…and it’s not from the Left either.

Rich Lowry on The Corner on National Review Online writes:

My take (and I didn’t see the bits that aired on 20/20 or Nightline last night, although I read the transcript) was that she survived. That’s all she had to do. Politically, everyone was grading her on a pass/fail, and she passed. No gaffes, not that much to fuel damaging follow-on conversation. She’s likable even when she’s at her least authoritative. Most people, I believe, are rooting for her, and she was helped in the post-game by the incredible scorn directed at her by Charlie Gibson. But this was a merely adequate performance. The foreign-policy session was a white-knuckle affair. She barely got through it and showed no knowledge more than an inch deep. What she did demonstrate was amazing self-possession. She somehow bluffed her way through the Bush doctrine question. Gibson apparently didn’t want to go into full “gotcha” territory by asking flat-out if she knew what it is. And then he muddled things further with his dubious definition of it, so she was never truly nailed and there was enough ambiguity there for conservatives to defend her. The fact still remains that she very likely didn’t know any of the possible definitions of the Bush doctrine. I can’t imagine if Obama had picked Gov. Tim Kaine and he had had a similar moment, conservatives would have rushed to say that the Bush doctrine is just too amorphous and complicated for him to know anything about it. Palin seemed weak on economic and budgetary policy too, talking in the vaguest generalities. She was much better, and positively good, on the social issues—which are dear to her and she’s thought about—and anything having to do with her personally or with her record in Alaska. She was magnificent on the Iraq-prayer question. This tends to suggest she’ll be as strong on the national issues, once she’s truly conversant with them. I hope she got up from the foreign policy session and said to her aides, “Dammit. That wasn’t good enough and I’m not letting it happen again. I’m not going to allow myself to be so under-prepared for another high-profile interview again.” Of course, she has a tremendous amount of material to master in a short period of time. What she has to do is the equivalent of Charlie Gibson or any of the rest of us having to answer questions about pipeline policy in Alaska on a moment’s notice. I understand how we all want to be protective of her—I feel the same impulse—but let’s not be patronizing. I believe the truly pro-Palin position is to think she can, should, and will do better than this.

I do not think I could have put it any better myself. I’m glad to see that some Conservatives are being honest enough to say, “Hey, maybe she isn’t what we originally thought.”

Because, with all due respect to the lady and all. This whole mania thing, it’s just not based on facts. It is simply predicated on the fact that she is a woman, and nothing else. While idealistically that might seem like a great and wonderful platform to run on. However, pragmatically, it is a narrative that simply falls flat. It is a sobering fact that Sarah Palin has zero Federal Governmental experience. There is no spinning that at all, and the harder John McCain’s campaign and the RNC try to spin that, the bigger idiots they begin to look like.

The very sad and sick part is the the Neo-Conservative Weekly Standard and some elements of the RNC and, sadly, John McCain’s campaign ARE trying to spin this, and sadly, it is going to cost them in the end. Between this and them using John McCain’s Vietnam P.O.W. status as some sort of a crutch. It may have worked with the Conservative base, during his senate races in the past. But it will alienate the independent voters during this Presidential race.

Because, not everyone feels that being a P.O.W. gives you a free pass to the White House.  Nor do they feel that being a woman, gives you a automatic ticket to be the United States Vice President either. While a pro-feminist agenda might work in a ideological setting, in a “Real World”, “Rubber meets the road”, pragmatic setting, it just does not work and will end up making one look quite foolish.

Others: Matthew Yglesias, Eunomia, Ross Douthat and Daimnation!

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