Momentary distraction: the debate about Palin

The Sydney Morning Herald letters page leads today with a letter I wrote yesterday in response to Gerard Henderson's claim that Sarah Palin was being singled out for criticism by the "left leaning intelligentia" who were giving her a bad time because she was a conservative, Christian, mother of five from Wasilla.The reality is that on the basis of what she has shown so far, she is unqualified for the job. My reference to the emergence of critics of Palin from the right was drawn from this paragraph in an article by Howard Kurtz, the media columnist for the Washington Post.

"While some journalists say privately they are censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they're piling on, pundits on the right are jumping ship. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says Palin "just seems out of her league." National Review Editor Rich Lowry called her performance "dreadful." Dallas Morning News columnist Rod Dreher described the interview as a "train wreck." Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker urged Palin to quit the race, saying: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself."