The thing is O’Donnell is not Palin, whose substantial record was often ignored in favor of a reporter pile-on unmatched in its intensity and focus on petty, often unfair and untrue, personal psychoanalysis and questionable narrative-fitting anecdotes. Criticism of O’Donnell from conservatives was not akin to the treatment Palin got and deploying the same type of attack on longtime conservative allies as one would on the New York Times or Nancy Pelosi is not productive. It’s the Meghan McCain strategy for winning friends and influencing people. We hate it when she paints conservatives and Republicans with a broad brush, reinforces our adversaries’ stereotypes of us, marshals little proof in defense of either, and then asks us to merrily join hands with her as she fights for our cause. Why are we pulling a Meggie Mac on each other?

The people of Delaware spoke, O’Donnell is the nominee, and she’s done very well in her debut interviews in the national spotlight. She is certainly conservative on policy, and a skilled campaigner. I am not here to defend the legitimately disrespectful treatment of her by the NRSC, which announced it would not back her immediately after her win before back-pedaling, or the Castle camp’s decision to stealthily campaign against her. I’m not deeming legitimate every mainstream media and liberal attack on her religious beliefs or sexual mores, which have already become as nasty as the ones on Palin…

But O’Donnell is not exempt from this perfectly natural political process simply because she’s a conservative woman in the mold of Sarah Palin, just as Mike Castle was not exempt from a conservative challenge from her simply because he was an incumbent. To suggest she is exempt comes close to conferring liberal “special rights” upon conservative women, who as Thompson and Palin and I all agree, are plenty strong enough to do without them.