Why does Sarah Palin evoke such a visceral response?

Ed Koch, an Obama supporter, speaks out against the media's treatment of Palin.

She deserves the media's respect, instead of its mockery and efforts to destroy
her by their clear distain. Interestingly, highly intelligent women friends of mine who support Barack Obama, as I do, were horrified when I told them of my views and that I was writing this commentary. Their position is not to give Palin any credit.

Why do these women dislike Palin so much? Is it true dislike or perhaps fear or even insecurity? I thought this was a very honest confession by one of these elite women:

it's because Palin makes us look like the slackers we mainly are. We've had our
bit of success, but we've also spent a lot of time smelling the roses. We've gone back to school to get another degree, volunteered in poor countries, devoted ourselves to a sport or a hobby. We've not had kids, or if we have, we've had one or two, and we've had nannies paid for by our work or our husbands or our inherited money.

We not only have had passports for decades, we've put serious mileage on them. We've lived overseas or spent months wandering around Africa or India, we understand foreign people and places in ways Palin never will--and yet it's she who could become vice president, not one of us.

This is something I can relate to. Most conservative women I know don't necessarily agree with all of Palin's policies or honestly think that she's qualified, but they support her out of sheer admiration for everything that she's accomplished. If she can do everything she's done while bearing five children, we should give her the benefit of the doubt! Perhaps conservative women have done Palin just as much a disservice by going too easy on her.