timeimmortal

But not in a way that implies that the end of the piece is drawing nigh, mind you. It’s a crescendo in that sense of that two-chord sequence that percolates through the soundtrack for The Dark Knight; it swells and gets ever more grandiose each time it is heard, but it never resolves (there’s no third chord to close the sequence off)…it just leaves you hanging in this emotional limbo until the next time it thunders by (Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are messing with us).

And it’s not just Heather Mallick, although her hit piece on Palin is a good example of what I’m getting at here. She’s not doing any better with her follow-up commentary about her “lunatic screed” (thanks to BCF for that turn of phrase), it should be noted…indeed, if nothing else, she is giving ample reinforcement to the notion that the last acceptable bigotries are those which are directed against earnest Christians and “hillbillys.”

But anyhow, no, it’s not just Mallick. Salon.com, known to be partisan but also known to be…well…at least somewhat reasonable, is running a screed against Palin penned by one Cintra Wilson.

I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, “Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a ’sexy librarian’ costume — as a vice president? That’s a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it.”

And as though that weren’t a doozy of an opener, Wilson is just getting warmed up:

Palin may have been a boost of political Viagra for the limp, bloodless GOP (and according to an ABC/Washington Post poll she has created a boost in McCain’s standing among white women to a 53 over Obama’s 41). But ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions — their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership.

Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms. What her Down syndrome baby and pregnant teenage daughter unequivocally prove, however, is that her most beloved child is the antiabortion platform that ensures her own political ambitions with the conservative right. The throat she’s so hot to cut is that of all American women.

I don’t want Sarah Palin being the representative leader and custodian of my rights, my Constitution and my country any more than I want polygamist compound leader Warren Jeffs baby-sitting for my preteen goddaughters.

As a woman who does not believe what Palin believes, the thought of such an opportunistic anti-female in the White House — in the Cheney chair, no less — is akin to ideological brain rape. What this Republican blowup doll does with her own insides in accord with her own faith is her business. But, like the worst and most terrifying of religious extremists, she seems very comfortable with the idea of imposing her own views on everyone else.

…

I did not think that women being downgraded to second-class, three-holed chattel would be a pressing concern in my lifetime. I thought it was like polio, or witch burning — an inhumane error that had already been corrected. But after eight years of Republican hegemony, and now the potential ascendance of this sheep in ewe’s clothing, I am so mortally offended I feel like it is really time for women to be angry, hardcore and disgusted again.

Let’s quickly review. Palin — a working mother of five who was elected governor of an American state (Alaska) — is “an opportunistic anti-female.” She is a (willing?) participant in her party’s “brain rape” of American women. She is a “blowup doll.” She’s no better than a Mormon fundamentalist, really. She doesn’t actually care about her kids (clearly, if she did care, she’d have aborted that little defect Trig the moment the amnio screening came back positive)…her only concern is her stance against abortion.

Wilson covers almost every smear imaginable, but then adds a particularly excreable comment as well: “I did not think that women being downgraded to second-class, three-holed chattel would be a pressing concern in my lifetime.”

Exactly how is Palin going to be the overseer of such a downgrade, being that she is, herself, a woman…and then one who has rocketed to the heights of political (and actual) power? Exactly how is Palin — whose career has consisted, it seems, of shooting through one “glass ceiling” after another purely on the merits of her leadership and character, rather than by riding the coattails of any kind of enforced “equal opportunity” policy — the instrument by which women will again be reduced to mere chattel in the U.S.? EXPLAIN TO ME HOW ELECTING A WOMAN TO THE VICE PRESIDENCY SERVES TO UNDERMINE THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT! Especially when the woman in question seems to be living the ideal of feminism!

Oh, right…Palin opposes abortion. Clearly, then, she’s not really a woman.

See, this is why modern feminism is losing credibility. Palin should be the feminist ideal, the wet-dream “this is the one we’ve been waiting for!” icon of women’s lib. Instead, she is hated with a level of vitriol one has never seen deployed before by the Left; even Bush hatred never went this far. As Jonathan Kay notes, “[t]he brachuckers of 1968 would have been shocked and gratified to know that a woman would change the face of U. S. politics (and perhaps turn an election result) just 40 years after their Atlantic City street theatre — even if today’s feminists have the luxury of tilting their noses at the likes of Palin because she doesn’t toe the left-wing line.”

(This isn’t the first hit-piece that Salon has gotten roasted for, by the way. Juan Cole ran an article that has been repeatedly slammed by commentators for its comparison of Palin — who is openly Christian — to Islamic fundamentalists, of the sort that fill out the ranks of Hamas or govern Saudi Arabia.)

Ace nails, I think, the reason why all of these various hate-pieces are getting published. In the end, he says, it comes down to simply hatred, and the fact that the Left is not at all embarrassed to hide its hate; it is hate as a form of virtue, a substitute ideology to hold up in place of a vacuous one (e.g. “hope and change”).

And the kicker in all of this? For as much as the feminist/Leftist commentators insist that Palin. Is. The. Enemy. Of. Women. Everywhere!, normal, rational people are beginning to distance themselves from the screeching…and, in doing so, are shifting their support from Barrack Hussein Obama to John McCain. Which has a lot of people rattled. And rattled people will do irrational things.

Good gravy, even Obama himself is so rattled by Palin that he can’t help himself. His statement that “[y]ou can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” may not have been directed at Palin specifically, but it’s a close thing, following a tad too closely on the heels of Palin making a joke about herself concerning pit bulls, hockey moms, and lipstick. As Mark Shea notes, by way of comparison:

The key to political humor is it has to be either self-deprecating or else genuinely funny. So when Palin asks “What’s the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?” and answers “Lipstick”, that’s funny.”

When the Son of the living God [Obama's supporters have attempted to deify the man -- Ken]makes a veiled reference to Palin as a pig in lipstick?: Not so funny. The era of Obama’s cool transcendence of nasty politics is over. The Hero of the Solar Myth turns out to be a Chicago Machine Pol. Team Obama is losing it, and with it, the votes of all those women who could not care less that Gloria Steinem and the NY Times thinks they are not women at all.

Palin’s the first person who ever laid a glove on the guy and he is now beginning to crack up as a result. His “pig in lipstick” remark is a sign of that. It’s also (whether he wants it to be or not) a signal to the Freakish Enemies of the Normal that the gloves are off. These people will go apesh*t on Palin and her family — and the mass migration away from the Lightworker will continue.

It’s over. He’s got nothin’. He’s so desperate he’s forgotten he’s running against McCain.

That last point is also significant. Look, the dynamics of a presidential race aren’t that hard to understand. The VP nominees are supposed to be the “attack dogs” for their respective presidential candidates, while the candidates themselves are supposed to talk about issues and policies in an attempt to win voters. The candidates take the high road, and the VP nominees deal with the mud-slinging and gutter politics. It’s not a pretty tradition, but there it is.

Obama has forgotten this, it seems. And more than a few people are (maybe prematurely) suggesting that, for “the Lightworker,” the race may now be over.

The kid’s acting like an amateur is basically why. You don’t let the *Veep* of the other party drive your campaign and *especially* you don’t let her sucker you into making the sort of personal attacks it is the job of your surrogates and lackeys to mount. The moment the Pig In Lipstick campaign comes from Obama himself, he loses one of the few precious resources he has as an Empty Suit: the illusion that he is the Lightworker, an ethereal being floating above the Old Political Paradigm. That’s almost all the guy has going for him and now he’s throwing it away because she’s gotten into his head. He showed real class when he told the Freakish Enemies of the Normal to knock off the Gynecological Inquisition and reminded people that he was the product of a out-of-wedlock tryst.

But the moment the guy starts giving into the Inner Misogynist, he’s toast. He himself may get his game back and realize what a catastrophically bad move that was. But I doubt the Freakish Enemies in the Normal will be so swift on the uptake. Up till now, the bizarre hatred of the Ordinary American that has made Palin its lightning rod has been conducted over the protests of Obama and some of the rest of the Team who can see how it’s all playing in Paducah (huge spikes in the polls for McWhatsisname/PALIN!!!!!!!). Now Obama’s chosen to give a loud and clear signal to the Palin-flesh eaters to do their worst. That’s just about the stupidest thing he could possibly have done.

McCain’s campaign team is already making sure that Obama’s slip is going viral. Meanwhile, FactCheck.org is going to town on the various false assertions being made about Palin’s record. And over in Britain, Palin’s record in office — and the reason it qualifies her for the VP slot — has not gone unnoticed:

The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska’s energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes — the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having “no international experience” particularly absurd.

In short, far from being a small-town mayor concerned with little more than traffic signs, she has been a major player in state politics for a decade, one who formulated an ambitious agenda and deftly implemented it against great odds.

Palin’s selection was a brilliant move by the McCain team, it seems, for two reasons. First, Palin herself will do well in office; she seems comfortable with fulfilling executive branch duties, and seems equally at ease setting out to do what needs to get done. Moreover, she’s no stranger to international dealings at a high-end, policy-making level, and her record of standing up to corruption — even at the expense of career — is fairly solid.

Secondly, though, and then more importantly, Palin’s selection has utter destabilized the Obama campaign team, and thrown his supporters into disarray. Seriously…apart from one mention of tax policy in the past two weeks, what have we heard concerning Obama’s platform since Palin made her debut speech?

On such things do elections turn.

P.S. by way of the Shaidle, I was alerted to James Lileks‘ epic-scale fisking of Mallick’s article. It should be read in full, as there is simply too much “good stuff” in it to excerpt here.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

“You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Muhammad fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death.”

I’ve never understood Israel’s attempts at making peace with the terrorists next door; Hamas has vowed to throw or drive the Israelis into the sea, and will not rest until it has done just that. Relief monies that have been poured into Palestine have been re-invested in weapons and Qassam rockets. Still more of those monies have been directed into an education system that teaches the “glories” of “martyrdom” (read: murder-suicide) to young children, with textbooks that label Jews and Christians as “apes” and “pigs”.

There will not be a peace with this people, for this people knows only violence. And at the core of their violence is the death-obsessed cult that is called Islam.

Aside: this is a profile in real courage:

A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.

It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. “I’m now called Joseph,” he says at the outset.

Make all your dung-Marys, and fly all your “Jesus Sucks” banners. You will no nothing of courage in your day, certainly not as this man does.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Interesting compare and contrast — while Pope Benedict XVI made a point of visiting a Jewish synagogue to bring a message of “Shalom,” former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met with the leader of Hamas, as well as several other Islamic terror group leaders.

Who, one wonders, really cares for the welfare — physical and spiritual — of the Jews?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Arab terrorists kill ten at a Jewish seminary. At least one terrorist is shot in the head by a student who happened to bring a handgun to the seminary that day. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinians flowed into the street cheering for joy at the news of yet more dead Jews.

Just another day in Israel, unfortunately.

This was a barbaric act, these shootings, and equally barbaric is the public celebration of the deaths of Jewish seminarians in the streets of Gaza City. Hamas even offered their blessings upon “the operation,” although they apparently did not claim responsibility.

I read something interesting on another blog that was a remark about genocide: against the threat of genocide, there can be no disproportionate response. That’s a sentiment with which I’d mostly agree, although I might tighten it a bit: against the threat of genocide, there can be no response — short of genocide in reverse — which can be considered disproportionate.

I think that, on the whole, Israel has shown a commendable restraint in how it has dealt with the past few decades worth of terrorism and attempts by various Muslim nations to effect genocidal plans against her. For having done so, Israel’s every action is condemned even more harshly by the rest of the world, while attacks against her are excused as being “the most one can expect” from an “oppressed people” such as the Palestinians.

I do not pretend that Israel is blameless, nor that she has always been in the right. But by the same token, the Palestinians have received billions — has it been trillions yet? — in foreign aid monies, most of which has then been forwarded to Israel in the form of Qassam rockets. Does anyone out there think that there could not be peace in the region of Israel almost overnight if the residents of Palestine gave up Jew-killing as their national sport, purged the religious fanatics from their government, and turned those aid monies over to urban renewal projects and the development of a comprehensive education system? Of course, the problem with the Palestinians building themselves a viable nation-state is that, if they give up the conflict with Israel, then they will have no other issue with which to stoke up global sympathy for their (mostly self-inflicted) “plight,” which might dry up the flow of UN payments somewhat.

And we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?

“Inspired by God, Hamas fighters battle on“

That’s the headline of a Reuters news piece that features an interview with a Hamas fighter on “the Gaza Strip’s front line.” Apparently, Hamas is no longer a terrorist organization that desires the genocidal extermination of the Jews of Israel; at some point, it evidently became a beleagured band of freedom fighters struggling to free its people from the yoke of Zionist oppression. I must have missed that memo.

Update: Screenshot of the article taken this morning, just in case it “happens to change” later on:

…in one chart:

Israel’s predominantly Muslim neighbours do not want peace, no matter what lie they are telling in any given week. They want nothing more, nor anything less, than to wipe out the Jews. There will be no peace in the region of Israel until such time as that goal becomes a reality.