It has been there since the moment Sarah Palin was nominated for V.P., in the "high-end" liberal websites not just the bowels of the internet.
Here is James Taranto noting the phenomenon on September 11, 2008, Targeting Trig Palin:
"South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin [yesterday], saying John McCain had chosen a running mate 'whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion,' " Politico reports. Fowler later apologized "to anyone who finds my comment offensive."Nothing has changed. Because they haven't changed.
We'll leave the offense to others. We find Fowler's comment revealing and disturbing. And she is not alone in striking this theme.Here is Andrew "Beagle With a Smear" Sullivan of The Atlantic:
And then, because [John McCain] could see he was going to lose, ten days ago, he threw caution to the wind and with no vetting whatsoever, picked a woman who, by her decision to endure her own eight-month pregnancy of a Down Syndrome child in public, that he was going to reignite the culture war as a last stand against Obama.Sullivan loses control of his syntax, but Salon's Cintra Wilson manages to make a similar point with flawless grammar:
Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right.This is worse than tasteless or even unhinged. It is depraved.
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Related Posts:
Don't Cheer Wonkette's Removal of Latest Post Mocking Trig Palin
Trig Is A "Prop" To Them Only Because They Don't Like Seeing A Child With Down Syndrome
Wonkette's Ken Layne Issues Phony Claim That "Trig Is Cool With Us"
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The wankers at wonkette have lost a good bit of advertising revenue because of this. Good.
ReplyDelete"None of this can be explained in terms of political calculation. Scorning a woman for declining to abort a disabled child is likely to be about as persuasive to voters as burning an American flag. These ugly sentiments have to be sincere. In a way, that makes them even more disquieting."
ReplyDeleteI think Taranto was right and wrong at the same time.
No one thought that it would be a persuasive argument to voters, that much is most certainly true.
What they thought was that the hateful sentiment would resonate with their ideological peers. That is, after all, the reason you write an emotional piece: to strike a chord with your reader and for them to identify with what you feel.
Now, that's not a political calculation, though, it's a political intuition, which is probably why pundits like Taranto were blind-sided by it.
But it's undeniable that over the years the left has developed a deep, visceral hatred of Palin, and this stuff back during the campaign is what started that.
Professor, I don't know if any of your readers are geneticists, but I did a little computation and would like confirmation this is correct:
ReplyDeleteIf we share 97% of our genes with chimpanzees, that means we share as much as 70% with these creatures who have Trig Palin in their crosshairs.
Yes, they haven't changed and they will not change. To paraphrase ee cummings:
ReplyDeleteit took
a nipponized bit of
the old sixth
avenue
el:in the top of their heads: to tell
them