On Wednesday's Rush Limbaugh show, the host spotted the first "Drive-By tentacle" reaching into the John-McCain's-too-old bin. In this week's Newsweek, liberal columnist Anna Quindlen takes up the case for age discrimination. "The senator's pursuit of the presidency reminds me a bit of those women who decide to have a baby in their late 50s. The impulse is understandable, the goal possible. But, looking at all the facts, and the actuarial tables, is it really sensible?"

Here are the relevant McCain-dismissing passages of the Quindlen column:

...71-year-old John McCain, who actually has been beaten in captivity, may think that the fact that he would be the oldest person ever to enter the job is immaterial. In this, alas, he is mistaken.

Anna Quindlen has advice for the Republican Party: Throw religious conservatives overboard.  In her Sept. 3 Newsweek column. "Disinvited to the Party," she lauds the heartland's apparent embrace of Rudy Giuliani despite his serial marriages and "quasi-liberal positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control."  To Quindlen, "quasi" means not adopting the actual platform language of the Democratic Party. 

Quindlen's rant is a typical leftist smear, lamenting the rise of the Religious Right and blaming it on ... sheer malice. She fails to acknowledge the political and cultural forces that have assailed every traditional institution from church to the Boy Scouts.  She fails to recognize that social conservatives could possibly be human beings with real interests who don't want to turn all personal responsibility for their lives over to government bureaucrats.

Here's her nostalgic look at the Republican Party she used to love: