Let me be the first to congratulate Sarah Palin

I thought it was my ear infection that was causing me to feel dizzy these past few days. But I had a revelation last night: it’s actually the effects of whiplash from the lighting fast speed at which the Republicans have done a 180 on some of their most foundational principles.... the most obvious one being their sudden embracement of feminism.

Listening to the conservative pundits and analysts over the last few days, I am repeatedly astounded to hear them call out the “leftist, liberal media” for questioning Sarah Palin’s ability to be a mother and Vice President at the same time. Case in point: Sally Quinn’s recent Newsweek article which questions how evangelicals can possibly vote for a woman who so goes against their principles. The conservative pundits have eaten her alive for holding up this very painful mirror. But instead of acknowledging their own reflection, they have instead insisited that we have no right to question whether a woman can have babies and a career. As Karl Rove said last night, “How dare they?!”

Are we expected to believe that they don’t recognize their own vitriol when it’s rhetorically put back at them? Are we to believe that the entire Republican party has suddenly come down with a case of dementia, causing them to forget what they themselves have preached for over 100 years now? Let’s be clear: we “leftist liberals” have no problem with a woman raising a family and being Vice President, or President. We just can’t understand why they don’t, either.

For my entire lifetime, and many lifetimes before that, the Republican conservatives have preached a message that women with children have no business having careers. They have brow-beat us with the message that leaving our kids in daycare to go to work is tantamount to child abuse. They have told us that women who strive to mother and work are selfish for wanting to have our cake and eat it, too. They have written entire libraries about the so-called “feminist ideology” which embraces the diabolical goal of women filling positions previously held only by men, AND getting paid the same for it, while we pay babysitters to raise our children for us. They have made it abundantly clear that such ideals are a curse that is sending America to hell in a hand-basket.

But something has clearly changed all this. I woke up Saturday morning to find that, overnight, the Republican party had become a champion of career-orientated mothers all across America. Their new message is: Yes you CAN have it all! You can raise a family and have a career. And not just any old career - you can be the leader of the free world!

Well… congratulations, Sarah. That is one hell of an accomplishment.