Camille Paglia claims the kind of personal beliefs that I find quite objectionable – Obama-supporting, pro-choice, atheist, drug legalization, etc. But it seems like every time I read her stuff, I find myself intrigued by her points. And her article today is no exception. She displays stunning insight about the DNC and GOP conventions, the Palin nomination, and her credentials as a “brand new style of muscular American feminis(t)”.

First, Paglia points out the horrendous mess that the Obama campaign is in: “Is the Obama campaign shooting out to sea like a paper boat? ” She correctly identifies Barry’s Saddleback butt-whupping as the beginning of the downslide:

I must admit that McCain is currently eating Obama’s lunch. McCain’s weirdly disconnected persona (beady glowers flashing to frozen grins and back again) has started to look more testosterone-rich than Obama’s easy, lanky, reflective candor. What in the world possessed the Obama campaign to let their guy wander like a dazed lamb into a snake pit of religious inquisition like Rick Warren’s public forum last month at his Saddleback Church in California? That shambles of a performance — where a surprisingly unprepared Obama met the inevitable question about abortion with shockingly curt glibness — began his alarming slide.

Paglia then points out an item that I thought maybe I was the only one who noticed – Barry’s newly found accent:

As I said in my last column, I have become increasingly uneasy about Obama’s efforts to sound folksy and approachable by reflexively using inner-city African-American tones and locutions, which as a native of Hawaii he acquired relatively late in his development and which are painfully wrong for the target audience of rural working-class whites that he has been trying to reach. Obama on the road and even in major interviews has been droppin’ his g’s like there’s no tomorrow

She then goes on to point out how The One’s Nuremburg Denver stadium event completely disappeared off the radar screen when McCain pulled off the most perfectly timed VP announcement in political history. I’m a bit surprised that she missed the negative impact of Barry’s Excellent Adventure in Europe, but that probably would have been like piling on – she didn’t want to pull a Lieberman.

Paglia then proceeds to describe how Palin has made the biggest strides in feminism “since Madonna” (I’m not sure I agree with Madonna being one who has advanced the cause of women, but Paglia is a lefty…). She also acknowledges the stupidity of the attacks on Palin:

Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics — which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama’s campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don’t see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it.

(Bold is mine)

And she also points to the idiocy displayed in the Left’s attacks on the faith of the GOP/conservative side:

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

It is fascinating how Paglia has identified so many key points where the Loony Left is failing. Her final killer point is on the subject of abortion. Even as a “pro-choicer”, Paglia realizes that abortion is murder and that the Left’s connection between abortion rights and feminism is a false dichotomy.

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism — one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

This is one of the best articles I’ve ever seen from a liberal. She gored so many of the Left’s oxen in this article that it’ll take weeks to clean up all the blood. Great article, well worth a full reading.