Sarah Palin: The new Harriet Miers

One of the reasons The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is so, so valuable is that it shows the public just how hypocritical its leaders are. Last night, Stewart — armed with the 12 TiVos that The Daily Show uses every day — juxtaposed footage of Karl Rove, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity talking positively about Sarah Palin and alternatively talking negatively about the very same circumstances she finds herself in.

O’Reilly claimed that the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter was a private family matter and thus out of bounds for media commentary; last December, however, he gave no such free ride to Jamie-Lynn Spears, of whom he said, “Blame should be placed with the parents.” Hannity said, similarly, that Palin was not using the “woman” card to shut down criticism of her family. Like O’Reilly, Hannity said that the family was off-limits. Months earlier, however, Hannity had blasted then-candidate Hillary Clinton for pulling the “woman” card, implying that any and all criticism was fair game and that if Clinton felt like she couldn’t handle it, she shouldn’t be president. Even Palin herself was quoted as saying that when any person — woman or not — runs for president, that person shouldn’t “whine” when the media begin to criticize any aspect of that person’s life.

Sure, we all knew that O’Reilly and his ilk were two-faced hypocrites, but The Daily Show does such an artful job of demonstrating, beyond the possibility of doubt, how outrageously unbelievable these people are that it is amazing, nevertheless. (And, yes, Democrats are guilty of exactly the same hypocrisy; cf. Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, the latter of whom said last year that Obama wasn’t ready to be president.)

But sexism is not Palin’s problem. It’s the fact that she’s an unqualified hack.

Palin is an example of everything is wrong with Congress. She bases political decisions on her religion; she employs family members and friends, regardless of their qualifications; she uses her power to make business deals that are lucrative for her; she demands that people be loyal to her and not to the best interests of the city or state (note that all federal employees — even members of the military! — take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president).

Palin was selected by virtue of her conservative street cred, not her qualifications. She believes in everything that the Republican Party believes in: she’s against abortion (even in the case of rape); she would rather drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, even though it would take 20 years for such drilling to have any effect on the price of oil; she believes that creationism and evolution should be taught equally in schools.

Like Harriet Miers before her, Palin was selected because she can be trusted to adhere to the Republican party’s talking points. McCain is not nearly religious enough on his own, preferring to focus instead on militarism. Palin is designed to reassure the Pat Robertsons and Gary Bauers out there that the culture war will continue, even if McCain doesn’t really want to fight it. (And it would be the first war he didn’t want to fight!)