It’s hard not to draw comparisons between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. Both high-profile women are deeply beloved and passionately detested on both sides of the aisle. In fact, Christianity Today magazine came to both of their defenses during their most heated moments in the media spotlight. But Palin has faced particular scrutiny for her faith, thanks to her Pentecostal background.
The New York Times‘s Ross Douthat does a nice job outlining Palin’s enemies:
Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)
Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.
One of the most recent pieces that scrutinizes Palin’s faith included Vanity Fair‘s lengthy profile by Todd Purdum. Douglas LeBlanc takes the piece apart at GetReligion, but here’s the oddest paragraph of Purdum’s piece:
Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)
Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.
With Palin’s stunningannouncement this weekend that she will resign, her political future seems uncertain. What do you think? Has the scrutiny been appropriate?
