….to point out that much of the leftist opposition to Sarah Palin amounts to just plain sexism. Helen McCaffrey, a civil right s lawyer, community college instructor, and publisher of a website called “Wimmins Watch” (on behalf of Women’s Watch, the women’s advocacy group she heads), wrote this op-ed that appeared in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer (thanks for spotting it, Instapundit):

“I cannot predict who will win the presidential campaign, but I already know who will lose big: all women.

“I realized this when I saw a 20-something male student who attends a class in the community college where I teach, wearing a T-shirt that read, ‘Sarah Palin is a C-.’ He wore it in public, in broad daylight, and without shame or even consciousness of what he was doing….

“It was the encounter with the young man that woke me up, but there were signs all along the campaign trail. First, with the candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million popular votes from the people of the United States and was ridiculed, marginalized, and put in her place when she wasn’t even offered the vice presidency slot…

“Instead of engaging Palin on the issues, critics attacked attributes that are specifically female. It is Hillary’s pantsuit drama to the power of 10. Palin’s hair, her voice, her motherhood, and her personal hygiene were substituted for substance. That’s when it was nice.

“The hatred escalated to performers advocating Palin be  ‘gang raped,’ to suggestions that her husband had had sex with their young daughters, and reports that her Down syndrome child really was that of her teenage daughter. One columnist even called for her to submit to DNA testing to prove her virtue. Smells a little like Salem to me. I was present at an Obama rally at which the mention of Palin’s name drew shouts of ’stone her.’

“‘Stone her’? How biblical.”

As McCaffrey points out, if you disagree with Palin, how about arguing with her on the issues?