A Palin double standard

[question everything]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten10-2008sep10,0,7601200.column

From the Los Angeles Times

A Palin double standard
The McCain campaign is insisting on deference in the questioning of the vice presidential candidate.
Tim Rutten

September 10, 2008

Connoisseurs of campaign tactics tend to be a pretty cynical bunch, so they'll doubtless find much to admire in the adroit way Sen. John McCain's camp has handled Sarah Palin since she came aboard the ticket. Voters, who tend to nourish an inconvenient hunger for information, may be less impressed. One suspects that sooner rather than later, some will begin to wonder why the GOP is insisting that Palin is entitled to be treated according to a double standard.

McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, deserved full marks for chutzpah, for example, when he told Fox News' Chris Wallace that Palin would not answer reporters' questions "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Deference?

Respect and courtesy, maybe. Everybody is entitled to those -- including candidates for office -- and journalists seldom look worse than when they forget that. But deference? The president does not require deference from his media interlocutors, but the ambitious governor of Alaska does?

(snip)

The McCain campaign's insistence on imposing a double standard for Palin is nowhere clearer than in the demand, voiced by many of the candidate's surrogates, that her religious affiliations and their implications be placed off-limits. The GOP was on firmer ground when it made a similar demand with regard to her children, though it's safe to say that if Sen. Barack Obama had appeared in Denver with his unmarried pregnant daughter and the father of her child, the religious right's outraged screams still would be echoing in the nation's ear.

Palin's religious convictions should be open to inquiry, not least because the McCain campaign so obviously welcomes the support of evangelicals who support the ticket because Palin believes as they do. More important, Obama has been held to answer -- and rightly so -- for his connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the pastor's intemperate views on everything from race to 9/11. Obama was forced to give a speech disassociating himself from Wright and finally to leave Wright's church.

(snip)

[skycordia]

1. well she is a woman

We have to protect her from things like reality. At least Republican women. They are weak and need to be seen and not heard, as they are servants to God, their fathers and their husbands. I'll laugh at McCain if he tries to tell her what to do when it goes against any of those men.

[Sal Minella]

3. I'm surprised her husband lets her go hunting.

I mean, stepping over all those rocks and all that walking -- this might cause harm to her internal female organs. I learned all about harm to internal female organs in Hygiene in high school. From a book written by old men.

Women need to be careful of their bodies, since the main purpose of a woman is to have babies, and all. :sarcasm:

[ima_sinnic]

2. an excellent summary of her religious whacko issues:

Less than a month ago, Palin sat in the pews at the Wasilla Bible Church, to which she and her family belong, and listened to a sermon by David Brickner, who heads Jews for Jesus, a group cited by the Anti-Defamation League for its "aggressive and deceptive" proselytizing of Jews. Brickner said that Arab terrorism against the state of Israel was an expression of God's judgment on the Jewish people for their rejection of Christ. After Brickner concluded his remarks, a special collection was taken up to support the sect's activities.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign said Palin does not agree with Brickner's views, but somehow it's the kind of question a candidate ought to be able to answer for herself. Voters might also like to know whether Palin supports, as does her church, an upcoming conference that promises to change gays and lesbians into heterosexuals through the power of prayer. That conference, by the way, is being put on by James Dobson's Focus on the Family, one of the national evangelical organizations that discovered a sudden enthusiasm for the GOP ticket when Palin joined. . .

k&r'd

[Turner Ashby]

4. The McCain campaign always seems to have answer for her.

I don't think its because she is a stupid woman. Or would stay that way. She simply isn't ready for national office.