There are learning curves and there are learning curves. No matter how bad the blowback on the vicious attacks aimed at pro-life Vice Presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, pro-abortion Democrats can’t stop themselves. They cannot curb their vindictiveness, even knowing that it infuriates people who have no particular allegiance to the Republican Party. They have learned nothing.

With nothing better to do, Carol Fowler, the chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, bent the ear of Politico’s Alex Burns to tell him that Gov. Palin’s “primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion.” No doubt Fowler felt better, especially after she smugly added, “Among Democratic women and even among independent women, I don’t think it helped him.”

Well, we could just let this latest slur pass, I supposed, but in lieu of that, let me offer just two thoughts.

It is important to understand that as a public official, Gov. Palin’s pro-life position is annoying enough for the anti-life set. That she lives her convictions really sticks in their craw.

Where does she get off carrying a baby with Down syndrome to term? None of the “right” kind of people would! And where did she come off having her pregnant, unmarried daughter right there on stage at the Republican National Convention with the rest of the family on prime time? Palin refused to fit Fowler’s loopy stereotype of Christian people who disown their children, another source of irritation.

The other thing is reporters understand that beyond being tacky and ill-mannered, Fowler’s remarks were just stupid. “Since the decision [to carry Trig to term] occurred months before the VP search,” wrote Andrew Malcolm on the Los Angeles Times’ blog, “winning votes for not aborting their Down syndrome baby would seem less a topic of likely discussion by the Palins and perhaps more revealing about the Democratic chair's thinking.”