Palin: A Brilliant Trap?

Kirsten Powers seems to think John McCain laid out the trap for Team Obama, and they bit right away.

SHE'S just a beauty queen.

She's another Dan Quayle.

And ironically, the biggest criticism of Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep choice, is she has no experience. Funny, coming from the Barack Obama camp.

Following McCain's announcement of Palin - the first female to be put on a GOP ticket for the White House, and only the second in US history - the Obama campaign skipped the niceties and blasted her as the "former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience."

She's also a governor of Alaska (my home state), the first woman in that office and the youngest elected in state history. She has an 80-plus percent approval rating. She has turned the state upside down with her reformist zeal and has made enemies of the Republican establishment.

And she can talk energy policy, one of the biggest issues facing this country.

Is she a gamble? Definitely. But so is Barack Obama, who has himself dismissed experience as a prerequisite for leadership, despite his spot atop the Democratic ticket.

At this point, Palin is so unknown, there's no way to make a clear judgment about her. But listening to Obama supporters take to the airwaves to shriek with indignation about her lack of experience is just a little too rich. Where were they when Obama, two years into the Senate, announced his candidacy for president?

One Obama supporter and political operative blogged, "In picking an unknown, untested half-a-term governor from Alaska . . . John McCain is following in a long line of reckless men who have rolled the dice for a beauty queen."

Do we really have to do this again?

Yes, we do. Because these people cannot help themselves.

There's such anger and hatred spewing forth from the left over this pick, it's hard to quantify whether most of these attacks are simple misogyny or perhaps signs of mental illness.

Over at the blog where MSNBC's prime nutcase hangs his shingle, we may have the winner of the most deranged post. Really, do these people think before they hit publish?

Seems the comments at this Washington Post item are also promoting this lurid line of attack. I guess they don't monitor comments at Howard Kurtz's newspaper. Howie enjoys noting offending comments at right-wing blogs. I wonder whether he'll notice?

Meanwhile, the Nation calls her a Buchananite. The comments there are also lovely.

Among many offenses, these jokers note she's a global warming denier.

Oooh, she must have a cooties as well.

There's plenty more ugliness, and you can find a good chunk of it here. One of the alleged Palin scandals is thoroughly debunked here.

Seems to me McCain made a solid pick. That notion is only reinforced by the unhinged reaction from the left.