Reading advance notices about McGinnis’s expose of Sarah Palin has reminded me about the reaction of the Left when SP first stepped to the front of the political stage. I can’t think of anyone else who has attracted so much hostility. Ronald Reagan was derided but this is sheer venom.

One of my Dumbocrat friends, seated beside me on a sofa, spilled her tea when I told her I liked Palin. ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘You absolutely bloody can’t. After all we women have struggled for.’

So what’s it all about? Sarah Palin rose from pretty humble origins to high public office, raised a family, looks attractive, speaks well, kills her own dinner… Is it her gun rack that’s the problem? Is it her lipstick? With feminists you never can tell, they’re such a narky bunch. I can imagine that the combination of hunting moose and wearing heels (though probably not at the same time) might throw them for a loop. Even so. It kind of confirms what I always felt in the company of right-on sisters: an insidious downward drag, a preference for beefing about perceived slights instead of laughing at them, and an oddly begrudging attitude towards women who do well. It’s a mystery.

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We were at another funeral today, of an old lady I’d never met and Mr F only occasionally but as all other Fitzpatricks are currently out of the country it fell to us to represent the family. And perhaps because I had no emotional involvement I was able to pay closer attention to the words of the Mass than if I had been sniffling into my Kleenex. So imagine my surprise when I heard Happy are they that mourn. Happy are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Happy are the pure in heart. Etc. 

Happy? HAPPY? Since when did the Beatitudes become the Happitudes? Has this been cleared with the Pope?