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On Fox News this morning, State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley became the third Obama administration official in short succession to admit that he hadn’t actually bothered to read Arizona’s 10-page long “secure the border” bill before condemning it and criticizing Americans who support Arizona’s necessary efforts to do the job the Obama Administration should be doing. Crowley’s statement follows similar admissions from Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. At first blush this revelation seemed unbelievable, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. This now seems “the Washington way” of doing things. If the party in power...

CAN SARAH PALIN pick up where Hillary Clinton left off? Palin wowed delegates with a confident, cutting speech aimed at hockey moms with a chip on their shoulder. She could have been singing along to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" - "Some people look down on me, but I don't give a rip. I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip." It was great theater. But to John McCain, all that really matters is whether his running mate can pick up where Clinton left off and expand the GOP voter base.

There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media simply lashed out at Palin, particularly at her family. And not only the fringiest parts of the political fringe: A writer at the Washington Post attacked Palin for the fact that her seventeen-year-old daughter was going to have a baby. A writer for The Atlantic openly...

By the way, a propos the post below, I would caution our pal David Frum to ease up on this kind of analysis: The Palin choice will intensify GOP support among downscale white voters - while adding to the GOP's difficulties among more educated white voters.You'd be surprised how crowded it is down at the "downscale" end.

As National Review's in-house demography bore, I've been struck this last week by the left's fierce hostility to Sarah Palin's fecundity. One gentleman - well, okay, maybe not a "gentleman" but certainly an impeccably sensitive progressive new male - wrote to me from Shelton, Washington: This abortion prohibitionist hag won’t cut it among women with brains.And BTW she is a good example of reproduction run amok. 5 kids; 1 retard. I wonder if the bitch ever heard of getting spayed. Each to her own, Mister Sensitive. You can be a 44-year old mother of five expecting her first grandchild and...

Mother of the Year