Profile in Courage

Profile in Courage:

Joseph Epstein calls fire on his own position:

One might think that liberal women would have some admiration for Governor Palin's appearing to have solved the working mother problem that bedevils most contemporary American women. She is very feminine yet doesn't regard herself as a victim, and seems to be entirely at ease with men. Here is a woman raising five children who is able not only to have an active hand in the life of her community but actually win the highest political office in her state. As the governor of Alaska, moreover, she took on the corrupt elements in her own party, which requires courage of a kind liberated women especially, one would think, might admire....

The daughter of a dear friend of mine used to say of her mother, "I sense her rage." Of course when the daughter said this, my friend's rage would only increase. Suggesting that liberal women feel rage over Sarah Palin is, similarly, likely only to enrage them all the more. But rage in their reaction to Governor Palin is emphatically what I do sense on the part of liberal women--that and delight in any attempt to humiliate her. (Tina Fey, take a bow, and, hey, let's watch that Katie Couric YouTube interview one more time!) I wonder if the women who loathe Sarah Palin with such intensity oughtn't perhaps to reexamine the source of their strongly illiberal feelings.

He's right, of course. On both counts.