Look at that picture. Look at the protective grasp with which Gov. Sarah Palin holds her dear son, Trig. Look at her expression. Look at her eyes. That is one tough babe; that is no woman to be toyed with. That is a woman who’d as soon drop you as look at you, if who or what she loves is being threatened.

Dirty Harry’s commenters have some ideas about “why they hate her,” and they’re interesting, funny, sometimes profane, but the one I quoted above hits closest to the mark. They hate her because she is not a victim. And she does not see her son as a victim. And one gets the sense that she has no patience for disaffected drama queens with pretensions to victimhood, or with people who make their livings tearing down instead of building up, in order to keep the victim-mentality alive.

They hate her and they can’t bring themselves under control. You’d think after the first rush of wilding, the first cathartic release of boorish and hysterical screams, these people would be able to calm down a little, to get rational, to look beyond the ad hominem. You’d think it, but you’d be wrong.

So, on this day of tragic memory, in the year of our Lord, 2008, after 40 years of solid consensus about the abilities, rights, choices and empowerments of women, I present this run-down of uncontrolled and vile hate, directed toward a woman of ability, who has worked within her rights, made her choices and revealed the unwieldy and hard-to-control, startling power of her womanhood and her authentic feminine genius. She seems to have driven these people (both male and female, but the women are by far the worst) into the self-destructive revelation that they are ugly, vulgar and tawdry; and even if they could manage to re-hang their curtains, we’ve seen the truth.

Today I’ve been most taken with the incoherent ravings of this pathetic professor, Wendy Doniger, of U. Chicago’s Divinity School – she is an academic who mistaken believes that notion of (and the very phrase) “the separation of church and state” is actually included in “the mother lovin’ constitution!” She also is of the opinion that Mrs. Palin, demonstrably female, is not really a woman, although Joe Biden might be. Read her ravings and wonder at them. This old-time deconstructionist female – quite possibly an affirmative action hire meant to “empower” women – is writing in a weekly column that purports to be about issues of faith, but never explores that issue except through the prism of liberal politics. Doniger actually has little of value to say about Sarah Palin, but she is an ear-splitting, conscience-searing siren, alerting us to social, theological and educational travesties that have gone too long unexamined.

Hard on Doniger’s heels, almost surpassing her by the sheer force of her long expulsion of gas, is Heather Mallick’s mighty wind of hate. You can read it or you can do better, and read James Lilek’s exquisite fisking of her rant. Clearly Mallick approves of women, but not of females, and she too seems to have trouble distinguishing men from males. What an odd crew. Neo-neocon says more attention must be paid to these women, but not because of their wisdom; because of their weirdness.

That brings us to Cintra Wilson who – upon consideration – might be the most offensive and over-the-top of these Sneer Sisters.

Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She’s such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it’s easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism.

She is dangerous. She is not just pro-life, she’s anti-life. She is the suppression of human feeling and instinct. She is a slave to the compromises dictated by her own desire for power and control. Sarah Palin is untethered from her own needs and those of her family, which is in crisis, with a pregnant daughter, a son on the way to Iraq and a special-needs infant.

There is no response to that. The “she’s anti-life; suppression of human feelings and instincts…” argument betrays this as the equivalent of a Junior High School editorial by a 14 year old of some promise whose emotional growth was touched by frost and stunted. Dr. Sanity diagnosis underlying psychosis.

I’ll link to other Palinsanity further down, but now I recommend you take the antidote to The Weird Sisters by reading in full Camille Paglia’s exquisitely reasoned and written exposition on this descent in to madness, what does and means to feminism, and to women; how it exposes their fears and insecurities and – most importantly – how their inability to discuss abortion with intellectual and emotional honesty will be their ruination. As well as Paglia articulates it all, even she cannot get into the sickness fully enough. Still, she gets closer than anyone and this is a powerful piece – searingly honest about women, society and even herself.

What struck me about Paglia’s piece – and it must be read, it is too good to excerpt – is how her Catholic upbringing and education is so obviously the basis for her strength of mind; even if she has rejected all that, she has done it in a muscular and forthright way. I hesitated to say that earlier in the week because – as a Catholic – I am sensitive to being seen as “pushing” Catholic angles when talking politics. But Kathy Shaidle said it well: You can’t take the “Catholic school” out of the girl…

Lest we forget the men, they are leaving their spittle-laced diatribes all about as well. Caution at that link – you need an umbrella to stay dry from the foaming at the mouth.

No less an intellectual giant than film critic Roger Ebert, who once wrote a Valley of the Dolls screenplay, joined in the hissy fit, taking deep offense to the fact that at age 44, Palin has not yet been to Europe! Oddly enough, this massive brain lift was quickly taken down from the internet. Some of it may be found here.

The name-calling proves the arrested adolescence: Palin is “a Christian Stepford Wife!” She is “a cocky wacko!” She is “Osama bin Laden!” She is not deferential enough to Gloria Steinem! Palin is a living, breathing, functioning, three dimensional “MYTH of America, which really isn’t as great as she makes it out to be, and neither is she. Oh…they really hate her. And they lack wit, besides.

Why?

Some say they fear her faith

Some seem terrified by her youngest child and are positively allergic to calling him by his name, which, by the way, is Trig.

Some Canadians are worried that more women will “become confused” and have little Trigs of their own instead of aborting them. I’m not making that up. Others – most of the women – wail about the impending loss of their abortion rights, seemingly they do not understand that THE DEMOCRATS run both houses of congress.

Some recognize, simply, that Palin’s story and her strengths highlight Barack Obama’s weaknesses, the weightiest of which is his megalomania.

The press, lightly spanked for its excesses in the first days and hours of Palin’s emergence does not get why they have been booed. THey are being careful about what you hear, and what they do not disclose. And they’re still superior in tone as they do it. Note also ABC’s Charlie Gibson is misquoting her to her face. They are not really journalists, anymore.

There is a ton of this hateful stuff out there, but there are also a few people on the left willing to hear Palin, and more on the right willing to defend her – enjoy yourself frolicking through them!

“I’m a liberal but I’m blown away by Sarah Palin!”
Palin Energizing Women from All Walks
Palin is Revolution You Can Believe In
She makes a difference.

Palin’s son left for Iraq today. It does not seem extreme to allow her to catch her breath over the events of the last two weeks. But it is also true that the McCain/Palin ticket will have to be twice as substantial as the Obama/Biden ticket if they want half of the grudging respect.

Hmmm…how funny, feminists used to make that victim-complaint all the time. And here is a woman who is no victim, and not to be messed with, who is being made to jump through their victim-hoop. O irony.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey takes a microscope to the vomiting New York Times and finds…what do you know…a LOAD of double standards.

Roger Kimball has more thoughts

And finally, once and for all, for cryin’ out loud
When it mattered, Gov. Palin stood up to Sen. Stevens and dealt the Bridge to Nowhere its death blow. This is something the U.S. Congress and senators Obama and Biden failed to do on multiple occasions.

And while it’s true that John McCain, unlike his running mate, has always opposed pork-barrel earmarks, Sarah Palin, unlike Obama and Biden, did the right thing when it counted most and stopped an egregious example of earmark abuse. And now, of course, Palin has joined McCain in calling for an end to earmarks.

Isn’t it better to come around to the right position than to keep on being wrong?

Yes, it is. But sanity and reason mean nothing to those on whom Palin Madness Syndrome has fallen.