Social conservatives have been cheering McCain's pick of Sarah Palin non stop since last Friday. For every argument against her they've come up with a counter. The biggest one is her lack of foreign policy experience. The response is that since Alaska is next to Russia and would therefore be the first to be hit in a nuclear attack, she has national security clearance -- unlike most of the other governors -- and the Alaska militia is on full time duty as opposed to most other National Guards which until the Iraq war were mostly "weekend warriors."'
As for the whole trooper-gate thing, I guess we'll have to wait and see on that one. Palin may have managed to escape scrutiny by the skin of her teeth on that one. I support the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but she needs to clear some things up in public and fast.
But this is really going to make the religious right flip: the McCain campaign has confirmed that Palin's 17 year old daughter, Bristol, got knocked up. Bristol's planning to marry the father of the baby. I know the long winter nights up north tend to cabin fever, but the televangelists are going to have a lot of explaining to do to their contributors, especially if their own kids have engaged in hanky-panky.
I'm not going to comment further on this one, other than to say I wish the Palins all the best; and also that the comments of some fellow liberal bloggers in the States suggesting that the baby that Palin gave birth to in April was in fact not hers but her daughter's is totally repulsive.
I'll let you readers comment on this twist in an already wild campaign. Please keep it clean.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
3 comments:
It would only be a problem if her kid had an abortion instead.
Make no mistake, I applaud the young woman for keeping the baby and taking responsibility for her actions
But for many in the RR who read the Bible literally, they would really have to take into consideration Deuteronomy 23:2 which says: “If a person is illegitimate by birth, neither he nor his descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord." (NLT)
One reckons that by that strictest of standards, as much as half of who they claim to be "born again," aren't even allowed to be. This just proves that even the RR doesn't follow the Bible.
Just a quick update, Obama has weighed in by saying he wants no part of the discussion:
"I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. 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 governor Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits."
Fair enough. It's also worth remembering that Palin opposes comprehensive sex ed programs which are proven to reduce the rates of teenage pregnancy. They're still grossly high in the Northeast and the West but nowhere near as bad as in the South. By contrast, in oversexed cultures like Sweden, the rate of teen pregnancy is around 5%. Food for thought.
Post a Comment