Obviously, this calls for federal legislation. I propose abolishing all tenure to prevent recurrence of this tragedy.

My all-time favorite response to John McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate was from Wendy Doniger, a feminist professor of religion at the University of Chicago. Professor Doniger wrote of the exceedingly feminine “hockey mom” with five children: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.”

The best part about that sentence: Doniger uses the pronoun “her” — twice.

Read the article for other amusing anecdotes from the insane Palinophobes. If these people appeared in a work of fiction, they’d be dismissed as cariactures.

One is going up, one is going down. Anyone care to guess who each is?

In fact, all you haters out there force me to root for her.

I’ve got to agree. Going into 2008, I greatly preferred Mark Sanford and Bobby Jindal; Palin was a distant third. However, watching her character and grace under all the false charges has definitely moved her neck-and-neck with Jindal for me*. After all, I renamed and refocused my blog around the phenomemon.

* My change on Sanford needs little explanation; a man who is unfaithful to his wife can’t be counted on to keep his promises to his constituents, either.

Judging from some of the comments, one would have to go back to the Bible to find a book about which so many have written so much without ever having read it.

This is frankly pathetic. Palin says she didn’t “often” stay at high-end hotels, and the AP counters by saying she did, once. Yes, that’s why she said “not often” rather than “never.”

Really, when you lose the Pawlenty-koolaid-drinking elitists at Power Line so easily…

Mark Steyn also contributes his usual sterling observations:

That looks like AP paid 1.8333333 fact-checkers to agree with Mrs Palin: She says she didn’t “often” go for “high-end” hotels; they say she “usually opted for less-pricey hotels”. That’s gonna make one must-see edition of “Point/Counterpoint”.

1. Get it right the first time. Party elites tried to foist a leftist candidate on the base. When the base rebelled and Scuzzyfavor proved a fool to boot, they doubled down. If they’d backed Hoffman from the beginning and spent the $1m they gave to Scuzz on his campaign (instead of mostly against him), they’d have won.

2. Candidates matter. Scuzzyfavor proved she was obviously not a good candidate by any stretch. However, I’d been hearing that Hoffman wasn’t a great candidate either. Soft-spoken, ineloquent, not much of a campaigner. It seemed in the end that voters liked the idea of Hoffman more than Hoffman himself. They’re still a little too smitten with used car salesman types to reliably vote for normal guys. Also, it probably didn’t help that he actually lives slightly outside the district in question after 2001 gerrymandering.

3. DIABLOs are not blindly loyal to the party. Why then should conservative Republicans be? For years, the GOP has told conservatives to back for centrist and leftist Republicans out of loyalty. Thus, they received Bushes, Doles, and McCains. As this election proves, that’s a losing strategy. Obviously, there was the Scuzzy backstabbing. More than that, though, it appears a number of non-conservative GOPers voted for Owens over Hoffman. If DIABLOs don’t buy into party unity, exactly why should conservatives?

In short, what the GOP needs to become is a decisively, unapologetically conservative party. Trying to be a “me, too” party only delivers victory to the Dems.

Predictably, the AP and other so-called “news” organizations started crying loudly that this proved there was no room in the GOP for “moderates.” (I won’t dignify the opinion piece they pass as news with a link.) Get back to me when the Dhimmicrats have even one conservative – excuse me, “moderate” – in their Congressional caucus.

At any rate, this looks like a (smallish) win for Palin in positioning for 2012. She was the first to endorse Hoffman. Pawlenty eventually followed, but only after a “I don’t really know anything about the race” gaffe; makes him look like an opportunist. Gingrich lost big with his appeal to the wisdom of local party bluebloods. Romney neither hurt nor helped himself with his non-position.

There’s an avalanche coming. It’s up to the GOP to decide if it wants to be part of the landslide – or if it wants to be buried.

UPDATE: Politics Daily reaches a similar conclusion.

WALLACE: Sarah Palin — you say that you admire her backbone. Do you really think she’s ready to be president?

RUSH: Well, yes, I do. See, I am a — one thing I do not do is follow conventional wisdom, and the conventional wisdom of Sarah Palin is she’s not smart enough, she needs to bone up on the issues, she’s a little unsophisticated, she — Alaska, where’s that? — doesn’t have the pedigree.

I’ve seen — she’s the only thing that provided any kind of a spark for the Republican Party. This is not an endorsement, but I do have profound respect for Sarah Palin.

There are not very many politicians who have been through what she’s through — been put through and still able to smile and be ebullient and upbeat. I mean, this woman, I think, is pretty tough.

No question about it.

Wondering about Levi Johnston. Make no mistake: he’ll be in rehab within a year and basic cable reality TV the year after that.