Our cultural politics are certainly becoming impressively confused when conservative candidates are brandishing feminist quotes written by Clinton appointees on Starbucks' coffee cups in order threaten religious consequences for women who vote Democratic. It's like we put the culture wars in a blender, you betcha. But unlike Ta-Nehisi and others, I'm not actually that upset about Palin's warning that women who don't vote for her will see "a special place in hell," and I'm not even that upset that she misquoted Madeleine Albright to do it. I'm struck, rather, by her closing line. At the end, where, after reading the incendiary quote, she says, "and now, California, let's see what a comment like I just made, how that is turned into whatever it's turned into tomorrow in the newspaper." Presumably, what the newspapers will report is that she...uttered this comment. But you're seeing this in a lot of Palin comments: She's using the media's treatment of her as a way to evade responsibility for her own statements. When she says something crazy and the media reports that she said something crazy, well wouldn't you just know they'd do that? Just shows how much they hate us, and in turn, how much you should hate them. Wink. I can't remember George W. Bush engaging the culture war with anything even approaching this ferocity in 2004.
