Opposition to affirmative action is often predicated on the idea that AA harms qualified applicants by evaluating immutable biological characteristics such as race or gender over ability. But these objections have become increasingly hollow over the Bush years, as the Administration stacked the government underqualified but ideologically friendly candidates. But the most powerful indictment of conservative hypocrisy over AA comes in the form of two of its recent presidential ticket holders, namely George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.
Defenses of Palin’s outright ignorance of major policy issues is often made simply by regurgitating her biography. Often, the case is made that Palin is qualified precisely because she isn’t, an interesting paradox I can’t quite imagine being applied to anyone who isn’t white:
