Jennifer, the dissing of Sarah Palin may be more interesting not for what really went on inside the various organizations, but for the potential blowback such a move has. The problem is not just that the Obama campagin has acted to deligitimize radically the elected governor of one of the 50 United States and a duly chosen candidate for the vice presidency. This they could have achieved just through their own boycotting of the event. The problem is that mainstream Jewish organizations, widely known to be in Obama’s pocket, have publicly humiliated a woman whose only crime was to agree to speak out together with them against a common enemy.

Granted, rally organizers were put in a tough spot by Hillary’s Gran Rifiuto. But what they have done is to reinforce the stereotype that Democrats cannot handle ordinary people; they have cast themselves as the ultimate insiders, using power rather than argument to shape the debate; they have made American Jewry look far more partisan than it probably is; they have turned the fight against Iran into a partisan issue; and they have given a powerful reason for both energizing the Right and disaffecting many American Jews who either support McCain-Palin or at least believe she had a right to speak. You’re dead on. We really haven’t heard the end of this story.