An important point on Trig

Friend and former colleague Jonathan V. Last has some smart points in this post over at First Things, and I’d like to highlight one in particular:

As such, the left sees Baby Trig as a provocation. Note today the commentators complaining that Trig has become a “prop” for Palin’s candidacy simply because the family took turns holding the four-month-old in public last night. (Perhaps these observers simply have no understanding of how infants are handled and cared for.) Instead of being viewed as just another baby, Trig is seen by the left as a little Terri Schiavo—an assertion of the value of all life and an affront to their belief that there are differences in what constitutes meaningful life.

I think this is largely true, and another possible explanation for the near-hysterical reactionthe left is having to Sarah Palin. Her life-choices* are profoundly different from those on the left, and in many ways a repudiation of those on the left. She is different, the other, an alien life form–and they hate her for it.

Anyway, you should read the whole thing. And make sure to check out JVL’s other venture, Galley Slaves, which currently features a pretty damning look at Andrew Sullivan’s behavior over the last week.

*Now that’s a term I never thought I’d use seriously.