Conservatives Against Palin

There's plenty of elbow room on the Sarah Palin bandwagon these days. Heather Mac Donald follows conservatives like David Brooks, George Will, and David Frum in jumping off, writing in the City Journal that "there was a time…when conservatives upheld adult standards—such as clarity of speech and thought—without apology, even in the face of the relentless downward pull of adolescent culture." Mac Donald then takes her critique into new territory by criticizing conservative "hypocrisy…regarding Palin's family situation." "In the past," she writes, "conservatives have not flinched from pointing out the social and economic costs of teen pregnancy; taking up that theme again, after the happy family-values face put on Bristol's imminent motherhood, is going to be awkward, to say the least."