Praise Palin while you can

She brought forth this from Francis Mooney:

About the Palin family, their mutual support and their glowing love for the infant Trig, I thought: THAT'S the village that it takes to raise a child.

From TSO:

"Our mama beats your Obama"

He says he saw it on a Palin supporter's T-shirt. I was hoping he'd invented and copyrighted it so's he could become a millionaire.

From Francis Beckwith:

She's also an Evangelical Christian, which for the left, is worse than being a Weatherman. It is a religion that no one they really know actually practices. This leads to the conclusion that for the Left it is better to practice anonymous sex than to belong to anonymous sects.

I should point out that Dr. Beckwith is an avid McCain supporter, in spite of the latter's lip-smacking eagerness to inflict research carnage on leftover embryos.

And perhaps my favorite, from the Trousered Ape:

From the way that the Leftists are railing
At Gubernatrix Sarah Palin,
It seems like they know
That the Story of O
May not, after all, be plain sailing.

And there is so much more that could be said and has been. What joy there was when this fresh new face came upon the scene of our degraded politics. But - there's always one of those, isn't there? - purely by accident I caught the "social issues" part of her interview with Charles Gibson, or "Charlie", as she liked to call him. Ad nauseum. That was the first red flag. Why was she trying to ingratiate herself with a condescending, harumphing old fart who looked the whole time as if his large intestine were building a brick? Why didn't she ask him if he intended not to smile during the entire interview? Is there some journalistic rule against it? Or does the rule only kick in when your interviewee is some rifle-toting, Jesus-praising, multiple child-bearing hick from the American outback? Charlie asked her about stem cell research and abortion, noting that her positions were somewhat at odds with McCain's. Roe v. Wade, for example, such a critical issue for so-o-o many women, he said. It is, she agreed. You think women should not have that choice? he asked. Instead of saying No, they should not, she babbles on about what a 'personal' decision it is, about how 'a culture of life' is better for America, how we can all agree that there is "a need for fewer abortions in America," how this is her "personal" belief, etc. For pete's sake, woman, get to the point.

And in the cases of rape and incest for which McCain makes exception, you do not agree? "That is my personal opinion..." She uses this word 'personal' almost as much as she says 'Charlie', and uses it in such a way as to cast doubt on the objective truth of what she believes. To be frank, she sounds like most of my students, who think that everything is a matter of opinon. And now I hear that the McCain campaign has put out a radio ad (under the McCain-Palin banner) promising big bunches of stem cell research. Of what kind the ad makes no mention. This cannot have been unintentional. So I had to write another email to the campaign telling them that, though I had held great hope for movement in the right direction, I have pretty much lost it. (I write such emails because I find shouting into the void exhilarating.)

We should have seen it (her being compromised, if not outright corrupted) coming. Put yourself in her place. You are (presumably) pro-life in every conceivably meaningful way. A presidential candidate who is not asks you to run with him. Are you going to say 'yes', or are you going to say "First, we need to clear up a couple of things," and then tell him that you find his advocacy of ESCR on leftover embryos repugnant, inconsistent, and that you will do everything in your power to change his mind and, failing that, to oppose him? What possible understanding could they have come to that did not consign her most sacred principles to the role of background noise?

Some make the argument that McCain must be supported because of the hugeness of Obama's moral monstrosity. This is an understandable argument. A fair example of the attitude underlying it is offered by Dr. Beckwith over at W4 when he responds to one of Zippy's posts:

Moreover, you may very well disagree with John McCain's views, but it is pretty over the top to say that he supports the intentional murdering of innocent people.

To which Zippy responds: "No it isn't. It is a simple statement of fact, given that embryos are innocent people." In a later comment Beckwith says:

I do agree with Zippy that McCain is wrong about ESCR. Having said that, by not voting for McCain, you're helping Obama, who believes that preemies are in the iffy category.

When faced with two flawed men, choose the least flawed. That's how [we] pick teammates in pick-up b-ball games. Same goes for presidents.

Several flawed assumptions become apparent. First, that this is a game, which it is not. Second, preemies occupy a higher moral status, and therefore lay greater claim to our protection, than do leftover embryos. In other words, I don't think people who say this kind of thing really think that embryos are as fully human as the rest of us. Third, there is the presumption that double-effect justifies voting for McCain in the same way that it justified those of you who voted for George Bush - even though he made exceptions in cases of rape and incest. But there is a difference between the two I hope you'll keep in mind before going to the polls:

The law allowing abortion in all cases, not just those resulting from the hard ones, was already in place when Bush took office. His exceptions were fairly meaningless unless it had been the case that abortion law forbade all abortions in any case. Then you could accuse him of advocacy. McCain is proposing something different. He wants to take a procedure, the federal funding of which is not currently permitted, and make it permissible. He is literally advocating for a method of research that involves the murder of already conceived human beings, in a way that George Bush never has. To some it makes no sense, in light of Roe v. Wade, that ESCR would be illegal in any sense. Well, it isn't. Such research goes on in the private sector. Or, if it does not, there is nothing to inhibit it. But, unlike Bush and the abortion law, McCain is not tolerating such research while bemoaning the fact of its existence being forced on us by a tyrannical Court. He is in fact offering his own, personal approval of the very thing he claims to despise: the right to kill unborn children. Federal funding of ESCR on leftover embryos augments and perpetuates the abortion mandate.

So my question remains: What is Sarah Palin doing on this ticket?