Examiner Columnist

October 21, 2009

For a feminist party, Democrats have a problem with women, or rather, with
one certain type: Young and/or youngish, cute and/or stunning, with
good hair, many children, and outspoken center-right views.

Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann (dark hair, with five children)
first roused the beast, and misogynist instincts. Now there's Liz
Cheney, (blond, with five children), whom they themselves have made
into a star.

There she was, working away with her father on his memoir when they
began to attack him, and she turned up on cable defending his record.
She became a sensation, and they started to growl.

Now she's founded a Web site -- Keep America Safe -- with Bill
Kristol and Debra Burlingame, (sister of the pilot whose plane hit the
Pentagon) -- to critique President Obama on security issues. People
began talking of "Senator Cheney." And then le merde hit the fan.

At Vanity Fair, Michael Wolff pawed through the adjective bin and
came up with a handful, calling her "pernicious" and "venomous," and
that was just the beginning. She was also "sour, wounded, aggrieved,
graceless, paranoid ... self-pitying, doubtless, extreme, aggressive
and defensive, she might literally kill you and your kind if she could."

On the other hand, MSNBC"s Chris Matthews, while calling her a
"front" for Bill Kristol, found her enchanting. "A very delightful
young woman," he said on his program. "She's great. You can chat with
her ... nothing strange about her at all."

This freaked out Michelle Cottle, alarmed at this and at an another
appearance on "Morning Joe," where the interviewers talked as if she
and her father were real human beings, the sin of all sins on the left.

"Gag," she wrote on the Plank blog at The New Republic's web
site, and advised them to find the "right blend of non-brutish
ruthlessness" to eviscerate her without seeming to do so. "Liz Cheney
is a particularly dangerous combination of sweet-as-sugar looks and
savage instincts," she warned.

"Going at her roughly and directly as she does her opponents could
backfire. But cutting her any slack -- or sitting by as media types
coo, gurgle, and make ... goo-goo eyes at her is a good way to wind up
stuck in the undercarriage of her SUV."

Actually, there is a real way to refute her, but it seems to be hard
to deploy. It's to say politely, "Your ideas are mistaken," and then
calmly explain how and why. In practice, however, this hasn't worked
out.

In March, when Obama was still very popular, she and her father
opposed him on "torture," Guantanamo Bay, and other security issues,
and sent "The One" packing. By summer, she was on so many news shows
that liberal bloggers attacked the programmers who gave her exposure.
This is the sign she was being effective. If she were hurting her cause
(or her father) they'd want her on air all the time.

Wolff (and Maureen Dowd) try to damn her by saying she's part of
some dark Cheney enterprise, but the reason they loathe her isn't dear
dad. She's what they fear most, a rock star with outreach, a feminine
woman who isn't a feminist, a conviction politician who crosses culture
lines easily, and isn't easily set up or mocked.

She's Palin-Plus (Palin, plus pedigree), who Palin would be if she
had been marinated from birth in the Beltway political culture, plus a
top-ranking school and a mother who was one of the first stars of
"Crossfire," and minus the embarrassing ex-almost-son-in-law, the
moose, and the family drama.

"Saturday Night Live" would have a hard time getting her number. She
has conservative cred, but expressed in a Beltway-type patois that blue
state independents do not find threatening.

She's a Palin who could tie Katie Couric in knots, a mom from McLean
who could be Cottle's neighbor. Moms from McLean could be her
constituents. Cottle couldn't easily explain to a non-left-wing
neighbor why Cheney is "dangerous." That's why Cottle hates her, and
wants her destroyed.

That's why Liz, and those like her, bring out the witch-hunting
bloodlust in liberals; why "gutsy" and "tough" in a Hillary Clinton
become "savage" and "rough" in a female conservative. They ought to get
over this fear of strong women. It's what they told us to do.