A Second Anne Hutchinson?

Sally Quinn—and what made the Washington Post imagine this gossip columnist was an expert on American religion?— points out the hypocrisy of conservative Protestants both promoting male headship and cheering for Sarah Palin.

To which Helen Rittelmeyer replies the answer is easy: Sarah Palin is Anne Hutchinson reborn. “If even the Puritans couldn’t unequivocally reject the possibility of female public leadership, I don’t know why Sally Quinn thinks that today’s Protestants should have to.”

Um, maybe. One remembers that the Puritan fathers did, in fact, find a way to get rid of Hutchinson (for heresy, as it happens, which also seems to be the charge brought against Palin, though this time from her fellow women rather than the men). Still, Rittelmeyer’s made an interesting volley back into Quinn’s court. Why must the press attempt to warp everything into the accusation of hypocrisy?