The Day After Reactions

For almost five days the press and the Dems had almost uninterrupted opportunity to assault Sarah Palin. They took their best shot and last night she walked onto the stage in St. Paul and essentially gave them all the finger. It was a thing of beauty.

Scanning the Drudge headlines this morning a couple of things are clear - Sarah Palin's speech was wildly successful, though you may have to go to a foreign news source to find that out. The most effusive praise is comng from the British press while the American media is trying to find ways to be critical without looking completely stupid. Some examples:

From The Sun (London):

A WEEK ago nobody had ever heard of her.

Today she is the most talked-about woman in the world. And with good reason.

Sarah Palin's sensational performance at the Republican Party Convention may turn out to be the tipping point of this rollercoaster American election.

Obama fans hoping she would fluff her big night were in for a nasty shock.

This speech has turned the election upside down. It was simply stunning.

Democrats and their Lefty media backers had been sneering that she was a small town nobody, a hick from the Alaskan sticks put into a job way beyond an inexperienced woman.

Believe me, you will not be hearing that again.

Palin turned out to be an electrifying mix of intelligence, passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking.

Full of self-assurance and aggression, she popped Barack's balloon big-time.

And now compare that to the Chicago Sun-Times:

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.
--Milan Kundera

Sarah Palin may come from the backwoods of Alaska, but she has the heart of a street fighter.

So Democrats shouldn't get entangled in the Republicans' "experience" ploy.

Palin isn't on the Republican ticket because she has been the governor of Alaska for two years.

The people who cooked up this scheme don't care whether Palin will be a heartbeat away from the presidency if something happens to the 72-year-old McCain.

Palin's on the ticket because she's a woman and she isn't afraid to engage in the Republicans' mean-spirited personal attacks.

And now, from the hairy-legged feminist crowd, here's Gloria Steinem:

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

I included a photo of a couple of Code Pinko protesters who somehow got into the convention hall and tried to disrupt the speech. The fool on the left is one of Obama's biggest donation bundlers. The other fool is the head of Code Pinko who gets arrested about every other day.

I'm sure you remember all the Republican protesters who showed up to interrupt Obama's Greek Temple speech.

(*crickets*)

Yeah, it didn't happen. Republicans are grown-ups. There are some real questions about how these people got into the convention. They could never have gotten credentials from the GOP. Do you think someone in the media might have helped?

You'll note the idiot on the right has "Palin Not a Woman" scrawled on her pink nightie, or whatever that is she's wearing. I don't know if Palin saw what was going on, but I've written a line she's welcome to use the next time...and there will be a next time:

"I see we have a visit from the Code Pinko loser crowd. Back where I'm from, we have people like that that act up...briefly. We use them as polar bear bait."

The attacks on Palin are far from over. After her tour de force last night desperation is going to set in on the left and the attacks are likely to get even more shrill, and even more ridiculous. However, now that Americans have had a chance to see her in action, the attacks are going to start looking silly.

The next 60+ days are going to be fun.

UPDATE: To all those lefties and media who tried to make Sarah Palin into Day Quayle, Thomas Eagleton or who have been running pools predicting the day Palin would withdraw from the ticket, how silly do you all look now?