Low moaning Dems & MSM this morning

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker tells us about it - - -

The smug laughter among liberal elites at Sarah Palin is quieting down, replaced by low moaning. Clive Crook of The Atlantic admits that there might have been just a bit of misunderestimating going on among the left:

...the Democrats have a problem. They had a few days of calling her a clueless redneck, a stewardess, a nonentity, and she has hurled that back in their bleeding gums. (If I were Joe Biden, I'd start practicing for October 2nd right now.)

Even before tonight's speech, they had backed off the "no experience" strategy, because (as the Republicans intended) that was sending shrapnel in Obama's direction. Their line right now is their default mode, that McCain-Palin is four more years of George Bush. But this too is a completely untenable strategy, since the Republican ticket now looks stunningly fresh to voters, as fresh in fact as Obama-Biden.

Where they will have to end up is obvious: McCain-Palin is an extreme right-wing ticket. It is a team that will prosecute the culture war against all that is decent and civilized in the United States: that must be the line.

I think he's right. Expect the Democrats to caricature Palin (again), this time as a wild-eyed religious fanatic bent on imposing her views on others' lives. That's fine with me. Let's have a nuanced talk about the infanticide Obama supports, while little Piper Palin slicks down Trig's hair. ….

The rest of Lifson’s post’s here.

Comments:

I thought Gov. Palin hit a home run last night. It was a very well crafted speech very well delivered.

It obviously played well in the convention hall. It’s a safe bet it also played well among the American people.

It’s not hard to understand why the Democratic MSM, aligned with special interests groups like NOW and the Green orgs which want to hold back American efforts to become more energy self-reliant, want to take her out with smears and ridicule before the American public get to know her.

Palin’s outstanding example last evening of grace under pressure has the Dems and MSM moaning this morning.

But don’t underestimate the mendacity of many of them.

They’re going to come after her with more smears and ridicule at the slightest opportunity.

The Churchill Series - Sept. 3, 2008

(One of a series of weekdays posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

The following is a repost that fits right in with our series leading up to the 100th Anniversary of the Churchill's wedding.

I hope the post leaves you smiling.

John
_____________________________________________

Churchill ends his autobiography, My Early Life, with the oft quoted words: “until September 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards.”

It was a wonderful marriage, with Clementine’s love, judgment and loyalty sustaining and enriching Churchill in both the domestic and public parts of his life.

But as in even the best of marriages, there were those “moments.” Churchill’s long-time bodyguard, Scotland Yard Detective-Inspector Walter Thompson tells us about one of them that occurred in the late 20s.

The Churchills were about to drive in an open two-seater from London down to Chartwell. Winston drove. Thompson sat in the back in what the Brits call the dickie seat (our rumble seat).

Thompson carries the story from there:

[Clementine] appeared dressed in a most gorgeous black dress decorated with gold thread. Winston voiced his delight. “Clemmie,” he said, “you look beautiful. What a lovely dress.”

“I am so pleased you like it, darling,” she replied, as she took her seat beside him.

It was not until we were out in the country that the dress was again mentioned . Winston gazed sideways and quietly said: “And what did it cost?”

She replied: “I dare not tell you.”

“I thought not, he said. “I am sure it was very expensive.”

“I will tell you later, Winston,” she replied.

“But there is no harm in knowing now, in view of the fact you have bought it.”

The car almost came to a standstill when she said: “Two hundred guineas.”

“I suppose,” he said, “you have not paid for it yet?”

“Let us talk about it later,” she replied.

Dead silence followed and not another word was said.

___________________________________
Tom Hickman, Churchill's Bodyguard. (p. 219)

Will Kerry Upstage Palin

by finally releasing all his Navy records?

A TIME-WARPED SEXIST ASSAULT

is what’s happening to Gov. Sarah Palin.

So says NY Post’s Andrea Peyser whose column today begins - - -

Holy hoop skirts: When did the clock tick back to 1958?

When Joe Biden tragically lost his wife and infant daughter in a car wreck in 1972, not a single colleague, friend or competitor advised him to quit his newly won Senate seat to raise his two little surviving sons.

Rather, he was sworn into office from the injured boys' bedside, and took to commuting an hour and a half each way from Delaware to Washington. And when Biden's second wife gave birth to a daughter, no one thought to ask him to step aside and stay home.

They all do it. John Kennedy did it; so did Barack Obama: Men run for office and serve in elected positions while creating small children without ever being patronized as "super dads" or "multi-taskers."

Nor are they penalized, ridiculed or dismissed for ignoring their kids. They're good dads.

If Sarah Palin, tapped as John McCain's running mate, were a man, it's unlikely we'd even be having this conversation. (A man, or a Democrat.) (emphasis added) . . .

But women on the left, who fought long and hard for the ability to raise children simultaneously with election cash, are in spasms. (Some have simply kept silent. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton - where are you?)

The same lefty media that studiously ignored the adolescence of Chelsea Clinton can't wait to dig into Bristol Palin.

The Diary section of Daily Kos Web site had a curious way to make Palin's daughter into a campaign issue: "Considering Palin was chosen solely for her religious right family values cred, Bristol's shotgun marriage and pregnancy are very fair game. They are the direct result of this lunatic abstinence-only garbage, and should be highlighted as such."

The stupendously sexist New York Times printed a front-page article noting that some unnamed women argue over "whether there are enough hours in the day for her to take on the vice presidency, and whether she is right to try." . . .

Peyser’s entire column’s here.

MSM’s desperate race against Palin’s speech

Excerpts from American Thinker editor and publisher Thomas Lifson's "Sarah Palin and the Two Americas" with my comments below the star line.

Lifson says - - -

… A desperate race is underway, with the liberal media scampering to define Sarah Palin to the public as a dangerous religious fanatic and naïve hick, some kind of back woods primitive incapable of effectively discharging the awesome job of president, soon to be thrust upon her as John McCain expires right after his inauguration.

Tonight, Governor Palin will have her opportunity to speak directly to the American people, and thanks to the blizzard of critical coverage, she will be no doubt attract an enormous audience.

She has the rarest of qualities: authenticity. Media and Beltway types can't fathom what that is. It goes right over their heads. Not even on the radar screen. Her multiple facets -- beauty queen, moose hunter, mother, member of an Assembly of God Church, and ferocious reformer of corrupt politics may baffle sophisticates, but ordinary Americans see all the pieces fitting together, and they recognize a type of person they know and love. . . .

Sarah Palin is the ultimate All-American Girl, beautiful but not glamorous, powerful but unpretentious, high-powered but down-to-earth, a reformer who speaks up while others cower in fear of rocking the boat. Like Ronald Reagan, she can reach right through the television camera into people's minds and hearts. We recognize one of us.

The left, so wrapped in artifice and fakery, are driven crazy by this. Her behavior appears bizarre, inexplicable. In their minds, she is a disaster and they pretend to be gleeful, asking when McCain will dump her. All while panicking, because they can see the energized GOP base and the failure of Barack Obama to garner the ten-to-fifteen point post-convention bounce to be expected after his speech before the multimillion-dollar Greek temple set and fireworks at Invesco Field only 5 days ago.

Those who planned the classical Greek theatrical stage never for second contemplated the possibility of a deus ex machina named Sarah.

So now they hurl ridiculous, self-discrediting accusations (the fantasy that Palin was not the mother of her baby Trig and was covering for her daughter was published by The Atlantic) and cannot understand that they won't work on a mom who's about to become a grandma while caring for a Down syndrome baby.

They regard the public as fools to be manipulated, and know that with the MSM megaphone, they can sell practically anything. …

Despite having been written off as a hopeless cause by political insiders and media know-it-alls, the Grand Old Party is about to renew itself amidst catcalls from the opposition. The same sort of swells who laugh at Sarah Palin as trailer trash categorized Ronald Reagan as an amiable dunce when in a charitable mood, spelled his name Ray-Gun, and felt ashamed to have a graduate of Eureka College, not some Ivy League campus, representing America on the world stage.

Ronald Reagan never let the contempt of the cultural, literary and journalistic elites bother him. He simply spoke over their heads directly to the American people. And changed the world.

In Sarah Palin, we may well have a figure able to do the same. All eyes will be on her tonight.

Lifson’s entire post’s here.
****************************************************
Comments:

Lifson’s bang on when he says the liberal media news orgs are in a desperate race to trash and slime Palin.

They’re thinking - - -

Don’t let the public make up its own mind. Our job is to filter the news. We’ve done A+ work getting the public’s mind off Rev. Wright and Tony Rezko.

And we’ve done a pretty good job fogging over The One’s close relationship with Will Ayers.

Now let’s all get out there and “strangle” Palin before she’s able to fight back.

Folks, I don’t know yet whether Palin’s even half the wonderful things GOPers are saying about her.

I need more time to make up my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, right now one of the biggest pluses Palin has going for her ]is that so much of the sexist, arrogant, and error-filled reporting and commentary I’ve been reading about Palin is coming from the same crowd whose assessments of the Iraq surge you’ll find here.

Congrats to Lifson on a fine post. Be sure to check in regularly at American Thinker. It's an outstanding blog.

Hat tip: Realclearpolitics.com

MSM's Surge of Ignorance & Gov. Palin

At Volokh Conspiracy Univ. of Chicago School of Law Professor Eric Posner offers a post – "Surge of Ignorance" – that includes:

The only real question about the planned "surge" in Iraq — which is better described as a Vietnam-style escalation — is whether its proponents are cynical or delusional. -- Paul Krugman, NYT, 1/8/07

There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in Iraq. -- NYT Editorial, 1/11/07

What anyone in Congress with half a brain knows is that the surge was sabotaged before it began. -- Frank Rich, NYT, 2/11/07

...

W. could have applied that to Iraq, where he has always done only enough to fail, including with the Surge -- Maureen Dowd, NYT, 2/17/07

The senator supported a war that didn't need to be fought and is a cheerleader for a surge that won't work. -- Maureen Dowd, NYT, 2/24/07

Now the ''surge'' that was supposed to show results by summer is creeping inexorably into an open-ended escalation, even as Moktada al-Sadr's militia ominously melts away, just as Iraq's army did after the invasion in 2003, lying in wait to spring a Tet-like surprise. -- Frank Rich, NYT, 3/11/07

Victory is no longer an option in Iraq, if it ever was. The only rational objective left is to responsibly organize America’s inevitable exit. That is exactly what Mr. Bush is not doing and what the House and Senate bills try to do. -- NYT Editorial, 3/29/07

There is no possible triumph in Iraq and very little hope left. -- NYT Editorial, 4/12/07

... the empty hope of the "surge" ... -- Frank Rich, NYT, 4/22/07 …

There’s much more of what you’ve just read in Posner’s post.

I take it as a very good sign that so many of the Obama MSM flacks now trashing Palin couldn’t resist the urge to opine on the surge and got it wrong.

The Churchill Series - Sept. 2, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Readers Note: In yesterday's post I gave the Churchill's wedding anniversary date as Sept. 8. Oops! It's Sept. 12. The post has now been corrected. Sorry about that.

On the bright side, the error means we'll have four more days devoted to Clementine and their marriage.

Today we pick up on the newspaper article below. Those of you who missed yesterday's post can read from here down.

The rest of you can scroll down to where I placed 5 stars (*) to mark the beginning of today's post.

John
_________________________________________________

This Sept. 12 will mark the 100th Anniversary of the marriage of Clementine Hozier to Winston Churchill. I’m posting a series within the Series running up to Sept. 8.

We start today with a look at a newspaper article published at the time of Churchill’s death in January 1965 – “Churchill's Marriage 56-Year Triumph.”

The article follows indented in full with my comments interspersed in plain.

If you wish to read the article first free of my “interruptions” it’s right here.
Now for those ready to press ahead the article begins:

When Winston Churchill, a pugnacious 34-year old politician, married Clementine Hozier in the society wedding of 1908, Lord Rosebery, a family friend, commented: "The union will last six months, with luck. Their marriage will fail because Winston is not the marrying kind."

The marriage not only endured for more than 56 years, it was a triumph -- in Lord Ismay's words probably "The most ideal marriage there has ever been." Churchill's autobiography, My Early Life, published in 1930, ended with the words: "...until September, 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards."

The marriage was a indeed “triumph.” It was also many other things that are great and good in this life.

But it was not, as you’ll see in this series, one in which everything went along “happily ever afterwards.”

IMO Churchill used the fairy tale “happily ever afterwards” as the closing words of My Early Life for two reasons. He knew readers would understand, without his going into details about his marriage, that he felt he had a wonderful wife and a very satisfying marriage. And it gave his book “a happy ending.”

The triumph was due almost entirely to the devotion and tact of Clementine Churchill. Right from the start of their marriage, the shy, dignified beauty plunged into the whirl of publicity ad controversy in which her husband reveled.

Devotions and tact Clementine Churchill certainly had. She also had very high intelligence. Her physical courage was the equal of Churchill’s. And IMO she was a better judge of WSC than he was of himself.

The next few series posts will offer specific examples of those strengths she brought to their marriage.

She shared his unpopularity as Home Secretary before the First World War, the bitten accusations of being a traitor to his class that Tory peers hurled at him when, as president of the Board of Trade in the Liberal Government of Herbert Asquith, he attacked the House of Lords as an outmoded institution.

In 1922, when her husband was ill and unable to fight his Dundee by-election campaign, Clementine went on the hustings and faced a hostile mob that yelled "Your husband is a warmonger" and “How could you bring up a bairn on a shilling a week?"

Everything in these last two paragraphs is on the money.

The reference to “a bairn,” a word Scots sometimes use for "child," may well have been to the Churchill’s infant daughter, Mary, born just a few weeks before Clementine journeyed from London to Dundee to campaign for Winston still hospitalized following an appendectomy, in those days a serious operation.

Since Clementine was nursing Mary and did not want to leave her for even a short time in the care of others, she carried Mary to campaign appearances, at many of which the crowds were hostile.

She was the only person who could handle the unpredictable Churchill; soothing tantrums, insuring he had precious hours of relaxation during the Second World War, sometimes advising him on a course of action or a speech, but always so tactfully that he thought the idea was his own. Often she would quietly comment as he drafted a fiery speech: "Winston, I wouldn't say that." He usually took her advice.

Clementine wasn’t the only person who could handle “the unpredictable Churchill.” But that’s not central to the purpose of this series, and this post is getting long.

So I’ll end here and pick up on the rest of the article tomorrow.

* * * * *

She had a taxing job providing meals to meet Churchill's exacting standards. He liked plain English food best, superbly cooked, and relished fine champagne and brandy.

One of the great strains in their marriage, particularly in the early years, was that Churchill frequently brought quests home to dinner on very short notice - sometimes even less than an hour.

Sometimes there were dinner-table arguments at which Clementine acted as peacemaker.

There were many occasions when Clemmie, as Churchill called her, played the peacemaker. One occurred when the Churchills were hosting Eleanor Roosevelt at a small dinner in London. America's First Lady and the PM got into a fierce argument about the Spanish Civil War. I'll be posting about it in a few days.

Clemmie wasn't always the peacemaker at the dinner table. Her daughter Mary has often told the story of the night her mother and father got into it and her mother threw the spinach dish at her father.

During the war, Clementine had to plot to save her husband from his own frantic energies and carelessness of personal safety. She knew the only way to get him home before nightfall on his tours of bombed-out London was to go along with him.

I don't know enough to comment on this.

It was Clementine who, with Lord Beaverbrook, arranged for stations on the London Underground to be turned into a gigantic air-raid dormitory during the 1940 blitz, with 2,000,000 bunks set up along the platforms.

Clementine had concern for the people taking shelter in the tubes, but this statement greatly exaggerates her role in seeing they were provided what physical comfort was possible.

Once she said: "I never think about after the war You see, I think Winston will die when it is over...He is 70 and I am 60, and we are putting all we have into this war, and it will take all we have."

She made essentiallly the same comment to a number of people. She had good cause for what she said. Churchill's physician, Lord Moran, essentially agreed with her. In one instance in 1943 after Churchill had a heart attack while trying to fight off pneumonia Moran doubted Churchill would survive the night.

From the birth of their first child, Diana, in 1909, Clementine resolved to keep the family as far as possible from the limelight.

Yes, she did, but given her husband's career and the press being the press, her efforts were doomed to fail.

I'm going to end here. In Friday's post, I'll say a few things about the Churchill's children. Now here's the last part of the newspaper article:

Diana grew up to be the intellectual dreamer of the family. Her two marriages -- to Sir John Milner Bailey, son of a South African millionaire, and to Duncan Sandys -- ended in divorce, and she died in 1963.

The unpredictable Sarah, born in 1914, was always an individualist. Her mother nicknamed her Mule, because of her stubbornness.

Randolph, born in 1911, never achieved the political stature expected of him as a young man, though he has had a headline-making career as politician, journalist and gadfly.

Mary, born in 1922, has been least in the news. She is married to former Agriculture Minister Christopher Soames and is writing her mother's biography.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy in the Churchill's married life was the death of their daughter Marigold Frances at the age of 3 in 1921. Clementine Churchill would never speak of it even decades after the event.

Churchill once said jokingly of his wife that they had tried "two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked."

In one of his books, he wrote: "It was much the most fortunate and joyous event which happened to me in the whole of my life. For what can be more glorious than to be united in one's walk through life with a being incapable of an ignoble thought."

End note: I want to thank the Chruchill Centre which hosts the article here at its site.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit asks:

HOW THEY COULD HAVE KEPT THE PALIN PREGNANCY STORY OUT OF THE PRESS?

Leaked it that John Edwards was the father.

But there are no Palin "snippets"

The pastor Sen. Obama says inspired him; the man whose church Obama worshiped at and brought his children to for religious instruction shouted from the pulpit:

"God damn America for killing innocent people. God damn America!"

That same pastor, Rev. Wrigtht, castigated "KKK-America."

And he preached the lie America deliberately spread HIV/AIDS as a means of holding down the country's black population.

Obama listened to it all for almost 20 years and never left Wright's church.

But Newsweek, one of Obama's most enthusiastic MSM's supporters, wasn't put off by Wright's racist ravings, so offensive to decent Americans.

Newsweek call them "snippets."

Most of MSM followed suit.

And almost every MSM news orgs hasn't dared demand answers to how the "brilliant" President-presumptive Barack Obama could, as he's claimed, "never [have]heard that stuff;" or why his wife Michelle, herself a very smart woman, never told him about it?

Then there's Gov. Sarah Palin and her family.

It seems the MSM can find no "snippets" about her and her children.

Everything is very "newsworthy," even the most transparent smears coming from Kos.

Columnist: If Obama loses “full-fledged race and class war”

I’ve thought for a while now that some of Sen. Obama’s supporters would get around to telling voters that if he doesn’t win, we’re letting ourselves in for a race war that will dwarf the riots of 1968.

Today Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatimah Ali says just that:

If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!

Ali also tells us what we can hope for if we elect The One:

Obama understands that people are suffering. Every week, prices go up at the supermarket, and people are unable to feed their families. It already is dark and stormy for millions, who can't even afford pencils, book bags and lunch money for their children.

But when Obama wins the White House, we may just see a revolution that can turn the tide and improve this nation for everyone, not just a select few.

Ali’s entire column's here.

I hope many pundits supporting Sen. Obama will speak out and label Ali’s inflammatory words for what they are: bad for all Americans, and particularly bad for minorities.

Andrew Sullivan’s “high road” smear

You know the old joke about the politician who kept telling audiences he was sticking to the “high road.” “To prove that,” he said, “I won’t make an issue of rumors my opponent has a drinking problem.”

Former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan, who writes for a number of newspapers and blogs at the Atlantic Monthly’s Atlantic.com gave us all an actual example of sticking to the “high road” when he used his blog, which gets millions of hits most months, to spread the vicious rumor Gov. Palin is not the mother of her son Trig. Daughter Bristol is.

Mind you, Sullivan told everyone, he was just asking questions to put the rumors to rest. You can read one of his “put the rumors to rest” posts here.

Sullivan didn’t fool Realclearpolitics.com co-founder and co-publisher Tom Bevan who posts today “Some Kind of Ugly.” It follows, after which I add a few comments.

Bevan begins - - -

Let me get this straight: an anonymous blogger from the left wing site Daily Kos cobbles together snippets from newspapers, undated or misdated pictures, and other anecdotes and tidbits of information to produce a conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin is covering up the fact that her daughter, Bristol, is really the mother of Trig, the five month old baby born in April with Down's Syndrome.

This ugly rumor - ripped straight from the headlines of Desperate Housewives - is then picked up, turned over, and promoted repeatedly by a "respectable" writer in the online version of one of America's most venerated magazines.

The result is that an unfounded personal smear, which really should have no business existing outside of the bowels of the left wing Internet, becomes an overnight sensation among the political chattering class.

The sordid chronology of the last few days will get lost quickly as the mainstream media turns its attention to the dramatic announcement yesterday that Bristol Palin is five months pregnant.

But make no mistake about it: this was a litmus test of the media's responsibility and integrity, and at least one journalist failed that test miserably.

While all the major media outlets shied away from repeating this crackpot theory, Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic jumped into the fever swamp with both feet. Not only that, but he continues to demand that the Palins produce medical records to refute the rumor even after yesterday's announcement about Bristol made it clear that she could not possibly be the mother.

Just a couple of weeks ago Sullivan latched on to and began promoting another rumor that bubbled up from the left wing blogs that John McCain had lifted his "cross in the dirt" story from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago only to discover no such passage existed in the book.

Sullivan appears to want to justify his descent by arguing that trafficking in rumors is perfectly appropriate for his blog. He's just asking questions, after all. But The Atlantic is not Daily Kos, though these days it's becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

***************************************************

Comments:

Every blogger, reporter and journalist knows how easy it is to spread smears and rumors. You just publish them.

That’s what’s Sullivan did, knowing that his journalist colleagues who were holding back on the “Trig isn’t Palin’s baby” smear could jump on it as soon as he published. It was, after all, now being reported at the Atlantic Monthly’s site. And by Andrew Sullivan no less, who was “asking questions the McCain camp so far hasn’t answered.”

My hat is off to Tom Bevan for calling Sullivan on his promotion of one of the lowest political smears I know of .

Caution to all of you who are fair-minded: We’ll have much more of the Sullivan kind of smearing before the campaign is over.

The Churchill Series – Sept. 1, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

This Sept. 8 will mark the 100th Anniversary of the marriage of Clementine Hozier to Winston Churchill. I’m posting a series within the Series running up to Sept. 8.

We start today with a look at a newspaper article published at the time of Churchill’s death in January 1965 – “Churchill's Marriage 56-Year Triumph.”

The article follows indented in full with my comments interspersed in plain.

If you wish to read the article first free of my “interruptions” it’s right here.
Now for those ready to press ahead the article begins:

When Winston Churchill, a pugnacious 34-year old politician, married Clementine Hozier in the society wedding of 1908, Lord Rosebery, a family friend, commented: "The union will last six months, with luck. Their marriage will fail because Winston is not the marrying kind."

The marriage not only endured for more than 56 years, it was a triumph -- in Lord Ismay's words probably "The most ideal marriage there has ever been." Churchill's autobiography, My Early Life, published in 1930, ended with the words: "...until September, 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards."

The marriage was a indeed “triumph.” It was also many other things that are great and good in this life.

But it was not, as you’ll see in this series, one in which everything went along “happily ever afterwards.”

IMO Churchill used the fairy tale “happily ever afterwards” as the closing words of My Early Life for two reasons. He knew readers would understand, without his going into details about his marriage, that he felt he had a wonderful wife and a very satisfying marriage. And it gave his book “a happy ending.”

The triumph was due almost entirely to the devotion and tact of Clementine Churchill. Right from the start of their marriage, the shy, dignified beauty plunged into the whirl of publicity ad controversy in which her husband reveled.

Devotions and tact Clementine Churchill certainly had. She also had very high intelligence. Her physical courage was the equal of Churchill’s. And IMO she was a better judge of WSC than he was of himself.

The next few series posts will offer specific examples of those strengths she brought to their marriage.

She shared his unpopularity as Home Secretary before the First World War, the bitten accusations of being a traitor to his class that Tory peers hurled at him when, as president of the Board of Trade in the Liberal Government of Herbert Asquith, he attacked the House of Lords as an outmoded institution.

In 1922, when her husband was ill and unable to fight his Dundee by-election campaign, Clementine went on the hustings and faced a hostile mob that yelled "Your husband is a warmonger" and “How could you bring up a bairn on a shilling a week?"

Everything in these last two paragraphs is on the money.

The reference to “a bairn,” a word Scots sometimes use for "child," may well have been to the Churchill’s infant daughter, Mary, born just a few weeks before Clementine journeyed from London to Dundee to campaign for Winston still hospitalized following an appendectomy, in those days a serious operation.

Since Clementine was nursing Mary and did not want to leave her for even a short time in the care of others, she carried Mary to campaign appearances, at many of which the crowds were hostile.

She was the only person who could handle the unpredictable Churchill; soothing tantrums, insuring he had precious hours of relaxation during the Second World War, sometimes advising him on a course of action or a speech, but always so tactfully that he thought the idea was his own. Often she would quietly comment as he drafted a fiery speech: "Winston, I wouldn't say that." He usually took her advice.

Clementine wasn’t the only person who could handle “the unpredictable Churchill.” But that’s not central to the purpose of this series, and this post is getting long.

So I’ll end here and pick up on the rest of the article tomorrow.

She had a taxing job providing meals to meet Churchill's exacting standards. He liked plain English food best, superbly cooked, and relished fine champagne and brandy.

Sometimes there were dinner-table arguments at which Clementine acted as peacemaker.

During the war, Clementine had to plot to save her husband from his own frantic energies and carelessness of personal safety. She knew the only way to get him home before nightfall on his tours of bombed-out London was to go along with him.

It was Clementine who, with Lord Beaverbrook, arranged for stations on the London Underground to be turned into a gigantic air-raid dormitory during the 1940 blitz, with 2,000,000 bunks set up along the platforms.

Once she said: "I never think about after the war You see, I think Winston will die when it is over...He is 70 and I am 60, and we are putting all we have into this war, and it will take all we have."

From the birth of their first child, Diana, in 1909, Clementine resolved to keep the family as far as possible from the limelight.

Diana grew up to be the intellectual dreamer of the family. Her two marriages -- to Sir John Milner Bailey, son of a South African millionaire, and to Duncan Sandys -- ended in divorce, and she died in 1963.

The unpredictable Sarah, born in 1914, was always an individualist. Her mother nicknamed her Mule, because of her stubbornness.

Randolph, born in 1911, never achieved the political stature expected of him as a young man, though he has had a headline-making career as politician, journalist and gadfly.

Mary, born in 1922, has been least in the news. She is married to former Agriculture Minister Christopher Soames and is writing her mother's biography.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy in the Churchill's married life was the death of their daughter Marigold Frances at the age of 3 in 1921. Clementine Churchill would never speak of it even decades after the event.

Churchill once said jokingly of his wife that they had tried "two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked."

In one of his books, he wrote: "It was much the most fortunate and joyous event which happened to me in the whole of my life. For what can be more glorious than to be united in one's walk through life with a being incapable of an ignoble thought."

End note: I want to thank the Chruchill Centre which hosts the article here at its site.

The Maureen Dowd “lightweight” problem

Responding to Maureen Dowd’s shameless Palin screed, Jack in Silver Springs said on the post thread

I think that your description of Dowd as a lightweight does a disservice to lightweights. She's beyond lightweight.

Jack has a point.

I struggled to find the right word for Dowd.

“Clown” came to mind, but most clowns I’ve met wouldn’t descend to the level Dowd did in her nasty, sexist column in which she even used the Palin children as part of her trashing of their Mom.

I dismissed “sophomoric” because most sophomores I’ve known have been much more mature than Dowd.

The foul language words? I won’t touch them. I don't want them on the comment thread.

Maybe what I should have settled for is “Maureen Dowd’s shameless Palin screed is even worse than her usual shameless screeds.”

Thanks, Jack, for your comment.

Obama says Palin family off-limits; denies Dems stoking rumors

This from Politico - - -

Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown reports: At a press avail in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama on Palin: "Back off these kinds of stories."

"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

On charges that his campaign has stoked the story via liberal blogs:

"I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us," he said. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I thought there was somebody in my campaign who was involved in something like that, they would be fired."

Comments:

I’m glad Sen. Obama said candidates’ children should be off-limits.

I don’t agree the “off-limits” should extend to adult family members, particularly those who actively campaign for a candidate.

As for whether his campaign is stoking rumors, of course I hope not.

But he needs to respond to the information I linked to yesterday suggesting at least one Obama site was the source of a smear of Gov. Palin.

I’m going to continue to follow that story.

Lon. Times’ Baker on Obama and Palin – Don’t Miss It!

Caution note: If you’re a Maureen Dowd fan and, like Dowd, you’ve a secret passion for chick flicks, perhaps you should miss this post. I think it will only upset you.

What follows are excerpts from a fact-filled, carefully reasoned, literate column by British journalist Garard Baker, the Times of London’s United States editor.

Baker compares Sen. Obama and Gov. Palin. He also has a few things to say about how our MSM is treating Palin.

Baker begins - - -

Democrats, between sniggers of derision and snorts of disgust, contend that Sarah Palin, John McCain's vice-presidential pick is ridiculously unqualified to be president.

It's a reasonable objection on its face except for this small objection: it surely needs to be weighed against the Democrats' claim that their own candidate for president is self-evidently ready to assume the role of most powerful person on the planet.

At first blush, here's what we know about the relative experience of the two candidates. Both are in their mid-forties and have held statewide elective office for less than four years. Both have admitted to taking illegal drugs in their youth.

So much for the similarities. How about the differences?

Political experience

Obama: Worked his way to the top by cultivating, pandering to and stroking the most powerful interest groups in the all-pervasive Chicago political machine, ensuring his views were aligned with the power brokers there.

Palin: Worked her way to the top by challenging, attacking and actively undermining the Republican party establishment in her native Alaska. She ran against incumbent Republicans as a candidate willing and able to clean the Augean Stables of her state's government.

Political Biography

Obama: A classic, if unusually talented, greasy-pole climber. Held a succession of jobs that constitute the standard route to the top in his party's internal politics: "community organizer", law professor, state senator.

Palin:A woman with a wide range of interests in a well-variegated life. Held a succession of jobs - sports journalist, commercial fisherwoman, state oil and gas commissioner, before entering local politics. A resume that suggests something other than burning political ambition from the cradle but rather the sort of experience that enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans..

Political history

Obama: Elected to statewide office only after a disastrous first run for a congressional seat and after his Republican opponent was exposed in a sexual scandal. Won seat eventually in contest against a candidate who didn't even live in the state.

Palin: Elected to statewide office by challenging a long-serving Republican incumbent governor despite intense opposition from the party.

Appeal

Obama: A very attractive speaker whose celebrity has been compared to that of Britney Spears and who sends thrills up Chris Matthews' leg

Palin: A very attractive woman, much better-looking than Britney Spears who speaks rather well too. She sends thrills up the leg of Rush Limbaugh (and me).

Executive experience

Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists

Palin:Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of 500,000 people in her state, and that impact crucial issues of national economic interest such as the supply and cost of energy to the United States.

Religious influences

Obama: Regards people who "cling" to religion and guns as "bitter" . Spent 20 years being mentored and led spiritually by a man who proclaimed "God damn America" from his pulpit. Mysteriously, this mentor completely disappeared from public sight about four months ago.

Palin: Head of her high school Fellowship of Christian Athletes and for many years a member of the Assemblies of God congregation whose preachers have never been known to accuse the United States of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus. They remain in full public sight and can be seen every Sunday in churches across Alaska. A proud gun owner who has been known to cling only to the carcasses of dead caribou felled by her own aim.

Record of bipartisan achievement

Obama: Speaks movingly of the bipartisanship needed to end the destructive politics of "Red America" and "Blue America", but votes in the Senate as a down-the-line Democrat, with one of the most liberal voting records in congress.

Palin: Ridiculed by liberals such as John Kerry as a crazed, barely human, Dick Cheney-type conservative but worked wit Democrats in the state legislature to secure landmark anti-corruption legislation.

Former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz - a Democrat - said. "Gov. Palin has made her name fighting corruption within her own party, and I was honored when she stepped across party lines and asked me to co-author her ethics white paper."

On Human Life

Obama: Devoutly pro-choice. Voted against a bill in the Illinois state senate that would have required doctors to save the lives of babies who survived abortion procedures. The implication of this position is that babies born prematurely during abortions would be left alone, unnourished and unmedicated, until they died.

Palin: Devoutly pro-life. Exercised the choice proclaimed by liberals to bring to full term a baby that had been diagnosed in utero with Down Syndrome.

Now it's true there are other crucial differences. Sen Obama has appeared on Meet The Press every other week for the last four years. He has been the subject of hundreds of adoring articles in papers and newsweeklies and TV shows and has written two Emmy-award winning books.

Gov Palin has never appeared on Meet the Press, never been on the cover of Newsweek. She presumably feels that, as a mother of five children married to a snowmobile champion, who also happens to be the first woman and the youngest person ever to be elected governor of her state, she has not really done enough yet to merit an autobiography.

Then again, I'm willing to bet that if she had authored The Grapes of Wrath, sung like Edith Piaf and composed La Traviata , she still wouldn't have won an Emmy.

Fortunately, it will be up to the American people and not their self-appointed leaders in Hollywood and New York to determine who really has the better experience to be president.

Baker’s entire column’s here.

Full confession: If you’ve read the post so far, you’ve read all of Baker’s column.

As I read it, I couldn’t find anything to snip out. I kept saying to myself, “That’s so good. Leave it in.”

And then there I was at the end of his column.

It was a delight to read, especially after spending a lot of time yesterday and this morning working on a post responding to the NY Times’ Maureen Dowd’s shameless, sexist screed targeting Palin.

I’ll send Baker an email letting him know what I did and why.

What do you all think of Baker's column?

Hat tip: Realclearpolitics.com

Maureen Dowd’s shameless Palin screed

The NY Times’ Maureen Dowd surely meant her latest column – “Vice in Go-Go Boots?” - to be a witty parody of Governor Sarah Palin’s public career and family life, with a few barbs aimed at people questioning some of what Sen. and Mrs. Obama have said and done thrown in.

But what Dowd wound up producing is a shameless screed oozing nastiness, sexism, condescension and unintended self-parody.

The self-parody begins right at the head of her screed:

"The guilty pleasure I miss most when I’m out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick."

"So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime."

"Instead of going home and watching 'Miss Congeniality' with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch 'Miss Congeniality' with Sarah Palin.

"Sheer heaven." ...

Dowd surely thought her opening was a big mock of Palin, but it's just the latest example of why her critics say she's a lightweight.

They must have howled when Dowd used the Times editorial page to tell everyone her "guilty pleasure" is to “sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick.”

A friend joked that if she were the contest judge, Dowd would be her choice for Miss Most Vacuous Chick Flick Fan.

Dowd's opener reminded me of Nixon's "I am not a crook" and Duke President Dick Brodhead's 60 Minutes excuse for supporting the frame-up attempt of three transparently innocent Duke students. Remember Brodhead whining: "The facts kept changing?"

Nixon and Brodhead didn't realize what they were telling us about themselves; neither does Dowd.

It too bad there wasn't a Times editor willing to tell Dowd: “You might want to think about that opening. It's not witty. It just makes you look foolish.”

Now, what about Dowd's condescension?

I'll cite what is Dowd's most offensive, racially-tinged condescension which she aimed at millions of Americans who love this country and want it to flourish in the face of attacks from without and within.

The example occurs when Dowd says:

"Americans, suspicious that the Obamas have benefited from affirmative action without being properly grateful, and skeptical that Michelle really likes 'The Brady Bunch' and 'The Dick Van Dyke Show,' reject the 47-year-old black contender as too uppity and untested."

Dowd and her Times sponsors have that wrong.

What concerns so many of us has nothing to do with anything "uppity" about the Obamas. They have a perfect right, for example, to go to a church of their choice and say anything they want about this country.

What concerns so many of us repeatedly smeared as racist is that we don't know why, for example, the Obamas attended a church where the pastor preached from the pulpit racist and anti-American hate such as “God damn America” and “KKK-America.”

We take those racist, anti-American slimes as seriously as we would if the Obamas pastor had filled his sermons with hate about “God damn gays” and “Gay, Gay, Gay- America.”

The Obamas' silence about their relationship with Wright - what attracted them to him and his church, why they did so much to support it, why Senator Obama claims he never heard the sermon and why Mrs. Obama has never heard any of his "snippets" either - is an extraordinarily important matter.

None of the people I have in mind would support a church where the pastor spewed "God damn the gays and lesbians at the New York Times" and "Gay, Gay, Gay - America" or "God damn America" and "KKK-America."

It's a sure bet Sarah Palin and her husband would not have stayed in such a church, either.

But the Obamas stayed in Trinity until Wright said publicly the Senator was 'just another politician."

We need to know why the Obamas stayed all those years in Trinity UCC.

Dowd and the Times should know we don’t care what Michelle Obama thinks about the Brady Bunch.

We think Michelle Obama was sincere when she said America was “a downright mean country.”

We think she has ever right to say that and believe it. We just want her to tell us more about how and why she came to feel that way.

We also notice Team Obama and MSM Obama flacks approve when Michelle Obama goes on The View and talks about her pantyhose, but get upset when she speaks about America.

Then they turn around and accuse us of resenting her for being "uppity."

But that's not right. They're the ones trying to manipulate Michelle Obama; most Americans want her to be herself and speak candidly to us.

Dowd's column is laced with shameless sexism as this excerpt illustrates:

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait.

Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”

Will Dowd’s sexism draw criticism from NOW and other women's organizations which would be outraged if Dowd ever treated a Democratic woman Vice Presidential candidate as she's treated Palin?

I doubt it.

Dowd is often nasty, but in “Vice in Go-Go Boots?” she sinks to a new low when she uses the Palin children in a column trashing their mother:

Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)

Is there anyone left at the Times to say to Dowd: “We have some decency?”

I’ll close with an excerpt from Alaska’s KTUU TV's Apr. 18, 2008 story announcing Trig Palin’s birth:

…A press release from the governor's office says Palin and her new son are both "doing well and resting comfortably."

The Palins released the following statement:

"Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives."

"We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed."

Just yesterday, Palin was in Texas at a forum on energy with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and executives from four other states.

Palin was asked at the forum whether or not she would accept an offer by Republican presidential candidate John McCain to share the national ticket as vice presidential nominee.

She said she would accept, according to reports from a Texas newspaper.
The governor's water broke during the energy conference but she stayed and gave a 30-minute speech before boarding an Alaska Airlines plane home to deliver the baby.

Gov. Palin's parents, Sally and Chuck Heath, visited with their new grandson Friday afternoon.

The grandfather says Trig is named after his great uncle, a Bristol Bay fisherman, while the name Paxson comes from the well-known snowmachining area.

Bouncing out of Denver

We’ll all keep an eye on Gustav.

That said, what about the convention bounce MSM’s been telling us Sen. Obama got following “his historic nomination?”

And following “his historic” cameo appearances “live, on screen” in the convention hall?

And following “his historic” assent and apparition at Invesco’s Greek temple, where his MSM disciples say he excited the multitudes?

And what about poor Sen. McCain’s “desperation” choice of Gov. Palin?

We know she doesn’t own big limousines and huge houses as do Al Gore and John Edwards.

So can she impress anyone inside the Beltway?

What’s more, Palin doesn’t have the vast Washington experience Ted Kennedy had at the time of Abu Ghraib when he fired up anti-Americanism world-wide by declaring on the Senate floor Saddam’s prison system was being run by America’s military.

Palin’s family?

Much of MSM can’t resist ridiculing her and her children, including Trig, the Palin’s four month old Down Syndrome child.

The MSMers who do the ridiculing say they’re just bringing us “the news.”

You bet.

But let’s get back to the matter of Obama’s bounce following “his historic nomination.”

From Realclearpolitics.com, the three latest national polls:

Gallup Tracking - - - - - - - - - - 08/28 - 08/30 Obama +6

Rasmussen Tracking - - - - - - - 08/28 - 08/30 Obama +3

CNN - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 08/29 - 08/31 Obama +1

Based on these three polls, it looks like Obama and the Dems got more fizz than bounce out of their convention.

IMO – Still too soon to say anything about a “Palin effect.”

What do you think?

At news orgs bravado isn't working. What will?

Back in March 2006 when McClatchy Company stock was selling in the mid-40s, Melanie Sill, executive editor of McClatchy’s Raleigh News & Observer used her Sunday column to tell readers:

I'm optimistic about newspapers' potential. So is McClatchy's CEO, Gary Pruitt.

In a piece published in this paper and others last week, Pruitt noted that the newspaper's demise has been predicted for most of the 400 years since it was invented.

"We survivors are evolving still and employing new tools to leapfrog forward," he wrote. …

And just a few months ago, Sill, now executive editor at McClatchy’s flagship paper, the Sacramento Bee, told readers:

In newsroom discussions, we often consider what we'd do if we arrived here as a competitor to The Bee with an editorial staff of 245, a newspaper that reaches 934,000 readers each week and a Web site averaging close to 2 million unique visitors each month. …

Our newsroom roster is smaller than it was a few years ago, but our ambitions are larger and our responsibility to the community stands constant.

As much as we use the past as a measuring stick, The Bee's value will be demonstrated not by what we have done but what we do next.

So what did the Bee do next?

Lots of things, with the most notable drawing the attention of the AP which reported the other day:

McClatchy Co.'s Sacramento Bee and Fresno Bee offered voluntary buyouts to a majority of their full-time employees Monday, a week after The Modesto Bee made a similar offer. McClatchy also will freeze pay across the company for a year starting Labor Day, while Gannett Co. announced in mid-August it was cutting 1,000 jobs, including 600 layoffs. …

There’s very likely much more bad news still to come from McClatchy.

This from JinC Regular Ken in Dallas who’s usually spot on (see post thread here):

Reviewing the MNI balance sheet, dated 6/30, it appears they are perilously close to running out of cash. Their cash balance showed only $9.3 mil on hand as of 6/30.

Looking at what happened from March to June, it appears they were forced to pay down $200+ million in LT debt. That drained their cash and short term receivables. There are probably restrictions from their LT lenders on what they can and cannot do in terms of refinancing.

The company is, by any measure, insolvent. If they are not sold immediately, they will be forced to file for chapter 11 protection. ...

According to Market Watch, McClatchy's stock closed Friday, Aug. 29 @ $3.63. The company's bonds have "junk" ratings.

Sill's bravado is typical of how most news executives have been responding to the problems facing their organizations.

These execs seem to think bravado and blogger-bashing mixed in with heaps of self-praise about their reliability and high standards of ethics will get them through to the light that has to be somewhere at the end of the tunnel. After all, their indispensable, right?

Very few news executives have been willing to admit the obvious: their business model is broken; radical change is needed.

An Aug.24 NY Times' article - "A Different Way to Pay for the News You Want" - will interest anyone who knows newspapers need a new model that will generate the revenue s they need to survive.

Excerpts from the NYT article - - -

You think your local water supply is polluted. But you’re getting the runaround from local officials, and you can’t get your local newspaper to look into your concerns. What do you do?

A group of journalists say they have an answer. You hire them to investigate and write about what they find.

The idea, which they are calling “community-funded journalism,” is now being tested in the San Francisco Bay area, where a new nonprofit, Spot Us, is using its Web site, spot.us, to solicit ideas for investigative articles and the money to pay for the reporting. But the experiment has also raised concerns of journalism being bought by the highest bidder.

The idea is that anyone can propose a story, though the editors at Spot Us ultimately choose which stories to pursue. Then the burden is put on the citizenry, which is asked to contribute money to pay upfront all of the estimated reporting costs. If the money doesn’t materialize, the idea goes unreported.

“Spot Us would give a new sense of editorial power to the public,” said David Cohn, a 26-year-old Web journalist who received a $340,000, two-year grant from the Knight Foundation to test his idea. “I’m not Bill and Melinda Gates, but I can give $10. This is the Obama model. This is the Howard Dean model.”

Those campaigns revolutionized politics by using the power of the Web to raise small sums from vast numbers of people, making average citizens feel a part of the process in a way they had not felt before. In the same way, Spot Us hopes to empower citizens to be part of a newsgathering enterprise that, polls show, many mistrust and regard as both biased and elitist.

Other enterprises have found success with this approach, which, in the Internet age, has become known as “crowdfunding.” This financing model takes its name from crowdsourcing, a method for using the public, typically via the Internet, to supply what employees and experts once did: information, research and development, T-shirt designs, stock photos, advertising spots. In crowdsourcing, the people supply the content; in crowdfunding, they supply the cash.

Charities have used crowdfunding, not necessarily under that name, for years. And one Hollywood studio, Brave New Worlds, is financing its movies by soliciting people over the Internet to pay for them before they are made.

The Spot Us experiment comes, not coincidentally, as newspapers around the country lay off reporters and editors by the hundreds and scale back their coverage to cope with a financial crisis brought about, in no small measure, by the rise of the Internet.

Another experimental venture, Pro Publica, a nonprofit group led by Paul Steiger, a former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, is being bankrolled by several major foundations to pursue investigative projects that it will then offer to newspapers and magazines. ...

The rest of the Times' article is here.

What do you think?

Hat tips: McClatchy Watch, Ed in NY

Shouldn't Obama be THE ONE to HURRY?

After a snarky reference to Sen. McCain’s mortality, Wonkette’s Ana Marie Cox at TIME’s Swampland offers snarky advice to Gov. Palin:

HURRY, Sarah Palin, HURRY -- YOU MUST LEARN ABOUT IRAN NOW! THERE IS NOT MUCH TIME LEFT!

What advice did Cox have for Sen. Obama when he said he’d meet with Iran’s leaders without preconditions and that the Iraq surge had failed?

Something like:

HURRY, Barack Obama, HURRY – YOU MUST LEARN ABOUT IRAN AND IRAQ NOW! THERE IS NOT MUCH TIME LEFT!

PEOPLE ARE ALREADY STARTING TO CATCH ON, JUST AS WITH AYERS AND WRIGHT!

I doubt Cox said anything like that. But it's good advice for THE ONE

A knife in Palin’s back

Responding to Gail Collins ridicules Palin; ducks Obama questions, a commenter writes - - -

Palin should prepare for a wave of sexist and misogynist comments and the vast majority will come from the Left. Most of the knives stuck in her back will be placed their by Lefties (including many feminists). The few placed by Republicans will be put there by the crooks in Alaska that she smoked out and sent packing.

She is the sort of woman that "mainstream" academic feminists hate the most. She commits many "sins."

1. She rejects the academic feminist trinity of misandry, chronic anger, and victimization.

2. She is completely comfortable being a woman. She is not debilitated by the secret self-loathing so common in radical feminists.

3. She got married and has children, clear evidence that she suffers from false consciousness and submits to American phallocracy.

4. Rather than be a victim, she takes action and gets things done. Female success does not bring success to the feminist movement (as defined by the academics) because it is about wallowing in the righteous anger and self-pity that comes with victimhood.

Fortunately, the "mainstream" academic feminists -- the well fed, generously compensated, and expensively educated shrews of journalism, academia, and feminist organizations -- are a minority.

There is a larger and more relevant group of feminists. I call them "empirical world" feminists -- women like my wife and daughter who live and work in the real world. They think this woman is great because she has adhered to her principles AND gotten things done in politics.

This is no easy task and Sarah Palin is no everyday Governor.

We have more to learn about Sarah Palin and she might or might not be the right person for the job. But, it is appalling that the putatively open-minded and pluralistic sages of the Left have had such a Pavlovian response to someone who is actually living out feminist ideals.

I expected more of an NYT editor but should have known better by now.

Folks, within minutes of receiving that on-the-money comments, I was alerted to this post by Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs - - -

Obama Campaign Behind Anti-Palin Smear Site?

Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 10:57:26 am PST

Suddenly appearing among the Google search results for “sarah palin gay,” a web site titled: Sarah Palin Supports Gay Rights.

Sarah Palin (GOV-Alaska-Republican), supports gay rights, says Anchorage Daily News.

Quote "Gov. Sarah Palin vetoed a bill Thursday that sought to block the state from giving public employee benefits such as health insurance to same-sex couples."

Quote ""It is the Governor’s intention to work with the legislature and to give the people of Alaska an opportunity to express their wishes and intentions whether these benefits should continue," the statement from Palin’s administration said."

Coghill said he’s interested in a new plan that would allow state employees to designate one person — maybe a same-sex partner, but also possibly a family member or roommate — who would be eligible for state-paid benefits. But the employee would have to pay to add that person to his or her benefits."

Sarah Palin’s veto gave gays the same rights as married couples in Alaska.

A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for gay marriage.

Interesting. There’s nothing else on the page. This sure looks like the work of the dastardly right-wing anti-gay attack machine, doesn’t it?

But look who’s really behind this.

In the Linux console, if you enter the following commands, you can learn the secrets of a political dirty trick. First, look up the host of ‘sarahpalingayrights.com’ to get the site’s IP address.

host sarahpalingayrights.com
sarahpalingayrights.com has address 74.208.74.232

Then use the same command to look up the domain name pointer of that IP address.

host 74.208.74.232
232.74.208.74.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer obamadefense.com

Well, well. “Obamadefense.com,” eh?

And what happens if you enter obamadefense.com on your browser’s address line?

Why, you’re redirected to none other than FightTheSmears.com, the official Barack Obama site that’s supposed to be defending him against smears.

Looks like they may have a second purpose: to generate a few smears of their own.

Folks, let’s hope the Obama campaign is not behind the smear.

Team Obama needs to respond immediately to what Johnson has posted.

While we await their response, here in full is the actual news story on which the smear is based. You may not believe what a distortion the smear is -----

Same-sex benefits ban gets Palin veto

FIRST ONE: Attorney general told her the bill was unconstitutional.


By KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: December 29, 2006)

Gov. Sarah Palin vetoed a bill Thursday that sought to block the state from giving public employee benefits such as health insurance to same-sex couples.

In the first veto of an administration that isn't yet a month old, Palin said she rejected the bill despite her disagreement with a state Supreme Court order earlier this month that directed the state to offer benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

Advice from her new attorney general said the bill passed by the Legislature was unconstitutional, she said.

"Signing this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office," Palin said in a prepared statement released by her administration Thursday night.

For supporters, the Supreme Court ruling was considered a victory for gay rights and civil liberties. To opponents, it equated same-sex partners with married couples, despite the state's ban on gay marriage.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the bill barring regulations implementing same-sex benefits during a November special session. The measure would have prevented the commissioner of administration from taking action on the new benefits plan.

Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, sponsored the bill. In a phone interview Thursday night, he said that Palin, also a Republican, faced a constitutional dilemma but he's still disappointed by her veto.

"I would have like to have seen her stand up to the courts," Coghill said.

The Supreme Court ruled Dec. 19 that the state has to offer the benefits starting Jan. 1.

"It is the Governor's intention to work with the legislature and to give the people of Alaska an opportunity to express their wishes and intentions whether these benefits should continue," the statement from Palin's administration said.

Coghill said he's interested in a new plan that would allow state employees to designate one person -- maybe a same-sex partner, but also possibly a family member or roommate -- who would be eligible for state-paid benefits. But the employee would have to pay to add that person to his or her benefits.

On Dec. 20, Palin signed a bill that calls for an advisory vote on whether there should be a constitutional amendment denying benefits to same-sex couples. The vote, set for a special election on April 3, will be nonbinding but is intended to help guide legislators, Palin has said.

Palin's veto wasn't a sure thing, said Allison Mendel, a private lawyer who handled an Alaska Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court ruling:

"There was a lot of doubt. And she put off doing it for a while, obviously studying the issue."

Gail Collins ridicules Palin; ducks Obama questions

NY Times columnist Gail Collins is something of a feminist icon. The first woman to serve as The Old Grey Lady’s editorial page editor, she’s also the author of "America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines."

Collins frequently and rightly criticizes those who demean a woman’s achievements while praising and promoting men who’ve achieved no more and, in some cases, less.

Collins begins her column - - -

It is conceivable that some people will think John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate because she is a woman. I know you find this shocking, but I swear I have heard it mentioned.

McCain does not believe in pandering to identity politics. He was looking for someone who was well prepared to fight against international Islamic extremism, the transcendent issue of our time. And in the end he decided that in good conscience, he was not going to settle for anyone who had not been commander of a state national guard for at least a year and a half. He put down his foot!

The obvious choice was Palin, the governor of Alaska, whose guard stands as our last best defense against possible attack by the resurgent Russian menace across the Bering Strait.

Also a woman, but that’s totally beside the point.

True, the only nonfamily members other than McCain that Palin really mentioned in her introductory speech were Democrats Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan? Isn’t there a rule that you have to mention Ronald Reagan?

“It was rightly noted in Denver that Hillary made 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America,” Palin said. “It turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.”

O.K., the women thing might have been a little bit of a selling point. Not nearly so much as the national guard commandership, of course.

But if the millions of Democratic women who are still ticked off at Obama for stepping in front of Hillary in the line want to look elsewhere ...
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Comments:

Folks, I'm sure all of us - the fair-minded, the misogynists and the double-standard feminists - can guess what follows. It's all here.

Message to Columnist Collins: Many women, and men too, are ticked off at Sen. Obama, Team Obama and their MSM flacks not for stepping “in front of Hillary” but for stepping ON her and those supporting her.

We’re grateful Sen. Clinton brought up Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers. Why hasn’t Obama given full, credible answers to questions millions of us have about the Senator’s close relationships with convicted felon Rezko and unrepentant terrorist Ayers?

Why don’t you write a serious column explaining why those questions are so important and why Obama needs to answer them with more than “shell game” answers?

Final thought: I know you meant to be witty but you came off as petty.







http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/opinion/30collins-.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin