How great was it, for Republican women, to hear Rudy Giuliani thunder, “How dare they question whether Sarah Palin has enough time for her children and the vice presidency? They would never say that about a man…” Macho mayor Rudy, and the Top Gun candidate are now in line to be handed NOW’s “Feminist of the Year” award. Hillary is voting for them too. Hillary has blackballed all of the men in her own party, who displayed arrant sexism toward the woman in their race. In fact, has Hillary had to blackball a great many liberal women, including the activists at NARAL, who supported Obama over her.

It was really quite impressive to see the admiration, support, and glee at the intelligent, funny lines in Palin’s speech, on the faces of all of those middle-class, middle aged, white men at the convention. So which party supports real choices for women? And how does it happen that Sally Quinn, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, the women at Slate’s XX files, female reporters at the New York Times, and a bunch of other serious working mothers are willing to opine that running makes Palin a bad mother, and she can’t do both well? I don’t know if she can, btw, but it’s clear that arrangements can be made to make things work. Todd Palin won’t be fishing in Alaska, so he can help. And the vice president’s offices are big enough to set up a nursery for Trig a few room’s away. As a taxpayer, I’d be willing to pay for a nanny.

While we are on the subject, many of those same women have criticized Palin for going back to work a mere three days after giving birth this spring. I know I couldn’t have done it. But, it seems to me that, when you have a longterm career as a professional, in a law firm, or doctors’ office, or a big company, or if you work in a medium to large sized business, taking off a number of weeks or, ideally months, is wonderful. Staying home for several years is wonderful, if you can. But if you have run for and been elected to high office, you have a limited term, and you are not fungible. You sought and accepted a time-bound set of duties. When this conflicts with the birth of a baby, the elected official remains obligated to govern. Three days might indicate a superwoman — I’d have given her a few more. But it demonstrates seriousness about her work. And she apparently has had few qualms about working at her desk, signing bills or attending meetings with the baby in a sling across her chest. Which is also a nice new GOP image.