Liberals excel in blinding themselves to their own biases and hypocrisy and blaming conservatives for their own sins, all of which they are showcasing in their frantic reaction to the Sarah Palin nomination.

Not only are they trying to destroy Palin. They are straight-facedly denying it and accusing Republicans of manufacturing this charge to exhibit phony sympathy for women.

Conservatives, after all, couldn't possibly be supportive of female Palin based on merit; it's just a political ploy to purloin Hillary voters. Liberal captives of identity politics just can't comprehend that neither gender nor race matters to conservatives. It's all about the candidate's political philosophy, approach to governance and qualifications to serve -- not those artificial constructs that liberals have exploited through the years.

Don't get me wrong. Palin's beauty and tough-as-nails femininity are refreshing icing on a delicious cake for conservatives, but if she were not demonstrably conservative, they'd be depressed -- not energized.

But you'll never convince the liberal press, which sees everything through the lens of gender and race consciousness and indiscriminately projects that propensity onto conservatives.

Thus, Newsweek's Anna Quindlen is reduced to grousing about the "hypocrisy" of conservatives in honoring the Palins for bringing a baby with Down syndrome to term rather than scolding them with "pursed-lip accusations of promiscuity."

Conservatives, said Quindlen, have "inveighed against affirmative action" yet celebrate the affirmative action that "undoubtedly played a part in" the Palin selection. And how can conservatives credibly complain about personal attacks against Palin, when "the wingnuts of their own party elevated such attacks to a fine art by accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of fictitious misdeeds from treason to murder"?

Like many liberals, poor Anna can't seem to distinguish between hating the sin and hating the sinner. Nor does she grasp the difference between government-mandated race- or gender-based preferences and the private selection of individuals for public service who happen to be in "minority" categories. She is also confused on the distinction between dozens of legitimate charges against the Clintons and the trumped-up slanders against Sarah Palin. When you've caught Bill Clinton red-handed in multiple felonies and Hillary in gross improprieties on which she got a complete media pass -- such as the cattle futures and missing law firm billing records -- who needs the more sensational allegations of treason and murder?

But despite her best efforts, Quindlen's obtuseness doesn't hold a candle to that of MSNBC's Chris Matthews. On "Hardball," Matthews derisively mocked Pat Buchanan for defending Palin against media attacks, accusing him of "a 1950s version of chivalry," false "sensitivity," "political cross-dressing" and assuming the role of Dr. Phil.

Revealing the narrowly calibrated liberal mind, Matthews wrongly assumes that conservatives are cynically playing the gender card in defending Palin and, in the process, demeaning women and hurting their cause. "This courtesy that you expect people to show her is debasing her potential as a leader of this country." Continued...