Bob Herbert writes this about Sarah Palin in today’s today’s New York Times:

Here’s the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction. She’s meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign — the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions. Willie Horton was a distraction. The chatter about gays, guns and God has been a long-running distraction. And we all remember the Swift-boat campaign.

Willie Horton and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, perhaps. But for millions of Americans, “the chatter about gays, guns and God” is not only not a distraction, but an important set of issues in politics and in their broader wordview. The Democrats have realized this recently. Remember that convention they threw last week, with a prime-time address by Catholic pro-life Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., a closing benediction by the former president-elect of Christian Coalition, and a Pentecostal minister as CEO?
Bob Herbert’s elitist posture toward cultural conservatives helps explain the national Republican ascent of the last three decades. Barack Obama’s pioneering outreach to cultural conservatives is a response to that trend.
Bob Hebert has apparently not gotten the memo.

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