(Copied from my Townhall blog, PentaGrams)
With his announcement that he's selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has seized sente. In the game of go, sente is a move which the opponent must respond to. Obama, the Democratic Party, and their willing accomplices in the media have to come up with a response.
Their response has been to double down on the hypocrisy gambit -- finding anything in the Republican position, real or imagined, that can be construed as in any way hypocritical.
Take, for example, one of the very first talking points to surface after Palin was announced: her lack of experience. She's the governor of Alaska, and before that, she was the mayor of a small town. (Is a small town really any easier to handle than a big city?) On the surface, the Democrats appear to be lining up for a battle of experience vs. experience. One level down, however, the argument is one of hypocrisy. Republicans make all kinds of fuss over the Democrats' lack of experience, but lack of experience on their side is somehow OK.
One argument mentioned by Dennis Prager (made by Sally Quinn at the link he provides) is:
A third argument has to do with the pregnancy of Palin's daughter. If this had happened in a leftist family, there'd be much less fuss made over it, or expected in the media. The daughter could abort, and it would be a woman exercising her freedom of reproductive choice. Or she could move in with her boyfriend (or girlfriend) (or both) and it would be celebrated as an "alternative lifestyle". But conservatives advocate standards, and any deviation from those standards is always called "hypocrisy", never "being human and failing to live up to high standards". Here, we have the Left assuming the Palin family, and indeed, the entire pro-life movement, acts like the caricatures dreamed up by the Left. Upon hearing of Bristol's pregnancy out of wedlock, they imagine the instant response is to drag her out to the city gates and stone her to death. Well, maybe just kick her out into the street and erase every mention of her from their lives. For a pro-life, conservative Christian to love and support anyone who has strayed from the straight and narrow must be hypocrisy.
Expect to see more of this sort of argument. Expect accusations of double standards to be leveled. Expect critical distinctions to be blurred, in an effort to make this argument more credible.
We'll need to be very clear and very precise in order to counter these accusations.
Their response has been to double down on the hypocrisy gambit -- finding anything in the Republican position, real or imagined, that can be construed as in any way hypocritical.
Take, for example, one of the very first talking points to surface after Palin was announced: her lack of experience. She's the governor of Alaska, and before that, she was the mayor of a small town. (Is a small town really any easier to handle than a big city?) On the surface, the Democrats appear to be lining up for a battle of experience vs. experience. One level down, however, the argument is one of hypocrisy. Republicans make all kinds of fuss over the Democrats' lack of experience, but lack of experience on their side is somehow OK.
One argument mentioned by Dennis Prager (made by Sally Quinn at the link he provides) is:
She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make?Dennis is puzzled because one would think a feminist would be thrilled to see a woman going after the job of Vice President. No one on the left complains when a leftist woman leaves her kids with a nanny to go after high-level positions, so why complain when Sarah Palin does it? The answer is, the Left is holding the Right to the standards they claim to espouse. (Or at least they are claiming to -- I suspect if that argument fails to gain any traction, they'll look for another.)
A third argument has to do with the pregnancy of Palin's daughter. If this had happened in a leftist family, there'd be much less fuss made over it, or expected in the media. The daughter could abort, and it would be a woman exercising her freedom of reproductive choice. Or she could move in with her boyfriend (or girlfriend) (or both) and it would be celebrated as an "alternative lifestyle". But conservatives advocate standards, and any deviation from those standards is always called "hypocrisy", never "being human and failing to live up to high standards". Here, we have the Left assuming the Palin family, and indeed, the entire pro-life movement, acts like the caricatures dreamed up by the Left. Upon hearing of Bristol's pregnancy out of wedlock, they imagine the instant response is to drag her out to the city gates and stone her to death. Well, maybe just kick her out into the street and erase every mention of her from their lives. For a pro-life, conservative Christian to love and support anyone who has strayed from the straight and narrow must be hypocrisy.
Expect to see more of this sort of argument. Expect accusations of double standards to be leveled. Expect critical distinctions to be blurred, in an effort to make this argument more credible.
We'll need to be very clear and very precise in order to counter these accusations.
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