Sarah Palin Replaces Hillary Clinton in the Chauvinist Left’s Crosshairs

I never thought I’d see the day when I’d link from Katalusis to an article by Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard. But this headline in the Huffington Post just did it for me: Sara Palin: Dems Pounce on McCain Pick. And pounce the Dems did with the same vituperation mustered in their concerted efforts - in collusion with their media allies - to force Hillary Clinton out of the race for the Democratic nomination. Always at the ready, Obama’s online shock troops quickly chimed in by savaging the Alaska governor with over 7,500 readers’ comments. If you can stomach the vilification of the youthful Palin, go here.

Over at the Weekly Standard, none of the above came as a surprise. Bill Kristol’s piece titled Let Palin be Palin: Why the Left is scared to death by McCain’s running mate now seems prescient. Kristol writes:

"A spectre is haunting the liberal elites of New York and Washington--the spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism, rising out of the American countryside, free of the taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress, able to invigorate a McCain administration and to govern beyond it.

"That spectre has a name--Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska chosen by John McCain on Friday to be his running mate. There she is: a working woman who's a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who's broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who's a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who's a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who's a leader.

"So what we will see in the next days and weeks--what we have already seen in the hours after her nomination--is an effort by all the powers of the old liberalism, both in the Democratic party and the mainstream media, to exorcise this spectre. They will ridicule her and patronize her. They will distort her words and caricature her biography. They will appeal, sometimes explicitly, to anti-small town and anti-religious prejudice. All of this will be in the cause of trying to prevent the American people from arriving at their own judgment of Sarah Palin."

Here’s the link I thought I’d never make: to read Kristol’s piece in its entirety, go here. By the way, note Kristol’s sustained tone of civility. Wonder if the Left will ever master that particular skill. I doubt it.