Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The myth of liberals hating Sarah Palin's motherhood

At the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker repeats a bit of business that I see often on the right, but have never seen much evidence for:
The reason Palin so upsets the pro-choice brigade is because she seems so content with her lot and her brood. One can find other reasons to think Palin shouldn't be president, but being a pro-life woman shouldn't be one of them.
The idea is that Sarah Palin's fecundity -- particularly with regards to Trig, her special needs child -- is part of what makes her an object of particular scorn on the left. But -- the fevered speculations of Andrew Sullivan aside -- where's the evidence for this charge? I've never seen anybody say: "I'd like Sarah Palin ... but damnit, she's given birth waaaaay too often." I think conservatives have convinced themselves that the liberal contempt for Palin is born out of hoity toity cultural snobbishness. But it's not.

Guess what? Liberals have kids too. Maybe not as often as conservatives. But still.

There are lots of reasons I dislike Sarah Palin's presence in public life, but her motherhood choices have no bearing on them. There's her aura of perpetual grievance. There was her manifest lack of preparation for the job she sought at John McCain's side in 2008. There's her origin of the "death panels" myth during the health care debate -- which revealed her to be either deeply misinformed or incredibly cynical. I could go on ... but honestly, I don't need to. It's going to be a weird universe the day I ever cast a vote for Sarah Palin.

Like I said, her motherhood has no bearing on my dislike of Palin. Except in one sense: I kind of dislike how she and some conservatives think her motherhood is a reason liberals don't like her. That's kind of irritating.

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