Sarah Palin: Why Is She Hated So?

Over Thanksgiving, I had a conversation with some relatives and once again, I was startled by the extent to which Sarah Palin is so desperately despised. 

I can understand why you might disagree with Palin on issues.  I can agree that she was insufficiently experienced for the job of President in the event that John McCain did not survive his first term--but she was still more experienced as a governmental executive than anyone else that was running in the 2008 general election.  The extent to which she is wrongly considered ignorant just amazes me. 

I have considered writing an article about this curious level of vitriol that the news media spew towards Palin, but John Lott's November 30, 2010 Fox News piece does a pretty good job of discussing the absurdity of it all.

For just how far off base her coverage by the media has been, consider the reaction when Sarah Palin, a Fox News contributor and former Alaska governor, last Wednesday accidentally referred to North Korea as an ally. It was an obvious slip of the tongue and she corrected the trivial gaffe immediately in her very next sentence. The local, national, and even international news coverage was massive, making the trivial error front-page news. A Google news search finds 834 separate news stories run just that day alone.

...

Since becoming president, Obama has called Europe a country. He misspelled the city of "Syracuse" twice, even though the word was spelled correctly next to where he was writing it. And he said that the Constitution was written "20 centuries" ago, the FBI was founded "100 days" ago when he meant 100 years, "Austrian" is a language, breathalyzers are used to treat asthma, and that he is working hard to "halt the rise of privacy," not piracy. None of these cases got more than a few minor mentions in news stories in the months after the gaffe.

The real issue for why Sarah Palin is so hated, I suspect, is the same reason why black conservatives are so hated in some circles, and why Southern abolitionists were so hated.  Sarah Palin is considered a traitor to her sex because of her principled and consistent opposition to abortion--even under circumstances that have caused more than a few pro-life people to make "unprincipled" exceptions: a Downs' Syndrome fetus; a pregnant daughter.

I don't think Sarah Palin has quite enough experience to be our next President.  But the absurdity of the ferocity of the attacks on her suggests that a lot of the elite see her as what her boosters see her as: the next Ronald Reagan.