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The one-two punch thrown by Democrats and their counterparts in mainstream media have probably cost Alaska the governorship of Sarah Palin.

Sarah has provided two reason for stepping down as Alaska's governor:  1) The money she and the state have had to spend defending against 15 ethics complaints, all dismissed, and 2) The endless attacks against her spouse and children by Democrats, the media and those in pop culture.

Politics is officially a rich person's sport -- so long as you are rich enough to defend yourself against a string of baseless complaints you can stay.

Also, the children of Republican politicians are now a target-rich environment for Democrats and media demagogues.  It makes you wonder how many good people otherwise willing to serve, perhaps even better than those serving us now, are deciding to stay away from politics because of ruthlessness from Democrats and the media.

Let's look at both issues.

Right down to the level of local politics, Democrat strategy is to bring ethics complaints against Republicans in the months leading up to an election.  The goal is pure smear.  After the election the complaints are dismissed or abandoned, as they are no longer useful against the Republican candidate.

Even baseless complaints have to be defended.  In Sarah Palin's case, she racked up a few hundred thousand dollars in legal bills and Alaskans spent even more for administrative costs. It gets in the way of governing.

The solution here is for Alaska to pass a bonding law.  Anyone filing an ethics complaint against a candidate within a year of an election should be required to post a bond to cover the costs should the ethics complaint be found to be baseless or abandoned.

On to Democrats beating up kids. That didn't start with the Palin teenagers.  It started in 2004 with Dick Cheney's daughter Mary.

During John Kerry's debate with George W. Bush, Kerry brought up that Mary Cheney is a lesbian.  During John Edwards' debate with Dick Cheney, Edwards brought up that Mary Cheney is a lesbian.

If a Republican were to bring up lesbianism, the left would scream that they were trying to rally their homophobic base.  What Kerry and Edwards were trying to do was, exactly that -- rally the Democrat homophobic base.

Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill was interviewed about why Kerry and Edwards kept bringing up Mary Cheney being a lesbian.  Her response:  She called Mary Cheney "fair game."

"Fair game" is a hunting term, used to identify which animals one can shoot.  Can you imagine the outrage were a Republican to call a woman "fair game" because she is a lesbian?  No Republican would, but the Democrats did.

It was the first time in American history that either party officially announced that they were intentionally attacking the family members of opposing candidates.  Democrat politics have been uglier ever since.

Sarah Palin walked right into the new world of Democrat child abuse.  As soon as Sarah was announced as the Veep choice, the Obama Campaign, Democrats and their media Igor sidekicks floated every rumor and joke they could think of about the Palin family, from Sarah's baby being her daughter's right up to Letterman's rape joke about 14 year old Willow Palin.

Don't think of Sarah when you hear these jokes.  Think of the two teenage girls who have to take it from Democrat adults, who are forced to suffer public abuse they may not be mentally ready to take, for no other reason than their mother wished to serve her country.

In the next Presidential election Malia Obama will be 14 like Willow Palin.  Should conservatives go at her with both barrels, tease her, ridicule her and hurt her every time she turns on the television?  Hell no.  Conservatives wince at the thought, even while knowing Democrats have positioned our children as "fair game."  It is the burden of those who set the high moral bar to live by it, even has Democrats pass underneath the bar in an effort to hurt our families.

Sarah Palin is a woman who came up through the ranks from local politics to the governorship, which used to be honored as paying your dues through gradual experience.  To hammer Sarah, the Democrats and the media turned starting from the bottom into something bad.  Democrats believe it's more respectable to spend $80 million of your own money buying your first elected office as US Senator, as did NJ Democrat Jon Corzine.

In the 20th century 8 men rose from governorships to the Presidency. Most had not a lick of foreign policy experience (like Reagan or Clinton). A governorship became the standard for pre-Presidential experience, and if you hadn't been a governor and were standing for President, you had some explaining to do.  Yet for Palin, the Democrats and the media threw out the governorship standard, when the only difference between Sarah, Reagan and Clinton was that she is a woman.  Misogyny was used to tear apart Sarah.  So-called feminist groups have only been heard to applaud it.

So what does all this have to do with Maureen Dowd, political columnist for the erstwhile "paper of record" the New York Times?

When Sarah Palin announced her resignation she did so with the complaint that the media was relentless in ridiculing her and her family.  Dowd stood at the crossroads of choice: She could pen a column acknowledging some of Palin's good works - like taking on her own party, fighting corruption and gaining unmatched popularity in her home state.  Or, Dowd could continue down the dirty road of journalism as pro-wrestling and throw a mindless, Hulk Hogan smack-down on Palin (thus proving Palin's point).

We know what a journalist would do.

Here is what Maureen Dowd did (I won't reprint her whole column, just the names and adjectives she used on Sarah):

Caribou Barbie, nutty puppy, exquisite battiness, erratic, egoistic, narcissistic personality disorder, grandiosity, need for admiration, lack of empathy, loopy, solipsistic meltdown, strange, incoherent, breathless, prickly, thin skinned, country-music melodrama, reckless, ga-ga, crazy like a fox, crazy, casuistry, girlish burbling.

You don't need any other words from Dowd's column to understand it, because the entirety of it was this ad hominem attack. Such is the state of journalism post-liberal takeover. Reason is dead and yellow journalism soars. Dowd no longer even tries her hand at political analysis with intellect.  She has gone form Pulitzer Prize, to plagiarism to name-calling.

Stay classy, New York Times. As for Dowd, maybe Vince McMahon's WWE wrestling needs a commentator.

Read more Tommy De Seno at www.JustifiedRight.com