Lying To Make Friends

Ross Douthat had a column in the NY Times this morning bemoaning the sexism and elitism motivating the media’s treatment of Sarah Palin. As Adam Serwer points out, this follows a pattern of conservatives suddenly caring about issues like sexism whenever a Republican is affected. (Bonus points for the Futurama reference).

This discussion demonstrates part of what makes Palin such a frustrating public figure. There are many fascinating questions about sexism and elitism surrounding the media’s coverage of and the country’s reaction to Sarah Palin, but she was so spectacularly and uniquely unqualified for the position to which she was nominated that these issues are almost impossible to analyze. There’s simply no basis for comparison: even Dan Quayle would have had more engagement with most issues of national importance in his first week in the Senate than Palin appears to have had in her entire life up to the time of her selection.

This reveals what a deeply cynical choice Palin’s nomination was in the first place. I suspect one reason the McCain campaign felt it could choose Palin without doing anything close to a proper vetting is because it thought it could answer any attacks on her, regardless of the merits, by charging sexism. This would have the added benefits of portraying liberals as hypocrites (since, you know, liberals are supposed to care about sexism) and maybe winning over some disaffected Hillary voters. Which just shows how poorly conservatives understand racism and sexism: only someone who sees all charges of sexism as equally meritless could fail to see a distinction between the treatment of a highly qualified and accomplished public servant like Clinton and an incompetent like Palin.

-AR