My first reaction to the choice of Sarah Palin was that she is no Hillary Clinton. I give her credit for her drive and determination, her willingness to take on special interests and her sheer guts in challenging the Republican establishment of her state. But less than two years as governor? And before that, mayor of a city of about 7,000? Would any man with such a thin resume have made it to the top of John McCain's list? Dan Quayle in a skirt, one of my wittier and nastier friends e-mailed me … and he's a conservative.

Of course, many of the same things could have been said (and were) about Geraldine Ferraro when, with my help and support, she was tapped for VP in 1984. Republicans criticize Barack Obama every day for lack of experience. I understand that those of us who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. My biggest problem with Gov. Palin is not inexperience, but ideology.

When she was running for lieutenant governor, she told one anti-choice group she is as pro-life as you can be. What that means is that she opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. I'm a rape victim. Frankly, being a rape victim stinks. It's an injury that, no matter how many years pass or how far away you move or how big a lemonade stand you build in an effort to turn your pain into reform, never quite goes away. I know that. I live with that. But I can't even imagine — and don't want to try — what it would be like to have to carry to term a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest. I can't even conceive of that added pain, that awful choice at the end — what seems to me the sheer cruelty of not allowing a woman to control her destiny at least in those situations.

I respect Palin for choosing to continue a pregnancy when she and her husband reportedly knew there might be problems. I respect her for embracing her pregnant daughter, for offering the support a 17-year-old desperately needs if she and her teenage boyfriend are to become, in an instant, someone's parents, rather than someone's children. What I find much more difficult to respect is her willingness to impose her choices on others, to tell me what I should do in her situation, or what my daughter should do. In my book, respect should be mutual.

But what is just as troubling to me as Palin's willingness to impose her choices on others is the stupid and mean-spirited commentary from some of my liberal friends, attacking her for the choices she's made, attacking her diligence in securing prenatal care in her latest pregnancy, suggesting that the child was really her grandchild and not her son.

Since her selection last Friday, liberal blogs have been on the attack against Palin and her family. They have assumed the right to second-guess her choices in precisely the same way we criticize conservatives when they presume to second-guess ours. How dare she leave her infant at home and return so quickly to her job as governor? How dare she entrust the care of her baby, especially a baby with special needs, to someone as unqualified as, say, her husband? Maybe the baby wasn't really hers in the first instance. Maybe it was really her daughter's. And, most appallingly of all, maybe she didn't seek adequate prenatal care for her son — a post so loaded with the implication that she might somehow be at fault for her son's Down's Syndrome that its author ultimately claimed he was merely questioning her "judgment" in deciding to give a speech in her seventh month of pregnancy before heading directly home (she also consulted her obstetrician by phone). How dare he?

There is an old saying that it's never the crime, it's the cover-up. So, too, I often think with women candidates: It's not about sex, but sexism. If you say to a group of women, you should support Mary or Jane, or Hillary or Sarah, because she is a woman, the majority will be offended. We women like to believe that we make our decisions on the merits, on the basis of policy and experience, not anatomy.

But if that woman candidate should come under what is plainly sexist attack, if her opponent or the media treat her in the sort of patronizing way that every girl and woman in America is more familiar with than we should be (as Hillary's Senate opponent did in 2000 and as many in the media did in 2008), women rally.

Obama is right in saying that he finds the attacks on Palin and her family offensive, but those who support him don't seem to be listening. They should. Keep this up, guys, and major backlash is sure to follow. Sarah Palin may be no Hillary Clinton, but if she faces the same sort of sexism that Hillary did, she may yet capture many of her supporters.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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