The Sarah Palin double standard

We’re six months into the Obama Administration — more than one-tenth of his entire term, incidentally — and political junkies can’t seem to get enough of Sarah Palin bashing. This doesn’t particularly bother me: Her selection as a vice presidential nominee undermined John McCain’s credibility, and the more information that comes out about her shallow and petulant behavior, the less likely it is she’ll be president in 2012 or beyond.

I wouldn’t mention it, except for one information that’s come to light: The CBS News story linked above quotes an e-mail from a top McCain advisor to Palin during the campaign about Todd Palin’s membership in the Alaska Independence Party, which was characterized as a secessionist group. Palin’s defenders disputed that characterization and added that the Palins were only loosely associated with it.

But here’s the e-mail — written during the campaign — by the McCain advisor, who wanted Sarah Palin to keep quiet about the issue.

“Secession,” he wrote. “It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years.”

Even the McCain campaign knew that Sarah Palin palled around with secessionists.

This is worth mentioning at this point for on main reason: There’s no way a liberal could’ve survived such a membership. As one of Steve Benen’s commenters points out:

Just imagine if Obama’s wife had been a member of that secessionist group for 7 minutes, much less seven years. She was labeled as grossly unpatriotic for her off-comment that “for the first time in her life she ws proud of her country”.

Right. When liberals express doubts about justice in this country, they’re labeled unpatriotic. The conservative impulse to actually no longer be part of the country is either laughed off or offered as proof of super-duper patriotism. It’s a lovely double standard.