Mo Dowd on Palin

The selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee has stimulated Maureen Dowd's creative juices (which stopped flowing once Bubba left office). Mo can't quite decide how she feels about Palin.

On the one hand, she calls it a "cynical pick" and "affirmative action." Note the upper crust East Coast elitism:

Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review, but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter. And she was tougher on the basketball court than the ethereal Obama, earning the nickname “Sarah Barracuda.”

In one fell swoop of her mouse, Mo insults every voter who went to a state university instead of an Ivy League college. Who says the New York Times and the Obamas are snobs? They're just misunderstood by the little people -- the ones who are writing checks to McCain-Palin by the pick-up truck full.

In her book Are Men Necessary?, Mo obsesses about plastic surgery, and whines that feminism lost out to narcissism. Imagine her ambivalence then, about a GOP candidate who not only thrills conservatives for being literally right on the issues, but looks great, too. (And without the intervention of Dr. Liposuction.)

Sarah is a zealot, but she’s a fun zealot. She has a beehive and sexy shoes, and the day she’s named she goes shopping with McCain in Ohio for a cheerleader outfit for her daughter.

As she once told Vogue, she’s learned the hard way to deal with press comments about her looks. “I wish they’d stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots,” she said. “A reporter once asked me about it during the campaign, and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses.”

Dara Torres wasn't supposed to be an Olympian as a 42 year old mother. She was said to be too old -- older than most of the swimmers she ended up beating. (And if she hadn't trimmed her fingernails, she would have won gold.) Palin, opponents complain, is too young. Sure, one sought to change the history of swimming and the other seeks to change the history of America. Both refuse to be put in a box, by the feminists or their competitors.

Mo's complaint that the choice of Palin is "cynical" or "insulting" is itself cynical and insulting. If Palin had aborted her fifth child and was running as a Democrat, Mo would be weeping with joy. Palin is relentlessly right on the issues, and she cannot be manipulated by the sages at the Times. That's what terrifies Mo and all her Democratic buddies.