Written By : Susannah Fleetwood

For some odd reason, Sarah Palin causes liberal elites to rabidly foam at the mouth. Professor William Jacobson of the blog Legal Insurrection wrote an insightful piece about how conservatives seem to reflexively defend Palin, because liberals seem to be perpetually attacking her. Furthermore, not only do liberals seem to revel in finding weird reasons to attack Sarah Palin, but they also seem to only be happy when they are attacking her family as well (probably because they see them as little “spawns of Sarah”). Now, why is this? I haven’t a clue. However, I can state beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s not helping them.

For example, a couple of days ago, comediennes Kathy Griffin and Margret Cho both attacked Bristol Palin as “fat”–although Cho was a little more subtle about it than Griffin was. (Robert Stacy McCain wrote an excellent piece about both incidents here.) In fact, Griffin was dumb enough to trash Bristol Palin and refer to her as “the white Precious” in front of a group of servicemen who promptly booed her.

Question–does Ms. Griffin not know her audience at all? These are not liberal elites, like Bill Maher, who think that it’s OK to call Bristol Palin a “Hillbilly Heroine”. These are US soldiers who won’t find calling someone’s twenty year old daughter “fat” at all funny.

Moreover, a few weeks ago comedienne Sandra Bernhard called Bristol Palin a “hooker” on Joy Behar’s show because she placed in the finals on Dancing With the Stars. (Ms. Behar seemed very distressed, herself, and said that “Fred and Ginger died last night”.)

Surprising to say, Behar and Bernhard weren’t the only liberals to get so wee-weed up over Bristol Palin making it to the finals on Dancing With the Stars. Washington Post columnist, Sally Quinn, wrote a long piece about how her head was about to explode because Bristol Palin made it to the finals of Dancing With the Stars. Ann Althouse best described Quinn’s disingenuous hyperventilating when she wrote the following:

And this strangely sanctimonious journalist — she’s writing in the always awful “On Faith” section of The Washington Post — condemns Palin voters for “cheating” 7 paragraphs after she confesses to doing something that is at least as much cheating as what the Palin fans are said to be doing.

“Not only that, but I vote. Under the show’s rules, you’re allowed to vote five times on one line. I have six lines at home and my cell, so I vote as many times as I can for my favorite. “

So this lady, this longtime Washington powerbroker, has 6 phone lines, and she maxes each line out, each week, voting 30 times. But that’s the show’s rules. They can’t tell how many individuals vote are voting. They can only see phone numbers. So if your family of 5 watches the show and you — you economic losers — only have one phone, you can make 5 calls. Sally Quinn happens to have 6 phone lines, so she gets 30 votes — under the rules.

“Commenters on the conservative blog Hillbuzz.org said they had figured out how to enter more votes than the rules allow by creating fake e-mail addresses. One person posting on Hillbuzz said “Lord have mercy, I voted for three hours online! I got 300 in.”

What is a “fake e-mail address”? The rules say you are allowed 5 votes from each email address, just as you are allowed 5 votes from each phone number. Some people have multiple phone numbers and some have multiple email addresses. What’s the difference? All I can think of is that you have to spend money to have multiple phone numbers, and you can get multiple email accounts free. It feels so right for rich folk to get more. I love when liberals slip up like that.

Question–hey Lefties, first of all, you have to know that calling Bristol Palin a “fat hooker” is not a good way to win friends and influence people, right? I mean, Bristol Palin probably wears a size six or a size eight–most American women wear a size ten (Marilyn Monroe wore a size twelve). Do you really think that calling the majority of American women “fat” is a winning strategy for you?

Second of all, you guys do realize that this is just a television show and that normal people don’t freak out or want to shoot the TV because Bristol Palin won, right? Full disclosure here–I’ve never seen an episode of Dancing With the Stars (I’ve watched clips on YouTube), but if one of the Obama girls happen to make it to the finals in a few years, I would be quite happy for her (even if she wasn’t that great of a dancer).

Now, having your head explode over Bristol Palin making it to the finals on Dancing With the Stars is not the only symptom of Palin Derangement Syndrome–apparently, Sarah Palin’s Facebook postings are enough to give a lot of liberals the vapors. For instance, Andrew Sullivan recently wrote a piece whining about Sarah Palin mocking Barack Obama’s famous “57 states gaffe”, and accused her of “trashy behavior” (but, he didn’t say what was “trashy” about her behavior).

[Hey Andrew, by "trashy behavior", do you mean spreading internet rumors that a woman's baby is not really her own, and is that of her teenage daughter? Because that would be you Andrew, not Sarah Palin. But, I digress.]

Well, if Sullivan had any sense of humor at all, he would have written that Palin’s Facebook post was funny and admitted that she had a point that the media tends to give Obama a pass on his gaffes, but tends to hammer everyone else on theirs (as even SNL pointed out during the Democratic primary). Normal people like people who can laugh at themselves and respond very well to self-deprecating humor.

However, Sullivan was not only upset by Sarah Palin’s recent Facebook post, but her daughter Willow’s as well (where she gets involved with trash-talk with another teenager when she defends her sister Bristol). First of all, does Sullivan realize that Willow Palin is a sixteen year old girl, and that normal Americans find it to be very strange and distasteful when grown men pick on other people’s children? Even Jon Stewart told liberals to back off and to “stop making me feel sorry for the Palins”.

Second of all, does Sullivan realize how weird it is to obsess over Sarah Palin and her family’s Facebook postings? I mean, Sarah Palin was only a vice-presidential nominee –she was never even the vice-president. You don’t see us conservatives obsessing over Joe Leiberman’s or John Edward’s Facebook postings, much less their kids Facebook postings. This is very strange behavior. I would suggest that if reading the Palin family’s Facebook postings upsets you so much, then stop reading them.

Finally, speaking of weird behavior, Charles Blow recently wrote a column about how he wasn’t going to talk about Sarah Palin anymore, but then spent the entire column writing about how much Sarah Palin sucks. Hey Charles, I thought that you said that you weren’t going to talk about Sarah Palin anymore? You see, if most people say that they aren’t going to talk about someone anymore, then they just don’t talk about them anymore–they don’t proceed to, then, write an entire column about how terrible the person is.

In fact, this column of Blow’s is almost as weird as Keith Olbermann naming Bristol Palin his “Worst Person in the World”, or Aaron Sorkin comparing Sarah Palin to Michael Vick for hunting a Caribou. (I’m sure that the millions of hunters all across America deeply appreciate that comparison.) Oh, and Keith, really???!! Bristol Palin is your “Worst Person in the World”? Not Kim Jong-Il, not Ahmadinajad, but Bristol Palin for discussing abstinence?! No, that’s not at all strange to most Americans. (Rolls eyes.)

So, in conclusion, this whole Palin Derangement Syndrome definitely hurt the Left during the past mid-term election, and is continuing to hurt them now. Why? Well, for two obvious reasons. First of all, during the last election, it appeared as if liberals were spending way too much time speaking out against the Palins (none of whom were on the ballot), and not enough time explaining why people should vote for Obama’s policies and liberal candidates. Throughout the previous election, PDS proved to be a huge distraction for the Left.

Second of all, constantly attacking someone’s children as “fat, trashy, hookers” seems, well, quite mean to normal, well-adjusted Americans who aren’t weirdos. Most Americans think that mean people suck and don’t want to vote for a party that seems to embrace nastiness. Hey, you can listen to me, or you can continue smacking around Sarah Palin and her kids. The choice is yours. However, I just have one question for you guys. How did that PDS work out for you in the last election?

This column is cross-posted from Parcbench, and it is also posted at The Green Room, The Minority Report and Hillbillypolitics.

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