Aces Full of Links

I know Obama says the issue is off the table, but fuck it, this is the party that doesn't want you to be able to protect your daughters FROM CANCER because doing so might send the message that sex is okay. Yet they think the vice presidents teenage daughter getting knocked up is just dandy and doesn't send the message to teenage girls that sex is okay and getting pregnant at 17 is a blessing?

And they're warning the Democrats -- don't make an issue of this! Don't you dare! Grrr. The hypocritical party of holier-than-thou.

Democrats don't need to make an issue of this, Palin is a walking trainwreck without any help from Bristol, whom I truly pity. Now this child is going to be married. What hope is there for a marriage begun this way?

But on Sarah Palin's personal judgment -- it's hard enough raising a typical child, let alone five. Raising a Down's baby, plus four other children including a pregnant teenage daughter, and being vice president of the US? I'm sorry, that's not parenting, it's something else entirely. It's ignoring your children and then punishing them when they do wrong. If you look carefully at what Palin said about Bristol's pregnancy, it was about marrying the father and finding out how difficult it was to raise a child. That's a chilling attitude to share with the world, and it's not supportive. They may claim to love and support her on the surface, but there's an undercurrent of "life will punish you for your bad decision," and it's true. Bristol, the father, and the baby are all going to be punished for decisions, some bad and some natural. This proven ineffective abstinence-only education goes right along with Palin's apparent parenting style, believing she can tell a child something (just don't have sex) that goes completely against nature, ignore the child, and then punish her when she doesn't follow through. Bah. But it's easier than figuring out how to be a good parent.

I wish I'd never learned about these people, I wish they weren't in the public eye.

I completely agree. I wish I'd never heard of these idiots and I don't even want to talk about them.

McCain said he already knew about this when he picked Palin, so I'm curious as to why they let a rumor rage first before telling the truth... unless they were hoping to bank on the attention in some way.

Let's see - you know you will give birth to a Down's Syndrome child. You know this child will need special care. So you seek the office of vice president. See - I can appreciate a person saying they don't want an abortion. I can't appreciate their failure to then take responsibility for the child they bring into the world.

But the Bristol case is worse. Now we have a mother who knows that her daughter is caught in a stressful, confusing situation and needs her full attention. She tells John McCain this. Both have to know this is going to put Bristol in the public eye in the worst way - that the kid doesn't have enough to worry about, now she has to be confronted with the whole world knowing her situation and carrying on her shoulders the risk of wrecking her mother's career.

It is Sarah Palin who put her daughter in this situation. She didn't get her pregnant - but she chose to enter into a situation, based on incredible personal ambition, and she wants to gratify that ambition rather than take care of her teenage daughter. A reasonable person - a responsible person - would have said - "there will be another election. I am young. I have hardly begun my service as governor. Pay attention to my daughter. Take care of my family. Build my career at a reasonable pace. Prepare to be president - later."

But notice - there is no accountability here. No sense of repsonsibility. No admission of possible failure. They're already making excuses - it's like Bristol getting pregnant was just an act of god - sort of like Hurricane Gustav - nothing you could do about it, but cope with the situation. Well yes - but she isn't coping with the situation. She's heaping more weight on the shoulders of her teenaged daughter.

And yes - I understand what Obama is saying and no one is trying to pry into Bristol's life. But everyone needs to understand what kind of person is going to be a heartbeat away from the presidency - and an ill president at that. This speak to the character, the values, and the judgment of Sarah Plain and for me it reveals an egotistical person whose ambition far outweigh any positive character traits she may have.

My prediction - she will tearfully withdraw from her candidacy saying that - through no fault of her own - she has become a distraction to the campaign and she knows her family needs her full attention. Hell - I expect to see this happen tomorrow, but the interviews I'm hearing with the right wingers says to me they're circling the wagons - at least out front. Who knows what's going on behind the scenes.

Greg makes some excellent points. Two additional points:

Have you seen any actual elected Republicans defending Palin on the news? All I've seen are unelected, unfamiliar RNC operatives. If they were circling the wagons, you'd want those people's protection, too. But it doesn't look like there are a lot of elected officials who want to be on record.

McCain claims to have thoroughly vetted Palin. The growing evidence belies that claim. The campaign is now sending teams of operatives to Alaska to post-vet Palin. This would not have been necessary had McCain done his homework. Now he's playing catch-up and trying to convince us he really did do the work.

That's the sort of president he'll be. A poor leader. A poor administrator. Poorly prepared. Willing to make irresponsible decisions without the benefit of conscientious preparation.

I have to imagine that the only reason McCain/Palin are taken seriously at all is that we've been looking at Bush so long, some people can't remember what responsible leadership looks like.

I dislike Palin as much as the next person and think she's a birdbrain, but how much of this stuff would we be saying about how she plans on being VP and raise a special-needs child if she were a man? Not as much as we are now, methinks, but maybe that's just me. After all, there is a full-time dad in the picture.

The McCain campaign didn't treat this choice seriously. And that fact has nothing to do with Palin's gender, even if gender had something to do with the choice.

You're right, we wouldn't be talking about her water breaking if she was a man. Pretty much by definition. But if there were a similar situation, like a male candidate's child in some sort of ambiguous distress and he gave a speech and didn't get the child to a hospital -- yeah, it would be discussed. And we certainly do look at the families of male candidates. And they are attacked for superficial characteristics (see John Edwards).

But now that I've gotten this post off my chest, I really don't feel the need to explore the pregnancy issue further. McCain/Palin are a bad choice for American for the same reasons McCain alone was a bad choice.

The more we waste time obsessing over a pregnancy, or gender, the more people will decide their vote on superficial or "gut level" stupidity.

Look at Morning Joe right now: the coverage is about the unfair coverage about Palin's daughter. They won't cover it, but they'll cover the coverage. Does that make sense? How about skipping it altogether and covering Palin's policies and scandals? Surely, those are pertinent to the election. Not on TV, where they get a passing mention, if you're lucky.

Make no mistake; that's a benefit for the McCain campaign. They are not going to lose many voters over a pregnancy, no matter how many liberals think it reflects ironically on abstinence-only education.

This is why my focus, initially, was on my disbelief that McCain and Palin would thrust the family into the limelight, knowing this revelation would put Bristol front and center. This was a conscious decision. Shove your child onto a busy road and you can only partly blame the drivers on the road, can't you?

MJ, I thought the same thing re: if this were a man with a kid who was pregnant and unmarried.

Then I read this piece in the Chicago Sun-Times, the title of which is "Bristol Palin's pregnancy none of our business, but Sarah Palin's views are"

Pertient blurb:

"We have no right invading this young woman's life. But we have every right and responsibility in this presidential campaign to question John McCain and Sarah Palin about the Bush administration's attack on family planning and how, if at all, they would change it."

I wholeheartedly agree.

There was also this piece in the Boston Globe today:

Palin's daughter, 17, is pregnant
Republicans close ranks around family as rumors swirl

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/02/palins_daughter_17_is_pregnant/?page=full

"Palin, a first-term governor in Alaska, criticized the overturning of a law requiring a parent's permission before a child can have an abortion and suggested a constitutional amendment in its place.

"The revelation of her daughter's pregnancy comes as the Republican Party continues to be riven over the issues of abstinence, abortion, and contraception.

"Yesterday, GOP convention delegates adopted a platform that urges unmarried teenagers to abstain from sex. "We renew our call for replacing 'family planning' programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior," says the platform, which also declares there is a 'moral obligation' to help women who have unplanned pregnancies.

"McCain voted against a 2005 proposal by Senator Hillary Clinton that would have provided $100 million to combat teenage pregnancy."

Maggie's right in her parsing of Palin's language. It is about punishment, which is what I have always felt most antichoice folks are all about. "You ought to be forced to have that baby as a punishment for your wickedness."

To read that kind of sentiment from a mother to a daughter is horrible. To know that she could be the president of this country makes me sick.

MJ, Patti, et. al,

As a woman, I have struggled with the sexist ideas swirling around Palin's family issues. If it were a man with a Down's baby and a pregnant teenage daughter, would we be saying he shouldn't run for VP?

Of course, that's not at all why I'm saying she's not qualified to be VP. I think she's not qualified because she has so little experience, and I say she's a bad choice because I disagree with her stand on most issues, I think she's an anti-science nutjob, and she's a corrupt liar to boot.

The reason poor Bristol Palin is interesting is because:
1) It emphasizes that John McCain did not vet his VP choice, and therefore we know that John McCain is capable of extremely poor, foolhardy judgment. We also know that he is being run over by the religious base of his party, because he wanted Lieberman or Ridge and they told him they'd make a stink at the convention. Whipped, and a loose cannon. Scary.
2) It does give a glimpse into Sarah Palin's judgment and personality. I DO NOT negatively judge a person whose child becomes pregnant out of wedlock. But I can look at how she does not revise her beliefs about abstinence education and conclude that between her ears is 100% religious cotton that is never getting cleaned out, no matter what the evidence. Since I don't agree with socially conservative policies based in the Christian religion's refusal to accept that other people have other belief systems, I know I will never agree with her. How about dragging her daughter into the limelight in this way? Does this woman have a soul? What a selfish, ambitious bitch. I'd say that about a man or a woman. Right or wrong (I say wrong), they had to know people would talk about it (it's nobody's business, but you know it's going to be the one thing people want to talk about). Or is this part of the punishment? Well, you didn't do what (god and) mommy said, and now you're going to face the consequences, with mommy's "support." Or are they using Bristol as a distraction, worst case conspiracy theory scenario?

Now, as a mother... I don't think it makes any difference to the development of the child, all things being equal (and there is no abuse), whether that child is cared for by a mother, father, relative, home daycare, or daycare facility. But all things are not equal. Trig is a child with a serious disability.

I had children with issues, medical and developmental, and I know how an ordinary day can become a desperate ride in an ambulance in a heartbeat, or how a Girl Scout troop leader can think your kid is going to be doing one thing when your kid is doing something completely unexpected (and potentially dangerous) because she's not typical. Trig needs special care.

Even those of us who really are ordinary moms know how difficult it is to raise a family, never mind work and raise a family. Now add work and raise a family with some serious issues. Now be VP and raise a family with serious issues? Is the dad a stay-at-home dad? If so, none of this is valid. But if both of those parents are working, then I cannot see it, because there is a difference between a daycare and a parent when it comes to emergencies, and I expect the VP to be working far more than ordinary hours. I just don't see how the VP can have a working partner, and five children, one of them with developmental issues and another a teenage daughter whose pregnant, and be an effective VP. This is definitely a "keep having children and god will take care of them" sort of attitude toward parenting that I DO NOT agree with.

Again, I wish I'd never met them. Their values are so far removed from mine that it nauseates me to watch them or think about them. Please go away, Sarah Palin.

Maggie

Oops, make that "who's pregnant," not "whose pregnant." Yikes.

Greg, I don't see this woman tearfully withdrawing. She has a spine of titanium, which is good for a VP choice, though other aspects of her make me shudder.

Maggie, I echo your sentiments when you said, "Again, I wish I'd never met them. Their values are so far removed from mine that it nauseates me to watch them or think about them. Please go away, Sarah Palin."

I feel sorriest for the daughter whose mother dragged her into the glare and heat of the Kleig lights. I don't like it when I see people bring their children to marches, rallies, etc. They're not props. The Palins have chosen poorly in this instance. Of course, the Obamas put their kids on stage during the convention--let's hope that's the last we see of them.

And Maggie's right again, this is a glaring example of McCain either not paying attention or leaving the important choices up to his handlers. It is quite possible his VP will have to step into his spot, and this is the best his campaign could do? And he went along? This choice is for the second in command to the "leader of the free world." It's a serious choice and one that can't be made as a calculation to pander the conservative right (who were going to vote for him anyway) and unhappy Hilary supporters (who I think are talking an angry talk but aren't so self-centered as to vote for someone who is the poalr opposite of Hilary except for the breasts and ovaries).

Lord, this election can not end soon enough.

Oh yeah, I agree Patti. If she had any plans of stepping down, it would've been "I just found out my daughter's pregnant and I can see she needs me and I don't want to become a distraction, *sniffle*" but I suspect this woman has never cried a tear for anyone else a day in her life.

If they want her to step down, it's going to be much, much harder after saying that they all knew about this pregnancy beforehand and she was thoroughly vetted (in opposite land). Then what excuse does she give? We already know her parenting philosophy: pop 'em out, give 'em a gun, and throw 'em to the moose.

Now there are stories about the myspace page of Bristol's "baby daddy," how he's a self described "f*cking redneck" and he "doesn't want kids." Nice. Once again, my heart bleeds for this girl. Once again, yeah right, thoroughly vetted. Don't these morons know about the internet? All of my students know not to put stupid shit up on the internet, because it will come back to bite your butt. Everybody does internet searches!! Employers do internet searches!! Except, apparently, if you are the GOP, looking for somebody to fill the VP slot. Holy freakin' haggis on a hockey stick.

Uh oh:

McCain defends Palin selection process
Tue Sep 2, 2008 2:48pm EDT

"My vetting process was completely thorough and I'm grateful for the results," McCain told reporters in Philadelphia after a visit with firefighters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN1928744420080902

Is this his "Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job" moment?

I'm more convinced that choosing Palin was no accident, nor was the rumor, which they probably started themselves. They banked on hyping this completely uninteresting pregnancy in order to unite Republicans in a way that important issues have not been able to. I bet McCain gets a fundraising bump over this from sympathetic conservatives.

I think the gain will be only temporary, though. Virtually no one seems to be interested in attacking the daughter, so the sympathizers' "defense" of Palin's family just seems whiny and hysterical.

Of course, just because I think it was all deliberate doesn't mean I think it was brilliant. I'm watching the news right now, and various people at the convention are insisting to ABC that they've NEVER agreed with abstinence-only "education." Interesting... if none of these people supported it, then who did?

If they backpedal any harder, they'll break their damn bike!

It wasn't an accident, but I don't think she was vetted properly either. However, I think it was a mistake, which is different. I think it is both a strategic mistake and a mistake from the standpoint of governing the country. It may be a short term tactical success, but even that is in doubt at the moment.

McCain did get a fund raising bump, so Julie is correct about that.

I don't know if the rumor was a conspiracy, but I don't think it matters. It's a classic political maneuver: if you're losing the debate, change the topic of conversation. McCain was losing badly; this choice reveals his admission of that. People in a position of strength have the luxury of getting what they want; nobody thinks this was McCain's first choice.

Meanwhile, Obama got who he wanted, and someone who strengthens his ability to lead while taking no hit on the supposed "appearance of weakness" next to a more experienced running mate.

In reflection, this situation is making me more confident that Obama knows what he's doing. He's not scrambling or overreacting. He's making statements that are magnanimous and being praised for it. McCain is erratic, plugging holes, answering allegations, sending "jump teams" to deal with problems in Alaska...

Meanwhile, Obama is reinforcing the message he sent during the convention. Obama, in short, is winning.

And while we as a nation are talking about Palin's poor pregnant daughter, we're not talking about her lack of qualifications and other shortcomings.

Brilliant.

Romney has been behaving very erratically (in a different way than usual) the last few days. Evidently they made him rehearse his convention speech beforehand and wanted him to make some "message" adjustments. He's also been showing some weird attitude. Kind of makes you wonder how that McCain/Romney VP conversation went, and whether it happened before or after the selection of Palin.

(Discussing Palin's shortcomings? That would take way too long!)

OUCH! Smacked down by Ann and Nancy Wilson!

Heart to McCain/Palin: Back off on 'Barracuda'
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/blog/2008/09/heart_to_mccain.html
[...]

Soon after the presidential nominee finished his acceptance speech late Thursday and running-mate Palin joined him on the Republican National Convention stage in St. Paul, the sound system pumped the throbbing introductory guitar licks to "Barracuda.''
[...]

UPDATE Friday morning: here's a statement by Ann and Nancy Wilson from EW.com:

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."
[...]