I agree that yours is a better analogy. For instance, Democrats hate Sarah Palin because of what she did as mayor and gov. Republicans hate a Clinton because of what (s)he did as gov, sen, pres. Almost no Republican (or Democrat, for that matter) remembers what Dean did while governor of Vermont.

I also suspect that, if the Democrats manage to pull out a victory in all three houses this November and especially if the 50 State Strategy pays off with a couple of surprising victories in deep red territory, some Republicans may begin to view Howard Dean as Democrats view(ed) Karl Rove.

I do hate her a little, although I know it's useless to hate public figures, because she's such a vicious hypocrite--at woman getting power by supporting misogynist politics. It blows me away that she can parade her daughter's "decision" to have a child when she'd rather not give that choice to anyone else, for instance.

But I agree with your objections and I think they'd be sufficient without the rest of my anger.

I think it's sort of subtle.

If you believe that abortion is murder (and believe that everyone should agree with you), then it is not particularly praiseworthy that someone decides to not murder their baby - it's a no-brainer, not a hard decision. I would not talk about how I am *proud* of my friends that they do not go onto Facebook and pretend to be a cute boy to drive their neighbors' kids to suicide (to take an example that I think most people agree is currently legal but wrong.)

That she praises her daughter for making a hard decision here implies that she realizes it *is* a hard decision, that both choices can have a painful cost. Which is I think how many pro-choice people regard the decision.

Thank you for injecting some sanity. The democratic media have been really pissing me off by trying to make a big issue of what basically amounts to Palin acting in accordance with her stated beliefs.

The issue isn't praise--it's how careful she's been to say "Bristol made her own decision, and we're glad she chose this one." She's been pushing the idea that she didn't FORCE Bristol to carry the pregnancy to term, that she felt it was appropriate for her underage daughter to decide whether or not to have an abortion, that she did not make the decision for her daughter. That's absolutely inconsistent with a belief that abortion should be criminalized.

I'm looking at phrases like "Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, the aides said." (Here.) Obviously these are all very brief statements and we can read them however we want, but that also means the wording was very carefully chosen. In a political climate that uses phrases like, "It's not a choice, it's a child," I think it's a little naive to try for a common-usage interpretation.

My problems with Sarah Palin aren't that she is unprepared; that is the Republican frame of reference in which to evaluate Barack Obama, and I don't buy into it. I could be convinced that it is a useful yardstick to measure with, but I'm skeptical.

My problems with Sarah Palin are that she is a creation-in-the-schools-ist who abuses any power that comes her way, fires people for disagreeing with her, and replaces them with people whose primary qualification is loyalty, and who can't balance a budget to save her soul.

We've had too much of all of those in the last 8 years, and I don't want any more.

I think the republicans hate the Clintons way more than the Dems hate Palin though. Of course, there's still plenty of time before the election to change that... but Clinton-hatred runs very, very deep.