You may have seen Joe Biden’s statement today that the election of Sarah Palin as VP would be “obviously a backward step for women.” Beldar posted a response to Sen. Biden that is positively devastating:

It’s possible to become so thoroughly saturated with partisan politics that it turns one into a complete moron. Every question, every issue, must be answered in a fashion deemed “correct” and “acceptable” according to the entire spectrum of one’s party’s positions. When carried to extremes, this becomes so ridiculous that it’s actually quite funny, sort of like watching a drunk search for his missing keys only below the lamppost because that’s where the light’s better.I believe in equal opportunity regardless of race. Anyone who shares that belief can take satisfaction from the fact that a major party’s presidential nominee is black. Although I will campaign and vote against him, if he should be elected, I will nevertheless readily acknowledge that to be a historic symbolic event, and one that should provide further satisfaction to all who believe in equal opportunity regardless of race.Someone who denies the corollary of that historic symbolism for Gov. Palin’s potential achievement is not really a believer in equal opportunity regardless of sex. If accomplishment only “counts” when the accomplisher is a “right-thinking” (meaning here, “left-thinking”) woman, that’s just another variety of sexism—a particularly ugly one, because its premise is that a woman’s own decision about her beliefs on the entire remaining range of issues counts for less than a man’s.I say, then, with confidence, and as a committed believer in equal opportunity regardless of sex, and one who absolutely believes his two daughters ought to have the same opportunities as his two sons: If Joe Biden is elected to the vice presidency, that would obviously be a backward step for women.

I agree completely.

It’s been interesting to see the reactions to Sarah Palin from England. Those on the Left over there don’t like her any more than the Left over here does, of course, but since she’s less of a direct threat to them, there’s definitely less of the hysteria that has driven efforts to club her to death like a baby seal. That’s provided more room for intelligent commentary—and also, interestingly, for voices asking, “WHY, why, why can’t WE have a Sarah Palin?” In Fergus Shanahan’s case, his lament seems primarily the result of a British political scene “as grey and dull as the leaden September skies. It’s dire”; but others are expressing the same wish for more substantive reasons. The title of Melanie Phillips’ column in the Daily Mail says it all, I think: “Contempt, apathy and lies—why Britain is crying out for our own ‘pitbull with lipstick.'”

There are millions who long for a conservative defence of Britain and its values by a leader they respect and admire. Sarah Palin may well turn out to be Middle America’s revenge on its elites. Middle Britain is watching—and hoping that it will now be hunting season against the moose of the British Left, too.

Perhaps the best British piece on Gov. Palin was James Bennett’s article in the Telegraph pointing out how different her small-town background is in Alaskan politics than it would be most places:

Having worked with Alaskans, I know something of the challenge she has faced, and why—contrary to what Democrats think—it could make her a powerful figure in the White House.The first myth to slay is that she is a political neophyte who has come from nowhere. In fact, she and her husband have, for decades, run a company in the highly politicised commercial fishing industry, where holding on to a licence requires considerable nous and networking skills.Her rise from parent-teacher association to city council gave her a natural political base in her home town of Wasilla. Going on to become mayor was a natural progression. Wasilla’s population of 9,000 would be a small town in Britain, and even in most American states. But Wasilla is the fifth-largest city in Alaska, which meant that Palin was an important player in state politics.Her husband’s status in the Yup’ik Eskimo tribe, of which he is a full, or “enrolled” member, connected her to another influential faction: the large and wealthy (because of their right to oil revenues) native tribes.

In other words, Sarah Palin was actually already well involved in statewide politics in Alaska even before she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002. As such,

Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it. 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.

Bennett also raises a very interesting point about the reaction of Gov. Palin’s enemies in Alaska to her nomination (one which makes a great deal of sense out of some of the stories we’ve seen):

Her sudden elevation to the vice-presidential slot on the Republican ticket shocked no one more than her enemies in Alaska, who have broken out into a cold sweat at the thought of Palin in Washington, guiding the Justice Department’s anti-corruption teams through the labyrinths of Alaska’s old-boy network.It is no surprise that many of the charges laid against her have come from Alaska, as her enemies become more and more desperate to bring her down. John McCain was familiar with this track record and it is no doubt the principal reason that he chose her.

Who would ever have thought that Alaskan politics would become a subject for international analysis?Surely not Ted Stevens.

I have continued to be bothered by the attitude of the folks at PowerLine toward the Palin pick. I get that they’re Minnesotans who were really hoping to see Tim Pawlenty in that slot, but I think the disappointment is skewing their perspective; they’ve been veering unsteadily between appreciation and snide dismissal. Yesterday, for instance, Paul Mirengoff put up a post on Palinmania, a subject which I agree warrants self-reflection on the part of conservatives—but rather than addressing the real problem (the recurring temptation to put too much weight on and too much of our hope in politicians, who are, after all, merely human), he simply dismissed the phenomenon as ridiculous because focused on an “empty, or at least incomplete, vessel.” The implication, it seems to me, is that if John McCain had picked someone worthy for the slot (and you know whom they have in mind), the reaction might be reasonable; the problem is that Sarah Palin is unworthy.I now know that I’m not the only one who’s been bothered by their ongoing attitude; Beldar put up an excellent post this morning critiquing their complaints about the GOP response to Gov. Palin, a post which made several points that badly needed making; I hope they pay attention to what he has to say and re-evaluate their position.That said, I think there are a couple things which still need to be said, and both come down to another Paul Mirengoff post dismissing “the ‘Life Happens’ Republicans.” He concludes that post with the line, “The party has changed. It has become either less or more mature”—and from the tone and thrust of the preceding paragraphs, it’s clear that he’d vote for “less.” Though it’s a brief post, he manages to articulate three things which he holds up as signs of GOP immaturity. Taking the last one first, he writes,

The catch-phrase of the day seemed to be “life happens.” And indeed it does. But Republicans used to believe that the choices we make usually go a long way towards shaping the manner in which life happens, and that therefore indifference is not a fully appropriate response to bad choices.

This, I believe, is unfair—indeed, as unfair in its way as anything out of the liberal media. What exactly are the choices involved here? Let’s list them:

• Bristol Palin’s choice to have sex with her boyfriend, Levi Johnston
• Their decision to get married (which came before her pregnancy)
• Their decision, on her pregnancy, to keep the baby
• Todd and Sarah Palin’s decision to support their daughter and future son-in-law in their marriage and parenthood

Which of these choices was a bad choice? The first one. (Liberals would disagree, of course, but I’m not addressing liberals here.) Who made it? Bristol Palin. (And Levi Johnston, of course, but Gov. Palin didn’t raise him, so he may be considered outside the purview of anything reflecting on her.) In considering that, one might fairly say that “the choices we make usually go a long way towards shaping the manner in which life happens, and that therefore indifference is not a fully appropriate response to bad choices”; and if you look at the response which Bristol Palin made, and which her parents made, to that choice and its consequences, you can clearly see that Mirengoff’s snide “used to believe” is in fact unfair and unwarranted. Clearly, the Palin family firmly believes that “the choices we make usually go a long way towards shaping the manner in which life happens, and that therefore indifference is not a fully appropriate response to bad choices”—you can see that from the string of good choices Bristol Palin and her family made in response to the initial choice. And it’s to that that the GOP delegates were responding positively; painting their acknowledgement of the fact that “life happens” as “indifference . . . to bad choices” is simply wrong.Mirengoff’s uncharitable misreading of the GOP delegates’ charity and forbearance as immaturity is the thing that galls me most here, but it’s not the only thing. In the third paragraph of his post, he writes,

Many people here say they are looking forward to Palin’s debate with Talkin’ Joe Biden. They say that expectations will be low and there’s a good chance that Biden will come off as a bully. There was a time when Republicans would have been less delighted to be the party of low expectations, relying on a sympathy backlash.

(He also notes talk of a sympathy backlash with respect to Bristol Palin’s pregnancy.) If you want to blame anyone for teaching the party the political utility of low expectations, go look at George W. Bush, who found them very helpful in his debates with Al Gore. As for the whole “sympathy backlash” idea, that’s politics, and has been for a while now. What really gets me, though, is that last clause. There’s actually no suggestion in anything he reports that convention delegates were relying on a sympathy backlash for Gov. Palin in her debate with Sen. Biden; that’s his insertion. They understand, yes, the advantage of low expectations on the part of the press—but that doesn’t mean their own expectations for her performance are low. That’s Mirengoff reading his own low view of Gov. Palin into their comments.This assumes his initial complaint:

a vice presidential nominee who, given her credentials, would not (in my opinion) have rated ten minutes of consideration but for her gender.

I will grant that Gov. Palin doesn’t have a long résumé; but as Beldar pointed out here, she’s accomplished a great deal in her time as governor, and as he noted here, her service as chair and ethics commissioner on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is in fact a major point on her résumé as well. He notes and comments on an article from the New York Times which highlights the fact that the governor of Alaska is perhaps the most powerful state executive in the country, as well as being the one who faces some of the greatest challenges. Further, as CinC of the Alaska National Guard (a role in which she has shone—see the video below), in pipeline negotiations involving Canada and fisheries matters in which Canada, Russia, Japan, and South Korea are concerned, she has far more foreign-policy experience than other governors. And then throw in the fact that everything Gov. Palin has accomplished, she has accomplished in the face of an extremely difficult political environment.All of which is to say: granting everything good about Gov. Pawlenty, what argument is there that he is more prepared or qualified to be VP except that he’s been governor longer? Considered carefully, even given her shorter tenure, I’m firmly convinced that her credentials alone warranted at least as much consideration as his did, even leaving aside her gender—and even leaving aside as well the fact that she’s a much more charismatic speaker and seems to match him (roughly, anyway) in other political skills. Three months ago, when I started looking closely into her record, her accomplishments blew away my initial concerns over her length of service, and I became firmly convinced that she was the best choice for VP; I think any impartial consideration of her record will at least concede that that was a fair and reasonable conclusion, both for me and for Sen. McCain.

HT for the video: Jennifer Rubin

Not that that’s news, of course, but it’s still interesting to see the effects quantified.

I’ve been talking up Sarah Palin for two and a half months now—long enough to have been ahead of the curve, if not truly an early adopter—laying out a long list of reasons why I believed she was the best pick as John McCain’s running mate; I never imagined I’d thought of them all, but I did think I’d hit all the high points.As it turns out, I was wrong. Blame it on the Y chromosome: I’m a guy, I miss things. I think I’m a reasonably attentive husband to my wife—we talk a lot, about a lot of different matters and issues, and believe it or not, I think I manage to listen about as often as I speak—but whatever she might tell me about her own experience, it’s still hers, not mine. I’ve never lived through junior high or high school as a girl (though my junior-high years were quite bad enough as they were, thanks), never been a daughter, never been a woman; clearly, from what I see and hear, it makes a difference, but I cannot know that difference from the inside. Even in our marriage, though we live life together and make decisions together, though I listen and seek to understand how it is for her each day and how she sees everything, I can only know her experience from the outside; I don’t feel it, I feel my own.Which means that when I started talking about the reasons why Sen. McCain should pick Gov. Palin, I missed one: identification. I missed the reaction of the women who are saying, “I am Sarah Palin. Her story is my story”—and there are enough that CafePress has put out a T-shirt. I missed the reaction and perspective of women like Annette Budd and Hope Reynolds and Dr. Melissa Clouthier (a bit of profanity there, just so you know) and, yes, my own wife and the women with whom she meets for playdates for our children. Like I said, I’m a guy—I didn’t know, didn’t see it coming. I’m learning.There’s a particular subset to this which may be especially important: Republican women. For one thing, they are the most likely to identify with Gov. Palin; as Will Wilkinson put it,

What they liked is that they saw a feminine yet powerful conservative Christian mother—someone they understand, someone they would like to have as a friend, someone they are or would like to be. What they liked was the thrill of such direct cultural identification, of being on that stage and commanding attention and respect. I do not doubt that conservative Christian moms all over the country were brought to tears by the power of this. There are a lot of conservative Christian moms.

And for the other, as Michelle Malkin notes, women who vote Republican have become wearily familiar with what she calls “the four stages of conservative female abuse”; but with the GOP putting one of their own front and center, and the media coming down on her in a fury like a Denali avalanche, it sounds like many of them have had it. Tom DeLay went so far as to say, “The media has done more for John McCain in the last two days than he’s done for himself in the last year and a half. Trashing her is waking up the sleeping giant, and the sleeping giant is Republican women.” I believed Gov. Palin would energize the GOP base in a way in which no one else could; it never occurred to me that the MSM would collude with her to help her do it. But that, if inadvertently, may be just what they’ve managed to do.One more crazy turn in this craziest of all political seasons.

I really and truly don’t want this blog to turn into “all Palin, all the time”—I have a number of other things I want to post on as well, and I do intend to get to them soon—but I also have a few more comments I want to make about Palin and the political situation as well. To start off with, though—how big of an effect did her speech have? Big enough that it’s impossible to keep on top of the response. So, in lieu of trying, I’ll simply point you to a couple places where you can find a lot of good material.

• The Anchoress has good links posts here, here, and here.
• RealClearPolitics, of course.
• The running blogs at Commentary, “Contentions,” and National Review, “The Corner.”
• Hugh Hewitt doesn’t have a lot up, but what he has up is prime.
• And of course, my fellow (and much more important) Palinite, Beldar.