The Gaffe Double Standard

When I first heard the caterwauling about Sarah Palin calling North Korea our ally, I admit to a bit of eyerolling. The MSM just can't resist pointing out every misstatement by Palin as the latest evidence of her stupidity and unfitness for the presidency.

Now Sarah Palin's struck back with a well-written post pointing out the numerous gaffes by our erudite president Barack Obama, noting that most of them have received little or no airplay because, well, people do make mistakes.

And that, of course, is the point. People do misspeak. And sometimes, as with the Dancing With the Stars rumor, people don't speak at all but are reported to have said things anyway.

My point isn't to defend Sarah Palin as the great thinker of our time. I'm not even sure I think she is someone I consider highly qualified to be POTUS. But the constant piling-on from liberals and their buddies in the media is ridiculous and counterproductive. Ridiculous because Palin is no dumber than any of the other politicians we seem to elect, both Democrat and Republican. And counterproductive because the smear job done to her makes people--like me--who otherwise might not care one wit about her, support her.

Worse, in my opinion, is the misogynistic and elitist undertones of every attack. Whether it's complaints from PETA that she clubbed halibut on TV or arguments that she's making up words ("refudiate"), there's something utterly paranoid about the constant attacks on Ms. Sarah. Every woman, liberal or conservative, should be deeply suspicious of a media willing to paint women as unfit for office because they took a while to graduate from college (and changed colleges, no less!) and have small children. These are certainly not hindrances for men, after all.

I realize that Barack Obama can make as many gaffes as he wants without anyone questioning his intellect. After all, he's a clean, articulate black man with an Ivy League degree. And he earned it, dammit. Whereas Hillary Clinton rode her husband's coattails and Sarah Palin only got by on her looks. Right?