Addressing Alex

My colleague, Alex Knepper, over at Race42008.com, has written a post demanding that we jettison Palin post-haste. He calls those of us who defend Palin "tone-deaf". Let me address his points one by one.

Between Bristol’s pregnancy — which makes her Dukakis-esque statement that she would not approve of her daughter having an abortion even if she were raped take on a special meaning — and Troopergate, which should have eliminated Palin from serious consideration in the first place, Palin’s misadventures are ripe for gossip-mongering and make us lose control of the narrative.

This is- how shall I say it?- inane. Anyone who knows their history realizes that it wasn't Dukakis' opposition to the death penalty that killed him- everyone who opposes the death penalty would have been, de-facto, forced to answer "well, I wouldn't pursue the death penalty if my wife was raped and murdered". Dukakis was hammered because HOW he gave the answer; because he was an emotionless android giving the country a dissertation, rather then a husband forced to confront an unthinkable tragedy. So it's curious that Alex makes this point, given that he gives the impression in the remainder of the post, that he doubts a yokel from backwater Alaska could even spell dissertation. A Quayle perhaps, but never a Dukakis. The Troopergate is similarly bewildering. Thus far, all of the national reporting on the scandal has focused on the accusation that Palin fired a commissioner, because he wouldn't sack her step-brother. Almost none of the national reporting has focused on the fact that this step-brother was a cop who'd tasered his step-son, threatened to kill Sarah's father, and generally menaced all of the immediate Palin family. Perhaps as a point of logic this irrelevant, but it adds an emotional core that alter's the perception considerably; she becomes a daughter and an Aunt.

Worse, there are going to be a hell of a lot of mothers across the country that are going to seriously question whether it’s appropriate for a mother with a newborn special-needs child and a pregnant teenager to subject them to the campaign trail when they need her most. My own mother, whom I discussed this with earlier, was quite taken aback and appalled at her parenting decision. And the CNN poll released two days ago already showed that Palin actually hurt the ticket among women.
Do we really want to risk this if we don’t have to?

Anyone who thinks the Palin was made primarily to win over women voters isn't paying attention. And while there will undoubtedly be mothers who question her judgment, there will a goodly number who question the media's judgment in harping on the issue; would your daughter's life torn to shreds because you got a job promotion? There's incredible potential for a sort of populist moment from Sarah. Alex also seems to have an odd view of the ramifications of dropping Palin. Does he suppose that McCain can easily drop Palin, without bringing forward immediate "Eagleton" comparisons? Does he suppose that McCain can drop Palin without losing the entire evangelical movement, which is even now rallying to her defense? Does he suppose that McCain can drop Palin without lowering the perception of his judgment immeasurably? Does he suppose that McCain can drop Palin without losing millions of female voters for a generation ("Hey, women of America, getting pregnant or having someone near you get pregnant is now a firing offense. Have a nice day"). Oh, I get it; we get Sarah to, you know, "voluntarily" leave for personal reasons. I'm not surprised that he thinks this will work; what with those rubes in the sticks being so gullable.

2. She’s Not Ready to Lead
After having had a few days to let it sink in, it really hit me: sure, the left is being hypocritical when they criticize Sarah Palin’s inexperience. But is that our best argument? “Gee, at least our vice-presidential nominee is better than Barack Obama!” Barack Obama is our new threshold for what’s acceptable? What happened to ‘ready to lead’? It’s a slap in the face to people like Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, even Mitt Romney, who have strong records of accomplishment and are fundamentally ready on day one. McCain trashed his whole narrative by choosing Palin.
Do you want Sarah Palin potentially staring down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Vladimir Putin? Kim Jung-Il? Don’t feed me any crap about how her state borders Russia. That is not foreign policy experience.
Fair enough, you might say, but isn’t it ultimately about vision? George W. Bush had vision, even though he had no foreign policy experience.

Now, I know some folks subscribe to the "tough guy" school of foreign policy, whereby if you have a Y chromosome, and you're a bit of a bully, you're ipso facto ready to navigate foreign relations, but trust me- this isn't a real school of foreign policy. I'm taking foreign relations classes right now, and it's nowhere to be found. Rudy Giuliani has not a lick more foreign policy experience then Sarah Palin. Let me give Alex a clue; Sarah Palin could kick Rudy Giuliani's behind. All the moral clarity and icy stares would be meager fare when put up against a woman who fires M16's, and serves her kids Caribou she picked off in the Tundra last week.

And Romney's best foreign policy credentials come in the form of his degree; i.e, if you're from Harvard, and you're pretty smart, no doubt you're capable of staring down dictators with equanimity.

As for Bush, I'm really beginning to think Alex has no sense of history; George W. Bush had nothing approaching "vision" in foreign policy in 2000. His foreign policy consisted of "let's not be nation builders" and "hey, why don't we have a humbler foreign policy". He campaigned on education, on tax cuts, and on family values, and he stayed the heck away from foreign policy. If this is the "vision" that convinces Alex that someone's capable of staring down Ahmadinejad, then I want my politicians blind.

3. She’s an Intellectual Lightweight
One of the following quotes comes from Sarah Palin. Can you guess which one?:
A) “We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources”
B) “[O]f course, knowing the situation we are in right now — at war, not knowing what the plan is to ever end the war we are engaged in…”
C) “We’d better have a real clear plan for this war. And it better not have to do with oil…”
Which one was it?
Trick question. She said all of them! Sarah Palin thought that the Iraq War may have been for oil.

Ah, the old "if you disagree with me, you're an intellectual lightweight" ruse. I'd remind Alex that an awful lot of seemingly smart fellows, with Ivy degrees, and truckloads of heaping tomes adorning their bookshelves, hold to something like this belief. Oil does, indeed, have something to do with our interest in the Middle East. There's a reason we're not invading despotic regimes in and around the former Soviet Union, despite the fact that they likely have more dangerous nuclear material floating around then the Middle East. Part of it's fear of Russia; but we also don't have as clear of a strategic interest in the region. Republicans shouldn't be tossed overboard for voicing this sort of objection.

4. Her Untenable Abortion Position
Will she moderate her abortion position? She hasn’t done it yet, even though the Internet is abuzz with it. And Palin is not one to ignore the Internet, as that was the reason that she revealed her daughter’s pregnancy to the world.
Abortion isn’t an issue. It routinely ranks ninth or tenth on priority lists of issues. So abortion isn’t an issue — until it is. When polls suggest that as few as ten percent of Americans support the same position as Sarah Palin does (which is to say: no exceptions), it’s time to moderate ASAP or commit political suicide.
She has not moderated yet. Do we even know that she will?

It wasn't "an untenable position" for Huckabee, and it won't be an untenable position for Sarah. Provided she explains it emotionally, and provided that she's able to subtly weave her own experiences as a mother into the story. There's a reason pro-lifers have always wanted a pro-life woman leader; because they suspected, rightly, that they could soften the edges of a harsh position. But, frankly I think she could easily moderate the position; her brief response did not indicate that she wanted abortion banned if someone was raped; merely that she'd hope her daughter went through with the pregnancy. That's an easy sell, if it becomes necessary.