“Don’t you dare blame her!” threatens Kathryn Lopez, editor of The National Review Online.  The “her” is Alaskan Governor and Republican Party vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

And…what are we blaming her for?

For U.S. Senator and Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain’s “defeat or close call,” Lopez says.

“Don’t you dare!” she shrieks. 

But we do dare.  Not that there isn’t plenty of blame to go around the whole Republican Party, whose almost certain defeat could still be staved off by a miracle, like a brother who’s governor of a key state, or a helpful Supreme Court justice.

But today’s a different day.  Bush-league power politics won’t work until we next meet George P. Bush, the Mexican-American grandchild who George H.W. once called “the little brown one.”  How the Bushes would have loved for George P. to have been the first brown president!

Looks like Obama will beat George P. to it, though.  Regardless, the Republican Party lies in tatters.

Dare we blame Palin?  Sure!  The liabilities she brought McCain’s candidacy were obvious from the start.  That her liabilities were also the same qualities that made her so manifestly attractive to McCain’s advisors and even to McCain himself is the stuff of tragedy for the Republicans, and the ambrosia of Democratic opportunity. 

Republican apparatchiks don’t grasp the dilemma.  Lopez claims Palin “has presented America with an entirely new type of feminism, one that conservative women and the Catholic Church can finally understand and identify with.”  Really?  What is “feminist” about a woman who lets her juvenile daughter run around with liquor and beer bottles in one hand, loaded pistol in another, and be impregnated by a high school drop-out, hockey-playing pretty boy? 

Tell us again, Editor Lopez: Exactly what about this fecund spectacle will the Catholic Church will now “finally understand and identify with?” 

What is “feminist” about a woman who supposedly conceals her own pregnancy, only to reveal it just long enough to fly on a plane in violation of aviation regulations, endangering her unborn child, and then, while supposedly leaking amniotic fluid, flies back and makes a lengthy journey to an obscure hospital rather than allow her baby to be safely born in a state like Texas or Louisiana?  Surely, the Catholic Church does appreciate the Palins’ decision not to abort little Trig, or any child, including the one that Bristol Palin is now reportedly carrying, married or not.  But there’s very little “feminist” or “new” here. 

What about the true feminism of women who don’t conceal their pregnancies, but insist, nevertheless, upon being treated fairly at work?  What about working women who choose, frequently, to unfairly lose their jobs in order to get off their feet during difficult or high-risk pregnancies?

Lopez then calls Palin “a breath of fresh air” who’s “not a creature of Washington” but “a citizen-legislator.”  But all real legislators are “citizen-legislators,” and very few of them actually work in Washington, D.C.  Real legislators do learn a lot about the laws of their states—something Palin has not yet evinced any deep interest in.  If Palin had started her political career as a legislator, she’d likely be a much more knowledgeable future candidate than the party hack she’s fast becoming. 

Lopez clearly sees Palin as the Republican Party’s ideal candidate to run in 2012.  “She’s an ambitious, honest woman,” Lopez writes, “who tries to make it all work without playing victim or sacrificing her family.”  But Lopez’s statement just invites incredulity.  Palin’s ambition is both obvious and discomfiting.  Her “honesty” has not yet been tested, unless you’re counting her parading her pregnant juvenile daughter, belted belly bursting through designer clothes, across the national stage as “honest.”  Nevertheless, “Troopergate” shadows Palin, and the investigator’s conclusion that she abused her political powers to damage her ex-brother-in-law’s career is disturbing, whatever one’s party affiliation.

And Palin constantly “plays the victim.” She claims the media abuses her by asking what newspapers she reads.  She claims her Republican handlers victimized her by spending a bundle to smooth her ragged edges—her ill-fitting clothes, her jingle-jangle earrings, her bangle bracelets that clink annoyingly into microphones as she expounds her curious views, her hard-to-follow, sing-songy diction.  To what end?  To make her more palatable and, frankly, interesting, to independent voters who are way more sophisticated than Palin’s gun-totin,’ Bible-thumpin,’ right-wing fringe.  Why bother?  Because that is how Republicans win presidential elections.

Palin’s shrieking that she’d been victimized was a selfish, destructive thing to do.

America’s presidency means a lot.  If Palin wants to truly lead, she should vie for the Alaskan senate seat that may soon be free.

If Lopez thinks that Palin can just use her amusing Miss Wassila strut to lead the nation in 2012 without such experience, Lopez should think again.  We dare say.








 

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