As regular readers know, I love Sarah Palin. (So does co-blogger M. Simon).

What I don't love, though, is this attempt by Stacy McCain to link hatred of Sarah Palin to homosexuality (which McCain sees as synonymous with Andrew Sullivan's view of motherhood and vaginas). Because the man is an influential conservative as well as a supporter of Sarah Palin, I think this will hurt Sarah Palin more than it hurts Sullivan, or Ken Layne, or the allegedly mother-hating homos.

Moreover, as a Palin supporter who still clings to the belief that a libertarian-conservative alliance might be possible, I think it is very poor strategy.

But it might be that McCain's goal was more to build blog traffic than to help Palin. I can't be sure, but I like the way Glenn Reynolds summarized James Joyner's post yesterday:

Stacy McCain = Ken Layne = Andrew Sullivan

Sean Kinsell does a great job of attacking the bad logic behind the proposition that gays hate Palin because they hate moms with vaginas. Such a great job, in fact, that I don't feel the need for extended comment on the nature of the logic. (After all, don't we already know that your typical white conservative hates Obama because conservatives are racists and Obama is black? Yawn...)

McCain seems to think that he has now destroyed (and eviscerated) Andrew Sullivan. Has he? I looked, and Andrew Sullivan doesn't seem to have been slowed down at all, much less destroyed. Has he been "smacked down" * as another conservative leader claims? Apparently in the minds of his critics, but does anyone honestly think that those who read and agree with Sullivan will be persuaded in the least by this? Will the readers of Ken "Wonkette" Layne now desert him because McCain has finally exposed him as a "vicious cocksucker"? I don't think so. No; all this will do is generate more mutual animosity. I admit, that's quite a feat, and it took some doing, because the present levels of animosity seemed at an all time high.

Sure, he has the First Amendment right to call Andrew Sullivan and Ken Layne anything he wants, just as they have the right to malign a retarded baby and promote crackpot conspiracy theories. (Theories that BTW have become an independent form of Trutherism beyond that advanced by Andrew Sullivan. Yeah, so maybe I should say "there's nothing gay about Trutherism" while I'm at it.)

When Ann Coulter used the word "faggot" to characterize John Edwards, I defended her right to say it, but wondered whether any good would ever come of it. Once again, I think that Republicans in positions of leadership ought to pick their battles and choose their words more carefully.

The only message I can see that will be remembered from this is that a lot of right wingers think that those who hate Sarah Palin are gay (as if there is no greater insult) and should be called names. A new meme for the left to proudly wave.

I fail to see how this will resonate in Sarah Palin's favor.

I realize that many people are saying that Stacy McCain is only doing this for the traffic. I can't blame any blogger for wanting traffic, but I do think that if he likes Sarah Palin as much as he claims does, McCain might think twice about whether getting more hits is worth the damage he does to his cause.

When the dust settles, no one will remember the traffic he got. What they will remember is the shining new conservative principle he established.

If you hate Sarah Palin, you must be gay!

Hmmm...

Does that mean if you like her, you must be straight?

* One thing I've learned in six years of blogging is that no one is ever "smacked down" or "destroyed" by blog posts. (I say this because I was once naive enough to imagine that I had smacked down an unscrupulous news site called Capitol Hill Blue. Silly me.)

UPDATE: McCain has now gone from attacking gays to attacking lawyers. And damning them:

Damn lawyers.

Adding insult to personal injury, as it were, the tort-bar vultures run TV ads -- illiterate submorons watch lots of TV, y'know -- encouraging everybody who has ever been in an accident to sue the bejeebers out somebody.

Damn lawyers.

All legislation is written by lawyers, for the exclusive benefit of lawyers. The paperwork must be approved by lawyers. The various disclaimers and questionaires and the valuable time wasted in complying with all this bureaucratic nonsense . . .

Damn lawyers.

In this case, I happen to agree. But only because I'm a self-hating lawyer!

MORE: My thanks to Sean Kinsell for the link. Sean has some further thoughts about Sarah Palin:

...if the only feedback she's getting comes from her media supporters, the only message she's getting is that Real Americans love her to pieces just the way she is and that the only detractors she has are motivated by pro-abortion, anti-gun, anti-family, misogynist animus. I think that's cause for worry.

As Franklin said, "Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults."

UPDATE (07/03/09): Now that Sarah Palin has resigned, I naturally find myself wondering about the timing of this fascinating blame-the-gays meme.