Yesterday Ed Morrissey wrote that Palin’s resignation
destroyed her own credibiity in a single day.
I liked Sarah Palin and supported her inclusion on the GOP ticket last fall. I thought she had more toughness than this. It’s a big disappointment, and it’s the end of any hope of Palin getting taken seriously as a politician on the national level in the future.
That post currently has 3267 comments and counting. I haven’t read through them all, but based on something Ed wrote today, many of the commenters apparently suggested that Ed is a “Palin-hater”:
My caveat in the opening paragraph wasn’t about getting “beat up”; I’m a big boy, and I can take honest criticism. It’s correcting the falsehood in the comment strings that I’ve been a Palin-hater. If people actually read what I’ve written about Palin over the past year, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m going to give people my honest opinion, no matter what.
Wow. People are actually calling Ed Morrissey a “Palin-hater”?
Meanwhile, staunch conservative Ace of Spades also posted a line that I quoted on Friday: “It’s over. You can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office.” Now, apparently Ace is also getting the business from his commenters, and has begun to respond in his comments section:
[I]f you do not believe that Sarah Palin has some double-secret probation plan for the presidency, you must hate her too, and you’re rooting against her, and cheering for the other side.
This is fucking insane and it must stop. I will not be bullied by this ludicrous magical thinking brigade who insists that only Nice and Positive Words must be uttered or else one is contributing one’s Evil Energy to the Wrong Side.
It’s insane.
I disagree with you. I have tried to do so pleasantly but I am tired of the imputation of bad motive simply because I am more realistic and less prone to flights of hopeful fancy than you.
Is Sarah Palin, like Rush Limbaugh, an icon that cannot be criticized on a conservative blog without having the readership turning en masse against the blogger? It sure looks that way. Somehow, I’m thinking Allahpundit is happy to be on vacation this week — so he can sit back and watch other conservatives be subjected to this abuse.
Me, I have no idea what Palin’s doing, and I’m content to watch it all unfold without expressing much of an opinion. I rather doubt there’s some major scandal in the works. And I understand and share the anger that comes from watching cretins like Tom Boggioni take cheap shots at Palin’s children.
Still, if conservative stalwarts like Ed Morrissey and Ace do have an honest opinion concerning Palin’s amnnouncement, and they express it — are they now blackballed?
That’s absurd.
As conservatives, we need to have room to express honest opinions and disagree. If we can’t do that without writing off people who have supported conservative principles for years, then this party will never reform and regain power.
And to the Palin critics, I would say this: we don’t really know what’s going on here. So why not sit back and let events unfold without criticizing her so harshly right out of the gate?