William Kristol’s take on Sarah Palin. To the degree that the real source of frustration about our government is that the Megastate liberals created in the 20th century is simply too big to be managed without great inefficiencies and much corruption and that much of our cultural frustration grows from the refusal of our elites to recognize that traditional sex roles can be reconciled with equal rewards for equal talent, Palin represents an alternative theme of hope and change. Governor Palin represents a threat to their worldview, and will be attacked for that reason. So says Kristol:

There she is: a working woman who’s a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who’s broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who’s a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who’s a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who’s a leader.

So what we will see in the next days and weeks--what we have already seen in the hours after her nomination--is an effort by all the powers of the old liberalism, both in the Democratic party and the mainstream media, to exorcise this spectre. They will ridicule her and patronize her. They will distort her words and caricature her biography. They will appeal, sometimes explicitly, to anti-small town and anti-religious prejudice. All of this will be in the cause of trying to prevent the American people from arriving at their own judgment of Sarah Palin.

Update: more thoughts

in a similar vein about what Palin represents. It’s not just social conservatives. She also excites those who think that the government is too much with us:

Unlike many liberals, I believe that women are capable of surviving and prospering on their own — and Palin is proof of that. And unlike some female politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Palin made it herself without the help of a career politician husband to give her an added advantage. Palin strikes me as someone who is fair to both men and women and who does not give women special rights and privileges just for the sake of being female.