It’s a damn shame what’s happened to the Republican National Convention and John McCain’s campaign this week. The Republicans deserved to have and enjoy all the convention ballyhoo and press coverage that the Democrats got.
Hurricanes will have their way, no matter what, and the Republicans in St. Paul have reacted as Americans do. But still, it’s a shame the way things have worked out for them so far. Convention sites are selected several years in advance and plans begun. Party activists compete to be delegates, to travel to the convention, participate in the spectacle, meet party luminaries, conduct the party’s business, and just be a part of one of America’s unique political institutions.
Instead, the media fixated on Hurricane Gustav. What little time they’ve devoted to the RNC has been focused on Sarah Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy, as if that has any bearing on anything. Palin is not the presidential candidate, people don’t vote for the vice president, and in any case, what her daughter does is not and should never be an issue.
I couldn’t tell you what John McCain has been doing this weekend, but even if he only had a beer at somebody’s BBQ, that’s where the political focus should have been. Sarah Palin’s daughter is irrelevant as far as the election is concerned.
So-called journalists and serious reporters have become little better than muckrakers and voyeurs. It’s disgusting.
I hear you and respect your opinion, but it does have a “smidge” to do with politics. Here’s the thing, it does matter that Bristol is pregnant…..it does matter that her mama doesn’t want to see sex education in the schools and now she has a pregnant 17 year old daughter. It matters that mama’s focus on the family extremist views apparently didn’t work with daughter. She’s pregnant and she’s only 17. She had unprotected sex and she’s only 17. She’s not married and there’s no denying now that she’s had sex and is pregnant and only 17. I feel bad for Bristol, her boyfriend, the poor baby that’s going to have 17 year old parents that probably don’t want to be parents or get married to each other and I even feel sorry for Sarah. It does have a lot to do with politics though. People don’t just vote for a president….they vote for a ticket…the president AND the vice president together. If the Veep didn’t really matter, the pres. could pick one after election. It matters…….it matters a lot.
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Well, maybe it matters if you plan to vote Republican. Personally, I don’t hold Sarah Palin responsible for her daughter’s actions. Kids get into all kinds of trouble, all on their own. Gov. Palin didn’t take her daughter out at gunpoint and force the girl to have sex and get pregnant. Parents wish they had that kind of control when their kids are out of sight, but they don’t.
Now, if you want to attack Sarah Palin because she’s an extreme rightwing Christian Conservative creationist who ignores the Constitution by promoting the teaching of those views in public schools, I’ll put in with you. In fact, I’ll lead the charge. But I’d already decided not to vote for McCain, partly because of his pro-life stance. His picking another pro-lifer, and a creationist at that, only made me more determined not to support the Republican ticket. In that light, yes, the veep makes a difference and matters. But all of this is Sarah Palin’s doing. String her up by her thumbs for being a creationist, but her daughter’s getting into trouble is entirely the daughter’s fault.
I find it very difficult to have any sympathy for a party with a war-mongering, misogynistic, theocratic platform. Just my personal feeling.
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Au contraire, I have a great deal of sympathy for those Republicans who still who harbor moderate, pragmatic, mainstream America values but can’t muster the votes to retake control of their party. I was one of them.
(BTW, isn’t that platform you describe just a wee bit … unconstitutional?)
It matters for anyone who votes….it’s not as much about Bristol as a person, but more about Sarah Palin’s daughter and what’ occured in her own family despite what she’s taught her family and their beliefs. What it tells me is that Sarah’s having a rough time of running her own family with her exremist viewpoints, so how is she going to lead a country with them? I’d agree with you whole-heartedly if Bristol was 18 or older, but she’s not. She’s 17 and is still her parents responsibility.
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It’s not about Bristol Palin, not about her as a person, not about her as Palin’s daughter, not about her as a child, not about her, period. Short of mind-control or something, the most responsible parents in the world cannot keep their child from having sex, cutting school, getting drunk, trying drugs, running away from home, wrecking the car, kicking a dog, shoplifting, or any of the other incredible number of kinds of trouble a kid can think of, if that child decides to try it and gets even five minutes out of Mom and Dad’s direct line of sight. (Full disclosure: I’m a parent and grandparent.)
That’s it; I can’t explain my position any better than that. As for Sarah Palin leading the country, that won’t happen unless McCain first gets elected and then dies or becomes incapacitated. Talk about nightmares. I don’t want either one of them anywhere near the White House. Eight years has been more than enough.
The only thing the story reveals to me is the irony that Palin’s daughter becomes pregnant and Palin herself favors abstinence-only education at school. If only her daughter had had real education…
Also there’s the new revelation that she slashed funding to a place in Fairbanks that helped out teen mothers. Ones who don’t have the advantage of well-to-do parents.
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I’m still pre-coffee here, and struggling to think of anything to say about Palin that hasn’t already been said a hundred times over. Let me imbibe and I’ll get back to this.
I just said the same thing to my co-worker about 10 minutes ago. Who cares if her daughter is pregnant? Who cares if she’s 17. It happens, and it happens even in the best of religious families. Whether she keeps the baby and gets married to its father, or gives it up for adoption; it is her business and her decision. She did nothing illegal. What, is she condemned to hell now?
People really need to get off their high morale and focus on what matters. Pregnant out of wedlock?? *gasp*
I was too, at 21- we got married when I was 3 months pregnant and have been happily married for 17 years now. It happens and nobody should judge. And, did that make my mom a failure because I got pregnant before I got married or at a young age? HELL NO! Give me a break.
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I don’t think it’s anyone’s business what Sarah Palin’s daughter did or did not do. And to those who keeping bring it up, I can only say, “So? What’s your point? How does that relate to Palin’s qualifications?”
The attack from the left on her daughter has crossed the line. Historically, the candidates kids are left out of it and rightly so.
It’s not like her daughter is 14 years old. There are some really mature 17 year old women these days. Hopefully, she has a good head on her shoulders- and gets the guidance she will need.
Maybe I’m ultra sensitive too because I was pregnant before marriage and I took heat from it, people trying to make me feel ashamed. It’s all a load of bullshit. It does happen, and it happens to the BEST Parents in the whole world too. I wouldn’t have changed a thing I did.
I think Obama’s camp is just trying anything to divert attention from their empty promises… the election is only 2 months away, I’m thinking it’s going to get so much uglier, real quick 🙁
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Actually, I don’t think most of this crap is coming from the Obama camp. As nearly as I can tell, it has almost all originated with the media and Internet rumor-mongers, and it’s the media that won’t let go of it. Even the few individuals I still thought were serious, professional journalists and commentators have just been wallowing in all this. And to the virtual exclusion of meaningful, half-way objective coverage of relevant news.
And for what it’s worth, I’ve concluded from your blog that yours is a very happy, well-adjusted family (except maybe for that one little thing about a car …) 😉
As far as I know, Obama’s people haven’t said anything about her daughter other than “families are off limits, knock it off”. The media, now, that’s a different story…
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I agree. (As for the media, I haven’t the vocabulary to describe what I feel about them right now)