand someone they view as not falling within their carefully-drawn definition of what a woman should think.

The depths they are plumbing to attack Gov. Palin and her family are not a sign of the weakness of the pick, they are a sign of abject terror. People in a position of strength don’t need to go after a 17-year-old girl to make their points.

They are afraid of what Gov. Palin means for this race—and they well should be.

The Fruits Of Netroots Hate

I’ve long argued that the “netroots” are not going to help the Democratic Party, and the evidence keeps mounting up. Today, one of Hillary’s top fundraisers publicly threw his support to McCain. His reasoning is especially interesting:

John Coale, a prominent Washington lawyer, husband of Fox TV host Greta Van Susteren and a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, announced today that he was supporting John McCain for president. Coale, who traveled with Sen. Clinton, President Clinton and her family through out the primary season, complained of sexism, and said the Democratic Party is “being taken over by the moveon.org types” in an exclusive interview with Newsweek.com’s Tammy Haddad.

The netroot’s war with Hillary exposed a level of hatred that was frequently disturbing. The sort of thing that they called Ann Coulter names for became common within the netroots. Any decency appears to go out the window for those who don’t toe the party line of the Kos/Olberman/MoveOn.org crowd. Even fellow Democrats are not immune.

If there is any doubt of the disgusting hyper-partisanship and rank sexism of the radical left today, just watch how they’re treating the pregnancy of Bristol Palin, Gov. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter. Apparently feminism doesn’t matter if you’re not a “right-thinking” woman. The attacks will keep coming—after all, when you think that anyone who disagrees is downright evil and must be stopped at all costs, attacking a 17-year-old girl in a vulnerable time is perfectly acceptable. Some people in this country are so filled with a blind partisan rage that nothing else matters.

Gov. Palin’s family is not a political issue. Ms. Palin made a mistake, but she is not treating her baby as a “punishment” as some would have her do. Instead, she is taking responsibility for her actions, she is going to marry the father of her child, and they will be excellent parents. That is the way responsible people act, whether the “netroots” understand it or not.

The displays of naked sexism, vile partisanship, and the politics of personal destruction coming from the left these days can’t be swept under the rug forever. If Obama continues to underperform with female voters it will be in no small part due to the despicable attacks against Sen. Clinton, Gov. Palin, and Bristol Palin. The far left simply cannot stomach the idea that the most powerful woman in America could be a woman who doesn’t share their political dogma. In their attacks against these women, they’re showing their true colors. The more they spread their hatred, the more they will end up undermining their own cause.

UPDATE: Sen. Obama has wisely said that Gov. Palin’s family is out of bounds. The problem is that the extremists in the “netroots” are unlikely to listen.