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Pro-Life Gov. Sarah Palin Within a couple of hours of the surprise selection of pro-life Gov. Sarah Palin to be pro-life Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, we were asked by The Hill newspaper to post a response on its blog. Here are the first two paragraphs of what I wrote: “The selection of pro-life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a twenty on a scale of one to ten. The 44-year-old mother of five will accomplish what very few vice presidential selections have ever done: fundamentally change the dynamics of the contest for President. “From our single-issue perspective, pro-life Sen. John McCain could not have chosen a more compatible, more exciting running mate. The short-hand phrase is ‘ardently pro-life.’ Gov. Palin is, and much, much more.” Weeks later, few would disagree with either assertion: that Gov. Palin had upset pro-abortion Sen. Barack Obama’s well-laid plans by snatching away the “change” narrative and that she and Sen. McCain comprise a near-perfect team. That was not the consensus at the time. The Obama campaign team and the media (essentially one and the same) sang off the same dismissive, sexist, one-note sheet: Palin was the “former mayor” of a small town (no mention that she was governor), so inexperienced it was almost beneath them to excoriate her. Needless to say, they roused themselves and savaged Palin and her entire family. So vicious was the onslaught that neither the Palins’ fifth child, born with Down syndrome, nor their oldest daughter, who, it was learned, was unmarried and pregnant, escaped the barrage of hate. Even those of us who remember the scurrilous campaign waged against Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork were shocked by the venomous attacks. But sometimes what goes around really does come around. As I write this story, the wheels seem about to come off the Obama bandwagon. Obama, his friends in the “mainstream media,” and the sleazier blogs have hit Palin high and (most often) low, with bogus charges and ugly smears. But rather than diminish Palin’s appeal, the gutter-level vitriol has only served to endear her to more and more Americans. There is an old adage—“If you strike the King (or in this case, the Queen), you must kill the King”—that applies perfectly. The Obama campaign and its allies assumed that if they hurled enough muck and injected enough poisonous lies into the public dialogue, Palin would be neutralized, if not turned into a drag on the ticket. But that was always risky for the simple reason, as Peter Brown delicately pointed out (writing in the Wall Street Journal), “[T]he public already has grave doubts about the news media.” People not only easily intuited the blatantly unfairness, they also took an instant shine to the brilliant, articulate, and folksy governor. I first learned about Palin from a friend of nearly 30 years who had moved to Alaska. Another friend and fellow Alaskan echoed her assessment: Palin is a remarkable woman, she wrote. “I am hugely proud of her, and committed now to pray for her strength, her wisdom, her courage, to withstand all that will be thrown up against her.” We ran a story earlier this year about the birth of Trig, the Palins’ fifth child. At age 43, Sarah Palin learned that Trig would have Down syndrome. As she told People magazine last month, she waited until her husband, Todd, got back from a business trip to tell him. “The good news is we have a boy,” she tearfully told him. “But we have a challenge.” What was Todd’s response? “Awesome! I’m getting another boy.” Gov. Palin is smart, relentless, focused, and fearless. (See page 17 for a review of the book, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down.) But nothing could better convey why pro-lifers are so in love with her than the conclusion of the People magazine story: For Palin, her fifth child has opened a “humbling” new window on motherhood. She says that Trig (whose name is derived from two Norse words meaning “brave victor”’ and “true”) “reacts slower” than her older children did at his age. Last month he began physical therapy to strengthen his muscle tone. The family can tell he’s a fighter, just like Mom. “It’s the way life’s supposed to be,” Palin says. “Everyone has battles, but not everything has to fit into a mold of perfection. Fulfillment and joy go much deeper than that.” |