What Barone said was absolutely correct.  He never should have apologized for it or claimed his comment was a "joke".

That Sarah Palin did not abort her Down Syndrome baby was a rebuke to every comfortable, upper middle class woman who had a frivolous abortion for her convenience of the moment.

That was one powerful reason for the vicseral, instantaneous hatred that spewed out at Palin from the first moment she arrived on the national scene.

That spew was an ugly and revealing demonstration of what the so-called feminists and their allies in the media are really about.

P.S. while Frank Rich is gloating over the downfall of USNWR, what does he have to say about the precipitously falling numbers of the NYT?

(The demise of which I am certainly not hoping for.)

Chan, I'm afraid that you have a pretty warped view of liberals.  To say that anyone disliked Palin or responded to her negatively because she did not have an abortion is literally the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.  I think it was folks on your side who were focused on that.  At the convention, we though, "ugh, she's nasty, but skilled, so watch out."  After the Katie Couric interview, we thought, "yep, she's a total moron."

jhildner, you are not a very good analyzer of psyches.  It wasn't an articulated resentment.  It was neurotic upper middle class abortion guilt that came to the surface as vomit and bile.

Channie's liberal straw men and women are projections of his distorted world view, much like the distorted world view that sees Obama as a terrorist-coddling Muslim.  We in the reality-based community have moved on to bigger, more important matters, like saving our jobs and houses.

waynejm, I've got the same money and houses problem as everyone else does.

But, Left wing neurosies are always a danger to all of us-- Left or Right.  So there is a very good reason to be aware and wary of them and their political effect.

In the case of Palin, the only effect was media hysteria.  In other situations, the Left's idea of "reality" is always a clear and present danger.

Chan, nope, you're the nutso one here.  I'm telling you what we thought about Palin.  It had to do with her being nasty and stupid.  You can argue that conclusion if you want, but "neurotic upper middle class abortion guilt" is not a thing, and certainly not a thing in this case.  It's so much not a thing that I wonder to what extent those who make such an accusation are projecting, sort of like anti-gay-rights people.  Honestly, where do you folks come up with this crap?

Chan - By "media hysteria" do you mean the recognition that the woman is absolutely lacking in substance and gravitas, a loose cannon prone to raw demagoguery, utterly unqualified for the presidency?

waynejm, by "media hysteria" I mean the ugly attacks on the woman re the maternity of her baby, the instant outing of her pregnant daughter, etc.

These attacks came before she had opened her mouth.  

Meanwhile, I'm not persuaded that John Edwards is more qualified or more intelligent than Sarah Palin.

Yet nobody questioned his credentials.

Damn it Chan.  You've got me.  This 23 year old white dude just can't get over that abortion I had at 16.  If only I had Sarah Palin's courage!

Chan - Please dispense with the revisionist history.  The pregnant daughter was "outed" (if that's what you can call it) by the campaign, pre-emptively in all likelihood as it would have come out anyway, then exploited as evidence of Palin's "just plain folks" credentials.  The rumors regarding the baby were just that, rumors that received little play in the press, no worse than the smears against Obama's religious beliefs.  Media hysteria?  Hardly.  

John Edwards was a successful lawyer and displays the ability to speak extemporaneously in complete sentences. He has shown the ability to develop a coherent policy agenda on an issue of importance (agree with him or not). I never liked him all that much, but Palin does not look good in comparison.

JEFF FREY, John Edwards has the speaking style of a patronizing slick Southern lawyer speaking down to a jury of crackers.  

Which is what he is and how he envisions his audience.

Palin is far is superior in holding an audience, connecting with that audience, deriding her opponents, and bringing down the house.  Her comic timing exceeds that of most politicians.

And she makes the likes of Biden look like the old windbag bores that they are.

the Democrats hate her because she was uncommonly effective.  Especially for a VP candidate.  

Palin is incapable of putting together a coherent sentence, much less being second in line for the most powerful political position on earth.  Judging from her performance at rallies, she's "uncommonly effective" as a demagogue and not much else, whipping up the ever-shrinking base into a frenzy of hatred and resentment.

Chan, the speechmaking skills you cite are useful for getting elected, but actually tell very little about the person's qualifications for office. Actors can give fine performances, but this gives no insight into their ability to lead or to direct a complex organization. The skills I cited were more fundamental to the way the candidates think and communicate.

Here's another example. Barack Obama is a brilliant speaker from a teleprompter, but without the teleprompter he is often nothing special when speaking. Few people are extemporaneously eloquent. But he can answer questions about many issues in an intelligent fashion, and you can read his books to see how he puts thoughts together given the time to think about it. Sarah Palin can deliver a knockout speech from the teleprompter. But when she was asked questions, even straightforward follow-ups, her responses devolved into rambling, incoherent, run-on jumbles of phrases and thoughts. Word salad. I hear exactly the same gobbledygook from students who don't really know what they are talking about but are trying to give an answer anyway, or who sort of know but can't organize the thoughts in their head.

Even Edwards passed that test. Biden passed it decades ago, although he has other baggage. Palin has yet to pass it. She's pretty good at faking it and bs'ing her way through things, and those skills plus good timing got her to Governor.

Well, Jeff, the entire Palin discussion has been rendered academic by the election.

2012 is quite a ways off, but I don't believe she will be the GOP nominee.  And that's about as much as I want to think about another presidential election at this moment.

It will begin too soon as it is.

Unfortunately, Palin has not yet gone away and yearns for the national spotlight again. I hope you are right, because I would rather see a capable Republican qualified to be President as the nominee from the enemy side. Of course, I hope that capable Republican will be soundly thumped by Obama, but I don't want to see either party ever nominate a person who would be a disaster as President -- you can never be sure that the disaster won't somehow get elected.

Yes, I hope we can wait more than just 2 years for the start of the next Presidential campaign. But I fear that the Palin 2012 campaign has already begun, in effect. Not to mention Romney 2012.

I promised I wouldn't do this, Jeff, but from what I've seen of Bobby Jindal-- admittedly just a few swipes-- I'm very impressed.

And this is going to sound crass, but politically I think that old time white guys are going to be out of fashion for awhile and having some sort of hue as well as obvious talent is going to be an advantage.  Maybe even something of a requisite.

Much as I dislike identity politics, it will be very healthy for the GOP to attract its own rainbow coalition of not just white conservatives.  Being identified as "the white guys party" even if untrue and unfair is a guarantee of (ironically) minority status permanently.

The GOP may never get the black vote in my lifetime, but it could get Hispanics, Asians, and whatever else you've got.  Hispanics and Asians, after all, are not by nature social experimenters.  They have the family value thing down for real-- not just a slogan.

A hint:  while blacks and Hispanics were voting in Calif for Obama, they were voting also for Prop 8.  Hispanics also value a strong military and the rest.

As long as they don't see the GOP as the Deportation Party, there's plenty of opportunity there.

All this said, it's too bad politicians have to think like this.  Boby Jindal, for instance, seems like a very impressive guy period.  Someday I hope we are ethnic blind and color blind.