Gloves came off when column came out

Susan Reimer

September 5, 2008

On Monday, I wrote a column criticizing the McCain campaign for what I saw as a cynical attempt to gather in unhappy women voters by naming Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his vice presidential candidate and for exploiting the poignant story of her youngest child to appease the Republican Party's pro-life base.

And then the storm began.

More than 8,200 comments were posted to the column on The Baltimore Sun's Web site. I received more than 700 personal e-mails and about 50 phone calls.

The column was mentioned by Rush Limbaugh and Brit Hume. Matt Drudge's hugely popular Web site, Drudge Report, posted a link to it. Fox News and every shock jock from here to San Francisco called and asked me to appear on the air to defend myself.

Susan Reimer Bio | Recent columns

A handful of people wrote to say that I had captured exactly their reaction to the Palin nomination. But the rest of the responses were vehement or venomous.

And more than 316,000 people viewed the column on The Baltimore Sun Web site. That number - more than 100 times the attention I normally receive - actually frightened me.

In the past, when one of my columns has generated strong response - and none has ever generated this kind of anger - I have given over some of this space to those who disagreed with me and let them speak.

I will do that this time, too.

Many criticized me for writing that by choosing Palin, who gave birth this spring to a child she knew to have Down syndrome, the Republican Party was exploiting her decision to keep her child - that the party was trading on her story.

In no way did I suggest that she should not have carried her child to term. Or that she did not love him and count him as a blessing to her family. Or that she made the decision out of anything but her own strong beliefs, a strength that was clearly on display during her speech Wednesday night.

It is the motives of Republican strategists of which I was, and am, suspicious. It was as if they were saying, "Sarah Palin is not only pro-life. She is living that message," making the personal political.

But most of those who wrote were offended that I would mention the child to make my point.

"That comment belittles the political process and it calls into question your humanity," wrote Marty Buonato in an e-mail. "You have slapped the face of every reader with a special needs family member."

Among the first to respond was my 30-year-old nephew, Bill, a Republican as conservative as his father and so politically aware that he was predicting Palin would be McCain's choice before it happened.

Bill made the excellent point that the Republican Party was not reaching out to me with the Palin pick. It was reaching out to him.

"I don't want to vote for old white guys, either," Bill said. "With this pick, a woman and young, the party is letting me know that there is a place in it for me."

Others wrote to say that if I was going to question the depth of Palin's professional resume, Obama's experience deserved the same scrutiny. That is more than a fair point.

And if you want to count rich and complex life stories when considering a candidate, Obama and Palin are just about equals.

It would be unfair for me to leave you with the impression that the column I wrote and the reader response were nothing more than spirited conversation in which two sides respectfully disagreed.

The things that were said about me, my personal appearance and my children - as well as Barack Obama - were beyond the bounds of decency, and many were said in language that might only be seen in a bathroom stall.

Generally, the comments were not made behind the veil of anonymity the Internet can provide. The writers signed their names. And they revealed what I think has become the bare-knuckles nature of our national conversation.

So much pent-up anger, so much barely concealed hate was released in those e-mails and those postings. I wonder where next they will find a vent.

It is still two months until the presidential election. Things could get really rough out there.