What's interesting in the case of Sarah Palin's personal life is that many of the details coming out are actually relevant to the public being able to make a decision on whether they will vote the ticket she belongs to. These topics actually relate back to her own political platform.
Baby-Gate: Her 17 year-old is pregnant. "Leave her alone" they cry, she's just a kid.
I agree. Bristol, the daughter, is just a kid. But the policy of abstinence-only education that her mother, the politician, stands behind seems quite flawed if she can't enforce it in her own home, don't you think? I'm not real confident she can make decisions about the education of my children and your children if she has a tough time making those decisions for her own effectively.
Baby-Gate II: Her 17 year-old is pregnant. She's keeping the baby. Isn't that wonderful (pro-life pandering).
Yes, of course it's wonderful that we have one less abortion in the world, but how unfortunate we have one more teen pregnancy. Conservatives are all about family values... well there are some liberals, like myself, who believe in them too... difference is, in MY family my goal is not to have my teenage daughter end up pregnant, and if she does, to then marry her off to her self-proclaimed redneck boyfriend before she's even old enough to vote.
I also don't think you get a medal for keeping the baby when you come from a well-off, privileged family that is adamantly pro-life. Though to the last point, we are told Bristol "chose" herself to keep the baby. I think Sarah missed the operative word in her own statement... her daughter had a choice. Something she wishes to take away from the rest of us.
We could probably easily draw the conclusion that Bristol had no choice at all, in her family, because of her Mother's politics. And sure, if choice is taken away, as Sarah Palin and her pro-life comrades would like to do, isn't it easy to make that decision for the rest of us who aren't quite so privileged. How does she expect to support a country full of uneducated teenagers who were taught abstinence-only, who then end up pregnant, unwed, penniless and without support.
It's a valid issue.
Gender-Gate: If I comment on the fact that she has too much on her plate, that doesn't make me sexist. Sometimes common-sense just tells us that a parent with a special-needs five-month-old and a pregnant teenager might just have her hands full already. Sure, she can work, but does that mean I have to sit back and believe no one suffers if she chooses to be 2nd in command only to the President? The hypocrisy of it all is that if she were counseling another parent on the matter, as a conservative, she might say "you might want to cut back your hours at work and spend more time with your family" and that would be a reasonable suggestion to any family, mom and dad, struggling with such issues. I don't think there's any job more taxing than that of a high-powered political position, in which you can't just cut down your hours to cater to your family... is she capable as a parent to juggle it all? And if she can't, which wouldn't at all be a bad reflection on her, who suffers first? Her family or us, the American People she serves?
Notice, I said PARENT, not MOTHER. I'd be asking the identical questions if she had a penis.
Gender-Gate II: I'm not sexist because I say she isn't ready to be VP. If I am, then under those rules I guess all republicans are racist for saying Obama isn't ready to be President.
Kitchen-Sink-Gate: There are lots of other issues that have cropped up with Sarah Palin, including Trooper-Gate (she allegedly fired the Public Safety Commissions for failing to entertain her family feud by firing her brother-in-law, who was in the middle of a vicious divorce from her sister), AIP-Gate (her and her husband's affiliation to the Alaskan Independence Party and the party's desire to secede from the United States), and even now, her very own Monika-Gate (also seemingly tied to her family feud as the accusations of her philandering seems to come from her own estranged extended family).
Interesting that we end where we started, isn't it?
Republicans, all I can say is suck it up. These are legitimate issues.
The best quote I read on the topic says it all:
"What's galling is this: When the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, minority teenage mother growing up in some (presumably Democratic) urban area, that pregnancy becomes fodder for lectures from conservatives about bad parenting, the perils of welfare spending and so on. But when the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, white teenager from some small town in a Republican State, that pregnancy is... a celebration of the wonders of God's magnificence -- and choosing life!" -Thomas Schaller from Salon.com
Well-said Thomas. Well-said.
No comments:
Post a Comment