Forgive Me - A Couple of Questions about Sarah Palin

I know we're flogging this, but I actually view these as pretty salient questions:

- Do any of you believe for a second that if Chelsea Clinton or Kristen Gore had turned up pregnant at 17 that the Republicans would have treated it respectfully as a private matter?  Do you really think that that sanctimonious sack of shit Bill Bennett wouldn't have been bloviating 24/7 on cable about how this illustrates the moral decline of America and the failings of her liberal parents?

- Do any of you believe that John McCain knew about the pregnancy in advance of that a thorough vetting of Sarah Palin occurred before her selection?

- Don't the pregnancies of both Sarah Palin and her daughter -- the prospects of giving birth to a child with Down's Syndrome or at the age of 17 -- raise legitimate policy questions about whether their choices should be the only ones available to women in America?  Because that is the world in which we will live if John McCain and Sarah Palin are able to enact their agenda.  Are the Palins' choices really what every women in America wants imposed upon them by force of criminal law?

- Should the Obama campaign now use an ad with Jamie Lynn Spears in it?  (Okay that's a smart ass question -- the other three are totally serious.)   

Comments

[Lisa Simeone]

They are salient questions.

As much as I'm enjoying watching the sanctimonious Repubs getting hoist by their own petard, I still think the most damning thing about all this is that Sarah Palin is sacrificing her daughter on the altar of her professional ambitions. Good god, talk about family values.

[Sir Charles]

We had to destroy the child in order to save her.

[Lisa Simeone]

Sir C, we can always count on you!

[Lisa Simeone]

Sir C, I also posted this at your other entry, but that link you provided to the Eagle Forum questionnaire? It now bounces you automatically to the McCain site: http://www.johnmccain.com/gustav.htm

[Sir Charles]

Lisa,

That's weird -- right now (11:12 PM) the link is working again.

[Corvus9]

I think to the extent I find this topic interesting, it's mainly because it seems like our national political news has turned into something between a Lifetime movie and an after-school special. That's funny. However, the blogs and Obama are probably right, and one really shouldn't drag people who people who aren't the candidate into the conversation. Sure, the right wing might, but their assholes. One can pretty effectively make points about how dangerous Sarah Palin's views are without reference to recent events. Yeah, you lose a useful example, but you also don't look like a prick. Looking like a prick doesn't do you any good.

[low-tech cyclist]

the most damning thing about all this is that Sarah Palin is sacrificing her daughter on the altar of her professional ambitions.

Nah, that's the second most damning thing. The winner - assuming she's being straight with us - is her repeated gambling with the life of her soon-to-be-born baby at every step of the way, the day she was leaking amniotic fluid in Dallas.

But putting her teen daughter's pregnancy on national display to dispel the 'babygate' rumors, rather than open up her medical records for that purpose, is a pretty strong second place.

What an immoral woman.

[Corvus9]

Now, can we talk about her hiring lobbyists to get earmarks for her town and addressing the Alaskan Secessionists? Those are just as hilarious, and don't make me feel all dirty.

[Crissa]

We're supposed to be progressives. That means they get to have the choice they want, and we respect that. That their teenage daughter has a child should be no more than a footnote to, 'they can afford to limit their choices this way.'

Yeah, it isn't fair. But we shouldn't make ourselves look like fools or misogynists.

[ikl]

What Corvus said. There are many more fun facts about Palin that are more relevant to her qualifications to be Vice President.

[low-tech cyclist]

We're supposed to be progressives. That means they get to have the choice they want, and we respect that.

The choice to have a baby, yes.

The choice to put your daughter's pregnancy front and center in a political firestorm in order to deflect another story - no, I don't have to respect that, nor will I.

What Lisa says is absolutely on target: Palin decided to sacrifice her daughter to preserve her political prospects.

(And Corvus, as much as I respect your opinion, pointing this out doesn't make me feel dirty in the least. Nor does pointing out the way this extremely 'pro-life' woman repeatedly gambled with the life of her unborn child on that day back in April.)

[Lisa Simeone]

IF the Republican Party hadn't made it a central tenet of their beliefs that no woman should have the right to choose, and IF they hadn't been lecturing the rest of the country on morality and behavior for the past 30 years, and IF they hadn't been holding themselves up as paragons of virture for the rest of us benighted souls, and IF they hadn't been slashing social programs, denigrating education, suppressing scientific research, withholding contraception, and in general trying to screw anybody who didn't look, act, and think like them, then yes, we shouldn't talk about this, their latest disaster.

But this is fair game because they made it so. They have inserted what should be private decisions into the public debate. They have insisted that these questions are proper political discourse. They have staked their political philosophy and reputation on these things. They have claimed that all this is what they stand for. So they get to bear the brunt of the mind-blowing hypocrisy that they not only continually display, but now trumpet.

[Stephen]

What Lisa said.

How can this be acceptable:

-Palin wants to legislate away the bodily autonomy of every girl and woman in America

-Palin wants to curtail the rights of those American citizens who enter into relationships she personally doesn't approve

But discussion about this isn't acceptable:

-Palin's family fails to live up to the standards she wants to impose, by force of law, upon every other person in the country.

The only misogyny here is to suggest that Palin's ovaries - or even those of her daughter - excuse her from the kind of scrutiny she wants the government to apply to every other woman in the country.

Misogyny is focusing on her looks (check out the right wing on this) or thinking that any woman, no matter how right wing, can win over Hillary Clinton's supporters (again, see the right wing on this). Misogyny is suggesting that she is somehow to be coddled, protected from legitimate criticism of her views.

[Lisa Simeone]

Stephen,

Touché.

[Corvus9]

I don't know, l-t c.

I mean, a kinda find the whole thing incredibly hilarious, but hilarious in the same way seeing a mimes beat up someone in a wheelchair, or seeing someone kick a mime in the nuts, or any event involving mimes and physical violence is funny. (I didn't get much sleep last night.) Basically, I watched Obama's response to the whole event, and his obvious distaste for the even having to consider the topic made me feel bad. Sure, you could argue that they made it relevant, but that doesn't mean we have to go there. I feel like, maybe we should be better than that. Sometimes, its better not to score the point and maintain your dignity. I just can't see any way you can really even bring the topic out without dragging the daughter into it, even if you say it's not about her. The day before yesterday, I didn't know her name. Now I do; I have read it over a hundred times.

On the other hand, my inner anarchist says fuck these people. These fuckers want to run our lives, and that means theirs are forfeit. We can learn every little detail about them and their families we want. They don't get to control us; we OWN them. And we can't ever let them forget it. For our own safety. You let those fuckers think they have any privacy, let them have their undisclosed locations and respect for the privacy of their gay daughters or whatever, and next thing you know the pricks are forming shadow administrations. So fuck it; we own them and we own their kids and we own every scrap and detail we can find out about their lives.

So, you know, I'm conflicted.

[Lisa Simeone]

Corvus, they impeached a president because of a blow job!

They invaded a country, started a war, are killing civilians left and right, denying medical coverage to our own soldiers, torturing people as a matter of course, shitting on the Constitution -- and bragging about it!

They ridicule poor people, they exalt the wealthy, they have forced women to travel untold miles and jump over impossible hurdles to find decent contraception, let alone abortion.

They'd put a gun in every hand if they could because of course that would solve all our problems.

They think they have a direct line to God and therefore deserve special treatment. But that's not enough -- they think the rest of us godless heathens should be made to suffer and are only too glad to shove their God down our throats.

They have eviscerated civil liberties.

Thye have politicized the Justice Department.

This is who we're dealing with. What exactly are we supposed to "rise above"?

Pointing our their hypocrisy?

If this isn't a case of shooting the messenger, I don't know what is.

[Sir Charles]

Lisa,

A very nice bill of particulars.

[Corvus9]

Yeah, all right, fuck it. Obama and Hilzoy and Booman can be highminded for us. Let's go after their kids.

[Lisa Simeone]

Again, and again, and again: we are not the ones "going after their kids."

They are.

If Sarah and Todd Palin cared so much about their kids, or anybody's kids, then she wouldn't have accepted the VP nod. It's that simple.

[oddjob]

NYT reports McCain team didn't vet her.

Hat tip, Talking Points Memo.

[Stephen]

Corvus,

Thing is, I don't believe we're going after their kids. Unfortunately for children in all sorts of families, they are affected by the decisions their parents make. When parents make decisions that put them in the spotlight, or when prominent people make the decision to become parents, their children come along with them. It's neither inherently bad nor good for children to be famous in this way, and we need to quit pretending otherwise, because our current attitude toward children and fame excuses a lot of bad parenting.

Chelsea Clinton is a great example of this. The press likes to congratulate themselves on their restraint regarding her, but of course there was no restraint from them, and what politicians and pundits said about her is reprehensible. But she is now and has always been an impressive young woman, not least due to what I see as stellar parenting, in spite of her parents' public foibles.

With George Bush's kids, you'll notice that they quickly faded from the public eye when they stopped going out and getting drunk all the time. And part of that was due to George and Laura Bush apprently deciding that it was time to put some restrictions on their underage daughters regarding alcohol, instead of using their Secret Service detail to get them out of their problems.

As far as the Palins go, no one on this blog has suggested that Bristol Palin shamed herself or her parents. No one has discussed whether or not they would like to have sex with Sarah Palin or any of her daughters - something that has been a topic elsewhere. No one has suggested that Bristol is a slut or that she needs to be punished.

Instead, our point has been that Governor Palin should tend to the affairs of her own home before even attempting to tell the rest of us how to run ours. And we have and will continue to advocate for a society in which 17-year-old girls will not be put under pressure to marry their 17-year-old boyfriend because of a pregnancy and in order to atone for their sin. I would like a society where young women and men can be assured of healthcare for themselves and their children, and childcare and other assistance that might be necessary for them to not only finish high school, but head on to college as well. I'm sure Bristol Palin, being a child of great privilege, will have many opportunities afforded her in spite of becoming a mother at 17. What I want is nothing more than the same for everyone else, and that is hardly an attack.

[Lisa Simeone]

Another NYT reader nails it:

59.
EDITORS' SELECTIONS
September 1st, 2008 4:53 pm

The Republican View of America:

Black teenage pregnancies in urban areas = the destruction of "family values" by liberal principles.
White Republican teens get pregnant = a glorious day for traditional values.

Ah yes, the party of "big ideas"

— D Smith, Toronto, Canada

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/02/us/politics/02PALINDAY.html?s=4#

[Corvus9]

Stephen I find your response very persuasive and elegantly written, and have nothing to rejoinder. Thank you. I feel better now.

[Stephen]

Damn, Corvus, you just made my day. Thanks.