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NRA Jewess: Palin’s gonna get ya!

First Linda Lingle, Hawaii's Jewish Republican governor, came to the defense of Sarah Palin. And now Sandra Froman – the only Jew and only the second woman to serve as president of the NRA – has the GOP running mate's back, in an op-ed that she's sent out via e-mail.

Our favorite line: "In addition, Palin's an NRA member and hunter. Barack Obama has never hunted wild game or field-dressed an animal. Frankly, Barack Obama should not welcome a comparison with Sarah Palin as to who is more rugged."

Fine, but how would Palin stack up against Woody Allen?

Here's Froman's full piece:

Sarah, Get Your Gun!

By Sandy Froman

This week's treatment of Sarah Palin has been an appalling display of sexism and elitism. But the hatchet-men are in for a rude awakening.

The attacks over the past few days come down to two things:

First, Sarah Palin is supposedly out of her depth. She's only been in high office for two years, age 44, and has no foreign policy or national security experience. They say she's not ready for the big game.

Second, they imply she's a bad mother. She has a Down Syndrome baby, and her seventeen-year-old daughter soon will have a baby as well. Some are saying that a fit mother wouldn't take on a job like this under these circumstances.

This is rank sexism, and dripping with condescension.

Would anyone dare ask these questions if the candidate were a man? Evidently not because they haven't with Barack Obama. The freshman senator has only four years in office and half that campaigning for president, so really only two years foreign policy experience and has never handled national security. He has young children, but no one's suggesting he'd be a bad father.

The comparison is worse when you consider their experience and their jobs. She runs a state several hundred times bigger than Joe Biden's Delaware and has roughly as many constituents as Biden. And while Obama and Biden talk for a living, Governor Palin daily makes dozens of decisions and is commander-in-chief of the fiercely-independent Alaska National Guard.

In addition, Palin's an NRA member and hunter. Barack Obama has never hunted wild game or field-dressed an animal. Frankly, Barack Obama should not welcome a comparison with Sarah Palin as to who is more rugged.

Conveniently lost in this male condescension of an "uppity" woman who refuses to know her place is that she's a candidate for vice president, not president. The president is the commander-in-chief, sets the government budget and makes appointments. The vice president breaks tie votes in the Senate and advises the president. That being the case, I want to ask all these men who have trouble with Governor Palin one question:

Explain to me how Barack Obama can be qualified for president if someone with at least as much, if not more, experience is unqualified for vice president?

Their answer, I suspect, is that Barack is a man, Sarah is a woman. Therefore with equal or less experience, he can be president while she can't even be vice president. Any woman who claims to support equality for women, but doesn't fume in rage at this, is a hypocrite.

I know something about unspoken sexism. When I graduated from law school in 1974 there weren't many woman lawyers and it was still considered a man's job. I was the first partner in the, then, 50-year history of the major California law firm where I worked. When I joined the NRA, some expressed surprise because it was thought of as a man's organization. When I was elected to the NRA board of directors, it happened again. And when I was elected president of the NRA some male jaws dropped while women nodded in knowing approval.

During my tenure as NRA president, there were a few male advisors who tried to coax me into ridiculous speeches in settings that underutilized me because even then, they didn't consider me up to certain tasks. Never mind that I was a graduate of Harvard Law School and an honors graduate of Stanford, or that I had a resume a mile long. I was a woman, and so a man would be better suited to be where the hottest battles were being fought.

I went ahead and did those things anyway. I never fumbled the ball, I never faltered, and when I concluded my term of office, I left on a high note.

I look to Governor Sarah Palin as someone who can do that on a much higher level on the national stage. This tough Western woman refuses to take a back seat. This woman who knows how to look down the barrel of a gun and gut an animal in the wilderness is not afraid that she'll break her nail when she punches some deserving opponent right between the eyes in a political brawl. She's demonstrated that grit and determination in pummeling the former Republican governor out of office, felling the former Alaska attorney general, and dispatching the former Alaska GOP chairman. Do you think those men rolled over? Do you think they graciously conceded? No, they fought her tooth and nail, and she beat them into the ground.

The sexist commentators denigrating her right now are destined for the same fate. Watch out, boys. This girl's gonna get ya!

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Comments RSS Feed Reader Comments

Andrei Schor

09/05/08 08:06 PM

Just because there is trash on those blogs and some trashy characters in some left-oriented organizations, does not deny what I said. What I saw during Palin speech, the chanting, the religious fervor, I found very disturbing. This is not a fringe organization; it’s mainstream bacward lunatics.

With regard to hypocrisy, I believe you don’t understand its meaning. I’ll elaborate later, if you need it.

Hank Silver

09/05/08 08:45 PM

Dear Friends,
When Hillary Clinton was in the running, I felt more comfortable about her because of her political experience, including being the 1st. Lady for 8 years and then being elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.  Sarah Palin is an amateur by comparison regarding actual political experience.  A McCain candidacy for President is a bizaare notion to me in the first place, and the addition of Sarah Palin makes the whole affair of the Republican ticket ridicously bizaare!
Hank Silver
Berkeley, CA

Andrei Schor

09/05/08 08:55 PM

I actually took a quick glance at moveon.org. Perhaps you can point me/us to the offensive blogs, becuase I did not find any at this site.

Did you actually see them, or simply repeat some talking points?

Bill Levinson

09/05/08 10:40 PM

Re: “I actually took a quick glance at moveon.org. Perhaps you can point me/us to the offensive blogs, becuase I did not find any at this site.”

You did not find any because I and others forced MoveOn.org to disable its Action Forum two years ago (by exposing the hate speech). If you click on my link, you will see a very extensive collection of the anti-Semitic hate speech that MoveOn.org welcomed at this Action Forum through late 2006. Then, assuming that you have not thrown up on your keyboard, you can go through the site directory (left column) to find quite a bit of anti-Catholic hate speech as well.

And yes, some of the material at MoveOn’s Action Forum could have come from genuine Nazis, Godwin’s Law notwithstanding. One posting, in fact, says Jews did “something” to deserve the Holocaust, and another says Jews do “something” to get themselves kicked out of countries. Most of these postings garnered overwhelming votes of approval from other MoveOn participants.

David Robert

09/06/08 09:14 PM

Gee, I thought the Clinton years demonstrated abuse of power. That is a lot more recent than the Nixon administration. Oh I forgot, Clinton is a Democrat so his indiscretions can be overlooked. It is sad that we concentrate on minor things. No wonder qualified people don’t want to run for public office. The result is the candidates we have today.

Yonason

09/07/08 04:35 AM

“She believes in teaching abstinence only to teenagers. (And we see how well that works.)”—Linda B

Funny, but I’m an Orthodox Jew, and we believe that, too.  In fact, we were well ahead of EVERYONE else on that one. 

And what do you mean, “we see how well that works?” Abstinence is the only “method” that is 100% effective, not to mention the only one that is moral.  Remember, Christians got their morality from Jews, so if you slander the things they happen to be doing right, you are really slandering Jews.

Yonason

09/07/08 04:42 AM

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU, HANK.

“A McCain candidacy for President is a bizaare notion to me in the first place, and the addition of Sarah Palin makes the whole affair of the Republican ticket ridicously bizaare!”—Hank Silver

They never give any OBJECTIVE rational for their “reasons”, it’s always “feelings” with them, and their feelings are always more correct than other people’s feelings.

I don’t mind your “feelings” Hank, as long as you don’t mind if I don’t share them.

Yonason

09/07/08 04:59 AM

“Killing and skinning an animal is qualification for Vice President?”—Norman from la

Her point, Norman, is that she has physical stamina and practical knowledge that Obama doesn’t have. 

Another way to look at it
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=1740
is that while he was smoking weed, and snorting toot ("a little ‘blow’,” as he calls it in his book [“blow" is cocaine, in case you weren’t aware of that]), she was learning healthy life skills.

No matter how you slice it, Ms. Palin is 10 times the “man” Obama will ever be. (I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out where I think Obama fits in that spectrum, especially since Palin is obviously an intelligent, accomplished, articulate, attractive and graceful woman).

Yonason

09/07/08 05:12 AM

Ami Eden

As to that Woody Allen Moose skit, it’s a classic!!

Sandra

09/07/08 05:08 PM

The sexism is a joke. Hillary looked weak when she squawked sexism and Sarah does too. Both women have gotten by with WAY more than any man would have. As far as sexism, I believe it was a HUGE, HUGE, matter when it was found that John Edward’s wife’s cancer returned. A huge issue, and rightly so, on whether he would be be able to deal with family matters and run a country. The sexism is out there, for sure, but its been turned on its ear this time. By the way, getting back to the issues of our country, my female friends are all wondering—why is Palin getting by with all the lies? How can her spokespeople get by with saying she turned down earmarks, or that she didn’t support that Ketchikan bridge? Both of these are patently false. Or how about the 20-some million dollar deficit her town now has, when it had none when she became mayor? Every time one of her people talks about those things, somebody should interrupt them immediately and remind them of their falsity. This is about all of us, we need to put aside the partisanship (like Senator Obama has said over and over) and get to work on the real problems we are facing. And stop the lies.

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