Ten Things to Love About Sarah Palin

[Free Lance]

John McCain performed masterful sleight of hand as he announced his running mate. He kept all the pundits chasing their tails until the last minute. With his stealth announcement Friday, he swept aside all the historic and histrionic events of the prior night - even the indisputably telegenic image of Caesar Obama framed between those ostentatious Greco-Roman pillars.

So I now offer to you the top ten reasons to love his choice, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

1. She has executive experience as an elected official, as both a mayor and a governor. Obama has neither run a city nor a state. His followers may counter "Yeah, but that's just Alaska!", which will only add to the perception of their elitism. Small states have electoral college votes, too, and they have a funny way of making a difference once you 'dis' then enough times.

2. She is a powerful woman who does not toe the feminist party line. You can be a successful woman without contempt for men, marriage and family, and traditional femininity.

3. She can shoot a gun, and would protect your right to shoot one as well.

4. She is from Alaska and understands first-hand that oil exploration in ANWR will amount to the use of a land mass akin to a postage stamp on a football field.

5. Five children? That is one tough lady.

6. She quite graciously acknowledged the roles played by Geraldene Ferraro and Hillary Clinton in leading up to her historic nomination.

7. Her son enlisted in the US Army and will be deployed to Iraq... on September 11. You couldn't have planned it to play out any more poignantly.

8. Her nomination underscores a basic notion that most Americans sense but are only beginning to say: the more seasoned politician belongs on the top of the ticket. Remember the ads about the late night phone call to the White House? Well, it wasn't the incoming call that concerned me. It was the outgoing call that would inevitably follow. ("Joe? Joe? Wake up, it's Barack. I need you again...")

9. She earned her nickname "Barracuda" for her basketball skills, but she will earn it all over again in the VP debates against Biden.

10. She is a woman (historical) but she is not Hillary Rodham Clinton (hysterical). In her speech, Palin spoke passionately without resorting to caterwauling.

I did not yet order my McCain bumper stickers. I usually order them in batches of ten because desperate Democrats with no respect for personal property tend to make them disappear. I can now order a steady supply of McCain/Palin stickers and display them with pride. Especially after I blow the doors off that liberal in a Mini Cooper with a bumper sticker reading "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History". Read it and weep, Coop. Palin is behaving and succeeding.

[Amanda S]

Okay, I'll bite: what exactly is the "feminist party line?" Is there some rule that says that being a feminist means you must hate men, marriage, family, and/or "traditional femininity" (whatever that is)? My dictionary says that feminism is "the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men." Equality between the sexes, that's all the feminists are after.

[Free Lance]

The feminist party line goes something like this: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Sound familiar? Thats because Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan, and others spewed such tripe throughout much of the past four decades or more. It's patently anti-man and anti-marriage, and culturally nihilistic philosophies such as this have done incalculable harm to our great republic. As for 'traditional femininity'? I'm not surprised it now needs defining, since we are still in the battle fray of the culture war. It used to be something mothers passed on to daughters, and they didn't even have to use a dictionary to teach it! Just think more of Laura Bush/Lynn Cheney and think less (much, MUCH less) of Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama. Oh, and thanks for biting!

[Paul Davison]

I would like to see evidence of the "incalculable harm" done to our republic by the anti-man, anti-marriage movement and then compare that to the incalculable harm done by destroying habeus corpus, torturing prisoners of war, squandering a record surplus, and invading a sovereign nation without provocation. To Ms. Palin's credit, she's hardly embodies traditional feminity if Laura Bush is the model. She is outspoken, charismatic, and empowered, despite the fact that a McCain presidency and his Supreme Court appointees will set back the progress that women have achieved over the last 30 years.

And speaking of family values, something tells me that a five-month old with down syndrome (along with four other kids) might need their mother around instead of campaigning all over the country to further her career. According to your definition of Laura Bush-esque feminity, a good mother and wife should probably be home with the kids, right?

[Katie]

When is it ever a good thing for the same exact lifestyle to be expected of everyone? I'm sorry, I'm just amazed at that 1950s thinking. If you want your woman in the kitchen and in the home, that's fine for you and hopefully for her. But if you want your woman like Laura Bush or Lynn Cheney, that just really sucks for you because that's not going to be fun.

As for your other reasons to love Sarah Palin...
1. I think we'll have to wait and see just what kind of executive experience will inform her new role as a vice presidential candidate. It's respectful of course, but I just want to see the debate between her and Biden.

2. already addressed.

3. I've never understood this 2nd Amendment obsession. Have your guns, fine. Why do you need an uzi or an AK-47? Aren't you just compensating for something? I mean the editorial "you" of course.

4. I actually am interesting to see her get into the ANWR debate because I personally don't know enough about it to make a proper judgment.

5. I've never been of the school that says the more children you have, the more respect you command. While raising children does take composure, committment and brains, rearing them does not.

6. Palin evoking Hillary Clinton was such an insult to everyone who voted for the senator, especially women. I'm saying that as someone who really does not like Hillary and once said that if the general election came down to Hillary vs. McCain, I would not vote. 18 million people chose Hillary Clinton. Only one chose Gov. Palin.

7. That her son is going to Iraq in a few weeks is definitely admirable. Biden's son has that kind of street cred too though.

8. Who says seasoned politicans belong at the top of the ticket? Just because something is the way it's always been, doesn't mean it can't change. We'll see what happens in November.

9. I doubt a woman who is without any sort of feminist streak would be called a barracuda.

10. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama make me prouder to be female than Sarah Palin does.

[Free Lance]

"Incalculable harm", being incalculable, is rather difficult to measure ... however, it is manifest in the following:
- single motherhood made to look like something to which girls should aspire,
- escalating divorce rates because, after all, sisters are doing it for themselves now,
- a general debasing of the marital act (that's 'sex', for those atheists who might be reading) and a pornification of our culture, because women are now free to behave just like the boors who used to try to bed them.

Those developments, in turn, have disintegrated the family unit and led to poverty, high dropout rates, and record numbers of incarcerated youth. Patrick Buchanan was right. This is the collateral damage of the culture war.

I also believe President McCain's first choice for a Supreme Court justice will be a conservative woman. It will be a dizzying spectacle to watch liberal spinmeisters try to convince us that a powerful woman will set back women's progress. If she's a conservative, that is.

[Free Lance]

Regarding 1950s thinking . . . There were some very good things about the 1950s. It wasn't all rich old white men oppressing anything and everything in their sight. Sadly, it's not taught that way in the history books. If one didn't live through it, he or she has to rely on the tales told by the agenda-driven indoctrinaires of our government education system. Professors of education like Obama buddy William "Weatherman" Ayers would be hard pressed to teach a fair and balanced course on the 1950s, and these professors are the ones who are teaching our teachers.

A woman's place is not in the kitchen, nor in the home. A woman's place is in the woods hunting, or on the water deep sea fishing, or on a basketball court leading the team in prayer before the game. In that regard, Sarah Palin resembles my mother, my sisters, my wife and my neighbors more than any of the embittered elite liberal women on parade in Colorado last week. NRA, not NOW.

[Amanda S]

A woman's place is in the woods hunting, or on the water deep sea fishing, or on a basketball court leading the team in prayer before the game.

Are those the only options we get? I can't help but notice that you didn't mention vice president in there. What, pray tell, is a man's place?

[Free Lance]

The list of 'women's places' was in no means meant to be exhaustive. In fact, I think those listed will prove to be stepping stones to the vice presidency- which you correctly point out was conspicuous in its absence on the list.

To clarify, just about any place is fair game for a woman ... even the home and the kitchen if a woman should so choose. Feminists would call that choice off limits. After all, where would they go for "Bring Our Daughters to Work Day'? NOW would do well to validate ALL vocational choices for women, even if it is centered around home and family.

I would strongly recommend that women steer clear of Princeton and Harvard, which is where a young Michelle Obama nee Robinson was taught that America is "just downright mean". Add Wellesley to the list too, because Hillary was probably a completely lovely person until they got their lies into her. (on second thought, 'completely lovely' is a stretch for Hillary, but it doesn't let Wellesley off the hook.)

[Amanda S]

I think your definition of feminist is unnecessarily narrow. I think you are railing against one specific wave of feminism, which is not necessarily representative of the entire movement. All feminists do not forbid women from being housewives; they merely state that this should not be the only option for women. Feminism is, at its core, not about misandry or hatred of family values; it's about equality. By the same token, househusbandry should be a viable option for men as well.

Governor Palin refers to herself as a feminist. She is a member of the Feminists for Life organization. I think you are making the term "feminist" out to be a dirty word when it needn't be. You seem to agree with the basic principles of it.

[Free Lance]

I suppose it really is the so-called 'gender feminists' I am railing against. I might even join the marches, if that more radical wave of thinking didn't always grab the headlines and all the planks of the Democrat platform.

PS. I just finished vacuuming. Honestly. Not exactly a househusband, but we each do what needs to be done at the time. (Just in case the We Op-Ed community assumed I was in my La-Z-Boy screaming for my wife to bring me a beer.)