Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: A 17 year old is not a political talking point
Politics is no a tea party. Sharp elbows are thrown and words are meant to inflict as much rhetorical and political damage as possible. All fair and predictable when a pol dips his/her toe in election waters; however, that same rule is not transferable to the families of politicians, especially underage children.
The media feeding frenzy over Gov. Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter’s pregnancy is unseemly. I would use more colorful language but we have rules here at 365. The young girl was not picked by John McCain to be the Republican vice president nominee and her story adds nothing to what voter need to know about Palin. How does this story inform on Palin’s stands on the Iraq War, the economy, terrorism, Afghanistan, and the multiple other issues a new administration will face come January.
Sure politicians put their families out there as props for why they deserve our vote; however, we as voters are not required to pay attention when pols scrub the family for the photo opp. No need to take the bait just because it’s offered.
I’ll give the last word to Democratic nominee Barack Obama who says it perfectly.:
“I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.”
Guy in SF: Thanks for posting the link to the boyfriend’s My Space page. Is this for real? Did you notice that under “children” he says, “I don’t want kids”? Nice. Too bad someone didn’t know how to keep that from happening.
Well, ready or not he’s about to get a kid. And a wife. Levi, hope you like that marriage your mother-and-law and her kind have so zealously guarded as your heterosexual privilege. Enjoy the spoils.
Sorry, it’s hard not to laugh at this. And I do feel for the kids. Teen pregnancy is common and I have no reason to think these aren’t good kids. I’m just sorry they are dealing with this while the whole world watches. And, I doubt they are really deciding what is best for them. I think they probably know what’s expected of them, and to go against that would not just mean defying Mrs. Palin, but dissapointing the whole conservative party. What a shame for kids, at least one of whom was pretty clear about not wanting kids.
Can you imagine what kind of righteous sh_t and moralistic crap would have hit the fan if Chelsea had become pregnant in the Clinton White House?
To me, this just points up the lunacy of the right wing. Fornication outside of marriage is a sin, but any embryo created during such fornication is a blessed gift from God. All is forgiven if the knocked up one gets married before the baby is born.
It’s nobody’s business if the governor’s kid is preggo, but it’s everybody’s business if a couple of homos want to play house.
Government should stay out of OUR lives, but jump in YOUR life if we don’t like the way you are living it.
They believe in the sanctity of life so much they’ll keep a brain dead person hooked up to life support for decades, but kill thousands of innocent Iraqi children in a war for….I still don’t know what.
Blow up and rebuild an oil rich country, but we can’t rebuild New Orleans.
Somebody stop me.
Wow, James. Are you blind?
Sarah Palin opposes the use of condoms and other contraception. She supports abstinence-only education. How can we support her judgment on in supporting those positions if they don’t even work for those so dearly close to her: HER DAUGHTER!
It’s her judgment and her positions on abstinence that’s a concern. I take no position on her daughter and her pregnancy.
If this is how she leads her family, it’s not hard to see this is how she’d lead the country.
It’s context, James. Being so black and white about about the issue of family misses the point. Are you afraid to raise concerns about Mrs. Palin’s judgment and abstinence-only policy positions or are you just unaware?
So two men getting married is destructive of the family and a stupid woman advocating against sex education and condoms whose underage daughter gets pregnant outside of marriage isn’t? Are families kept together with shotgun under-age marriages better than families based on loving relationships? We are talking about public policy here, not someone’s private sex life as with the randy Mr. Clinton. Idiocy and idiots have no place in politics, an Mrs. Palin certainly qualifies for both.
James Withers must be a Log Cabin Republican to advocate such an untenable position.
I feel sorry for the daughter’s pregnancy, but Mama Palin will not be trashing my family and lifestyle and escape my contempt.
Immensely hypocritical since both Palin and McCain are absurd on sexual education and supporting unwed teen mothers. This same thing happened with the hatred of gays by the neo-facist Republican party when Miz Mary (Cheney’s daughter) was widely outed as gay (even though she never really hid the fact, but it wasn’t widely known by the bottom feeding voters) — Can’t talk about her! How Dare You!
Yeah, well, we’re going to talk about a woman who can’t keep her kids’ knickers on….realy good family values she has which includes leaving a family of five (one with Down’s Syndrome), no experience to say of, and a vile outlook on the human condition. Don’t spank the baby for misbehaving, spank the rotten mother.
So much for the sanctity of marriage. As the right wingers claim the purpose of marriage is procreation, not procreation then marriage. The age difference between Bristol Palin and the alleged father, 18 year old Levi Johnston, does not fall within the definition of statutory rape under Alaska law. It is also interesting that Levi Johnston’s future mother-in-law is the Republican V-P choice, while he list’s Barack Obama as a hero on MySpace.
http://www.myspace.com/levijohnsonpalin
The problem with not looking into a candidate’s family situation is that she has clearly indicated that to her a perfect family is one between husband and wife. She did reluctantly follow the courts ruling and not further fight against same sex benefits, but she voiced her heartache over doing so. Contrary to what you see on the surface, she does not view my same sex relationship as equal to her’s and her husband’s and will not accept that our family is as valid as her’s even though we have five children.
Her family situation proves that she is not spending enough time with her children, and she still thinks she has a right to take on the country in leading the rest of our families? She is a beautiful woman. She is intelligent. I’m sure she is a great mother by most any standards. But, she is not one that has proven to love and treat her children fairly IF they are gay. She has vowed it to a pregnant daughter though. I don’t say that is enough to vote for her, or allow my comments to remain silent. She will accept and allow a 17 year old to marry another youth due to pregnancy, but she won’t allow her heart to embrace me marrying my woman (and we have had/adopted 5 children.) There IS something to be said on 365 regarding her daughter being pregnant. It’s not the daughter’s pregnancy to be scrutinized. It’s the idea that we miss an opportunity to evaluate how the woman with the potential to be the second most powerful person in the world will treat our families.
In Alaska and under her discrimination currently,
CL
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Wither’s editorial for the following reasons:
1. AFAIK no one has attacked the daughter — it is the candidate who stands accused of questionable judgement concerning her handling of the situation.
2. As long as Ms Palin is the designated second-in-command on the Republican slate, she represents a platform which devalues MY family because it doesn’t represent the daddy/mommy/kiddies model. It is the height of bigotry to spew that model to the detriment of others while her own family enjoys the support of those who know that ALL families matter. Families matter and bigotry matters. It’s fair-game in an election.
3. Candidates of all parties use their families as “props for why they deserve our vote;” and that includes the unseemly as well as the well-scrubbed. Carter had Billy, Regan had Ron, and there are many more examples. If a candidates family can be an example of why they should be elected, it must also serve as an example of why they should NOT be elected.
4. The Republican Party’s excuse of “need to know” reasons for not mentioning this situation is an example of the a continuation of the Bush policy of hiding from the world that which embarrasses them (or, in the case of Bush, that which is illegal.) While I have no problem with they way she says her family is dealing with the situation (although I have little confidence in the value of shotgun-marriages, even among those who CAN legally get married, which I can NOT) I am dismayed by her contention that deceit by omission is an acceptable mode of operation. We all know where this leads in government.
No, Mr. Withers, I think your heart is in the right place — we should value ALL families — but your head is not in the right place when you think it is OK to deceive the public on matters which stand in conflict with that which you espouse politically and publicly. This is fair-game.
IT IS SAD THE GIRL WAS DRAGGED INTO THIS BY HER MOTHER.
HOWEVER, IT ALSO HIGHLIGHTS ON MORE FAILED POLICY OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: HIS ABSTINENCE ONLY POLICY DOES NOT WORK!
I SUPPOSE WITH 5 KIDS ON THE FAMILY, BIRTH CONTROL HAS NOT BEEN A TOPIC OF DISCUSSION AROUND THE BREAKFAST TABLE.
Palin is the one who announced it to the world. SHE is responsible for making this a political issue, because SHE used as an opportunity to tout her Pro-Life stance! SHE MADE IT POLITICAL.
It is so nice to see the LGBT community jumping on the hypocrite band wagon again. Mrs. Palin’s daughter has nothing to do with anything. If you want to make issue of it just remember all the things the democrat party has and is involved in. The biggest mistake ever by republicans and democrats is promote taking sex education away from the parents and make it the responsibility of this nations government schools. Mrs. Palin is now some kind of irresposible parent because her seventeen year old daughter who has her own mind and free will to do as she will.
Stop and look at Mr. Obama, his voting record has allowed criminal illegal aliens remain in the U.S. to rape and murder. Now this is something you hypocrites should be screaming about! Then Obama’s next crime, he fully supports the North American UNion which will make the U.S. Constitution null and void. I do not hear the LGBT community screaming about the loss of their nation to a trilateral government yet all you do is scream you want equality. This equality the LGBT community is crying about is nothing more than a selfish equality.
I do not support any in Washington as they all have been giving our country away and now a seventeen year old being pregnant is a reason to not vote for someone. The LGBT community can be so childish at times. The state of our nation is directly related to “we the people” but then with this kind of crap taking place it’s no wonder America is rapidly becoming a third world nation. I love the fact that I am a lesbian but some times I cannot handle such stupid behavior.
Sarah Palin thrust her daughter into the national spotlight, not those who oppose McCain. When we’re talking about electing someone only a heartbeat away from the presidency, I think it’s entirely fair game to question the candidate’s stands and the human cost of her extremist views.
The simple truth is that Palin opposes sex education, family planning, and a woman’s right to choose. And look what happens in her own family. Recognizing that is in no way an “attack” on the daughter (as Republican spin would have it), it is instructive as to the effects of public policy that Palin espouses. As to whether Palin will “rethink” her theocratic views, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Palin has no respect for the views of others and would hurt many families with her policies if she were elected, without a second thought. That’s what should be learned from this.
I agree with the others here who have stated that not one word has been said against Palin’s daughter. I also agree with others who think that she should be used to lambaste the Republicans, Sarah Palin, and the religious right for the hypocrites that they are. As someone who was brought up in a Pentecostal church I was taught that all premarital sex is a sin and is wrong in the eyes of God. Yet, when this girl ends up pregnant, do any churches speak up and speak about the wickedness of this. Of course they don’t. They are too busy picketing against gay marriage and making sure that we will never have the chance to have a shotgun wedding like Ms. Palin’s daughter. Sarah Palin, John McCain, the republican party, and the religious right make me sick with their selective application of scripture to suit their purposes.
Also, was it just me or did it seem odd that the pregnant daughter was the one holding Palin’s baby who happened to be wrapped in a very large blanket, that just happened to cover up her very pregnant stomach? Did the party not want an obviously pregnant unwed mother on the dais? The solution: Just like on Will & Grace, hide the pregnancy behind something. I hope Palin, her daughter, and the Republican party are all roasted over fiery coals publicly and that there are tons of more secrets yet to come to light.