Camille Paglia: Palin's Moose-Hunting Feminism

First, Paglia on McCain:

"My baby-boom generation -- typified by the narcissistic Clintons -- peaked in the 1960s and is seriously past it. But McCain, born before Pearl Harbor, is even older than we are! Why would anyone believe that he holds the key to the future? And why would anyone swallow that preening passel of high-flown rhetoric about "country above all" coming from a seething, short-fused character whose rampant egotism, zigzagging principles, and currying of the gullible press were the distinguishing marks of his senatorial career?"

It seemed like a good idea to start this blog by pointing out just exactly where Paglia is coming from, if ever there was any doubt. That excerpt is from an article at Salon this past Wednesday, in which feminist icon Camille Paglia said many things which I, and other conservatives, have been thinking. No, I'm not being sarcastic. Or cute, or funny. Seriously.

Paglia spends the next several paragraphs listing numerous and critical flaws by the Obama campaign. Not as an outsider, as an observer of strategy and, apparently, a dose of common sense. She culminates by saying the Invesco field speech could have gone terribly wrong, but worked out great anyway. In fact, that it went so well she had the satisfied feeling that the race over ... he'd won it. Then:

"Pow! Wham! The Republicans unleashed a doozy -- one of the most stunning surprises that I have ever witnessed in my adult life. By lunchtime, Obama's triumph of the night before had been wiped right off the national radar screen. In a bold move I would never have thought him capable of, McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his pick for vice president."

This is where it gets interesting.

"Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment."

Camille Paglia is a feminist icon. She is a self-described atheist and libertarian, and is a well-known Democrat activist. Which is precisely what makes this page-turner of an article so fascinating. It's not just that she breaks liberal orthodoxy to criticize Senator Obama's missteps, it is that she calls out behavior on her side of the aisle which is so far going unchecked. The lusty, spittle-flecked, vein-popping invective directed at Sarah Palin, and the pious religiosity of left-wing ideology which are now two of the most easily identified and least criticized aspects of campaign 2008.

Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign.

Absolutely. This next gem, though, is simply priceless:

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

Amazing. These are but small excerpts from a very long, worthwhile read. That the onslaught of rumors and smears against Palin, and the vicious manner in which awful and demeaning lies about her children are spread from places like DailyKos to places like Huffington Post, and from there to the MSNBC news desk, has been one of the most disgraceful and shocking displays in modern politics. Even now, the underlying, simmering hatred which spawned it is shocking. Still, though, it is refreshing and relieving to read an article such as Paglia's; cause for, dare I say, hope?

Don't let's be mistaken, though. Paglia is most definitely arguing from the left, and to the left. It's not about, or for, right-wingers. It is, however, in so many ways about the truth. Which seems to still be able to cross partisan divides now and then ... and isn't that part and parcel to her point, after all?

Camille Paglia took a step back from the ledge on the brink of which the Obama campaign and their media and leftosphere acolytes still teeter. If voices such as hers can appeal to reason, perhaps they won't at last topple over that edge into the abyss. I'm not confident, but I can hope, right?