The Mommy Card, "Hey Ma, I got some news" and Obama's acceptance
Okay, so I haven't commented on Palin yet or Obama's acceptance speech, which I know is very unlike me.
So first off. As a draw for the PUMAs. Anyone stupid enough to be drawn in by this and vote for McCain simply because he picked a woman? Quite frankly deserves their administration. Unless you are a raging conservative who just wanted to see a woman in the white house, you cannot support them both. It's that simple, their policies pretty much disagree across the board. And if you make your determination of voting based on the ownership of a penis or vagina? Then please let me know, because then I know to not trust your judgement going forward.
Harsh? Yes. But it is my honest assessment of the attempt to drawn in disaffected Hillary voters by picking a complete unknown from a small state (in terms of populace, not in terms of size obviously) whose policies stand about as far from Hillary's as you can get.
As for the relevance of her teenage daughter getting knocked up. Does the poor kid deserve to have a big glaring spot light on her right now? No, she doesn't. She deserves to go through this time quietly, figuring out for herself and with her soon-to-be-husband how to be a family and be grown ups long before they should have had to. BUT. Her mother is running for the vice presidency of the United States. No one would have cared about a bilionaire's daughter getting married in Crawford, TX, or having her purse stolen in whichever Carribean nation it was if her last name wasn't Bush. You, to a point, lose the right to claim privacy when you choose to walk into the public sphere in this way. The other piece of why this is definitely relevant - as vice president, she helps to set the agenda (well, okay do I think for a second that McCain will let her actually have any power? No.), and her agenda is pro-abstinence-only. And guess what? Her own daughter has proven why saying "Just don't have sex" *doesn't work*. Kids will have sex, the question is are they doing it safely. Is abstinence the safest and best option? YES. You have a pretty much 0 chance of STDs and pregnancy if you just plain don't engage in risky behavior, BUT.. I've said it before, I'll say it again, if there is anything the human race is talented at, it is finding new and interesting ways to get its collective rocks off. So as a reflection of the failure that is her sex-ed policy? Then yes, it is ABSOLUTELY relevant, though bashing the poor kid is absolutely unnecessary, and it doesn't reflect poorly on Mrs. Palin that Ms. Palin had sex, just that one has to assume she didn't know how to prevent pregnancy, or thought that using condoms and Birth Control pills were sinful/dangeous*..
On to the Mommy card that is being played by some. Is it sexist to say that as a mother she has a greater duty to her children than her spouse? Yeah, it is. No one has wondered if Obama can do it with two young daughters. Course, he has 2, not 5 (okay 4 at home, soon to be 6 (Bristol's child + the Baby Daddy), and none of his are sick. Quite frankly, I would think that Obama had something wrong with him if he were back in the office a day after his wife gave birth and he weren't facing international issues that needed immediate responses.... I would question his choices if he went after the white house with a very sick child. So yes, if he were in HER situation, I WOULD ask the same questions of his suitability for the job.
So on to other issues, sex ed is covered.
Rabidly anti-choice, to the point that she once said if her own daughter was raped she would still be anti-choice. That very reason is why my otherwise fairly conservative father (I'm the middle of 3 girls between he and my (step)Mom) is pro-choice.
Rabidly pro-gun (hush up Brian, I know your stance on this). I'm not anti-gun, but I am a fan of putting some controls in place (and yes, that means I'm not a fan of automatic weapons being in the hands of any old joe schmoe on the street).
She's not overtly hugely intelligent design driven, though she does think both should be taught in school... So she gets a half point on that one..
She's anti-same-sex marriage (though she claims to have good friends who are gay... wow that must sound familiar to the civil rights activists of the 60s working with racial issues). She did vote down a measure that would have denied benefits to same sex couples in '06, although she said it was due to a decision from the state supreme court that it was unconstitional. Another half point there, or maybe a quarter point since it was grudgingly vetoed.
She has -0- international experience, and -0- national experience.
She once said when asked about the pledge and the inclusion of Under God, that if it was good enough for the founding fathers it was good enough for her. (Uhmmm.. the pledge was written in the 19th century, Under God was added in the 1950s, so you want to tell me what that has to do with the founding fathers of this nation?)
She has been described as an every day kind of soccer mom, "one of us". (well, not one of me, but the republican ideal of the American people). I am a reasonably smart woman. I have balanced getting an education (and I'm more educated than she is) and motherhood and f/t work, with well, reasonable if not fantastic success. I follow politics fairly closely. Based on what I have heard her say I am MUCH smarter (yep, I said it) than Sarah Palin.
I am nowhere near intelligent enough to be one 72 year olds heart-beat away from the presidency
So there ya' go. I think that she is the last nail in the coffin of McCain's stance as a cross-party maverick, which he's been trashing over the last few years anyway. He picked perhaps the most conservative person he could, who was female and had no experience whatsoever (and yet they're still bashing Obama, go figure). He has shown VERY little respect for Hillary's supporters, assuming that they would follow the skirt no matter who was wearing it. I find it quite frankly offensive. I seriously dislike Condie, and she would make me less angry as a choice.
Either way? This changes very little about my plans, I was never going to vote for McCain, and after Obama's acceptance speech, I have never been this energized about a campaign. Obama's acceptance speech had me in *tears*. THe man is erudite, he made references to pop culture (the "he just doesn't get it" is almost straight out of The American President), *and* literature (there was a Raisin in the Sun reference as well). I want him in the white house. badly. Is it possible that he is a dumb visionary with no common sense, yeah, there is.. But if he were totally a dumb visionary he wouldn't have picked Biden, he would have gone for Gore, or another crazy visionary type. Is it possible that he's just a slimy politician and is saying what liberals want to hear then will promptly do nothing about them, or never find the money for them? Yep, it's possible.
But I have hope. I have hope in our government for the first time in 8 years. I have hope that there is someone who actually cares about the good of the American people, not the American people who agree with hm, but *all* American people. I have hope that we can change the damage to our civil liberties, to our international reputation, to the ideals upon which this nation was founded. And that's something I haven't felt in a long time.
*As events over the last few years have proven, BCPs CAN be dangerous (one blood clot and one round of bleeding so serious someone who was not pregnant thought she was having a miscarriage.. Folks, avoid seasonale, it was annoying for me, but jesus. In essentially 13 years on the pill (I was off for about a year right around Fi) I have never known someone who had major problems with BCPs... Until now.
So first off. As a draw for the PUMAs. Anyone stupid enough to be drawn in by this and vote for McCain simply because he picked a woman? Quite frankly deserves their administration. Unless you are a raging conservative who just wanted to see a woman in the white house, you cannot support them both. It's that simple, their policies pretty much disagree across the board. And if you make your determination of voting based on the ownership of a penis or vagina? Then please let me know, because then I know to not trust your judgement going forward.
Harsh? Yes. But it is my honest assessment of the attempt to drawn in disaffected Hillary voters by picking a complete unknown from a small state (in terms of populace, not in terms of size obviously) whose policies stand about as far from Hillary's as you can get.
As for the relevance of her teenage daughter getting knocked up. Does the poor kid deserve to have a big glaring spot light on her right now? No, she doesn't. She deserves to go through this time quietly, figuring out for herself and with her soon-to-be-husband how to be a family and be grown ups long before they should have had to. BUT. Her mother is running for the vice presidency of the United States. No one would have cared about a bilionaire's daughter getting married in Crawford, TX, or having her purse stolen in whichever Carribean nation it was if her last name wasn't Bush. You, to a point, lose the right to claim privacy when you choose to walk into the public sphere in this way. The other piece of why this is definitely relevant - as vice president, she helps to set the agenda (well, okay do I think for a second that McCain will let her actually have any power? No.), and her agenda is pro-abstinence-only. And guess what? Her own daughter has proven why saying "Just don't have sex" *doesn't work*. Kids will have sex, the question is are they doing it safely. Is abstinence the safest and best option? YES. You have a pretty much 0 chance of STDs and pregnancy if you just plain don't engage in risky behavior, BUT.. I've said it before, I'll say it again, if there is anything the human race is talented at, it is finding new and interesting ways to get its collective rocks off. So as a reflection of the failure that is her sex-ed policy? Then yes, it is ABSOLUTELY relevant, though bashing the poor kid is absolutely unnecessary, and it doesn't reflect poorly on Mrs. Palin that Ms. Palin had sex, just that one has to assume she didn't know how to prevent pregnancy, or thought that using condoms and Birth Control pills were sinful/dangeous*..
On to the Mommy card that is being played by some. Is it sexist to say that as a mother she has a greater duty to her children than her spouse? Yeah, it is. No one has wondered if Obama can do it with two young daughters. Course, he has 2, not 5 (okay 4 at home, soon to be 6 (Bristol's child + the Baby Daddy), and none of his are sick. Quite frankly, I would think that Obama had something wrong with him if he were back in the office a day after his wife gave birth and he weren't facing international issues that needed immediate responses.... I would question his choices if he went after the white house with a very sick child. So yes, if he were in HER situation, I WOULD ask the same questions of his suitability for the job.
So on to other issues, sex ed is covered.
Rabidly anti-choice, to the point that she once said if her own daughter was raped she would still be anti-choice. That very reason is why my otherwise fairly conservative father (I'm the middle of 3 girls between he and my (step)Mom) is pro-choice.
Rabidly pro-gun (hush up Brian, I know your stance on this). I'm not anti-gun, but I am a fan of putting some controls in place (and yes, that means I'm not a fan of automatic weapons being in the hands of any old joe schmoe on the street).
She's not overtly hugely intelligent design driven, though she does think both should be taught in school... So she gets a half point on that one..
She's anti-same-sex marriage (though she claims to have good friends who are gay... wow that must sound familiar to the civil rights activists of the 60s working with racial issues). She did vote down a measure that would have denied benefits to same sex couples in '06, although she said it was due to a decision from the state supreme court that it was unconstitional. Another half point there, or maybe a quarter point since it was grudgingly vetoed.
She has -0- international experience, and -0- national experience.
She once said when asked about the pledge and the inclusion of Under God, that if it was good enough for the founding fathers it was good enough for her. (Uhmmm.. the pledge was written in the 19th century, Under God was added in the 1950s, so you want to tell me what that has to do with the founding fathers of this nation?)
She has been described as an every day kind of soccer mom, "one of us". (well, not one of me, but the republican ideal of the American people). I am a reasonably smart woman. I have balanced getting an education (and I'm more educated than she is) and motherhood and f/t work, with well, reasonable if not fantastic success. I follow politics fairly closely. Based on what I have heard her say I am MUCH smarter (yep, I said it) than Sarah Palin.
I am nowhere near intelligent enough to be one 72 year olds heart-beat away from the presidency
So there ya' go. I think that she is the last nail in the coffin of McCain's stance as a cross-party maverick, which he's been trashing over the last few years anyway. He picked perhaps the most conservative person he could, who was female and had no experience whatsoever (and yet they're still bashing Obama, go figure). He has shown VERY little respect for Hillary's supporters, assuming that they would follow the skirt no matter who was wearing it. I find it quite frankly offensive. I seriously dislike Condie, and she would make me less angry as a choice.
Either way? This changes very little about my plans, I was never going to vote for McCain, and after Obama's acceptance speech, I have never been this energized about a campaign. Obama's acceptance speech had me in *tears*. THe man is erudite, he made references to pop culture (the "he just doesn't get it" is almost straight out of The American President), *and* literature (there was a Raisin in the Sun reference as well). I want him in the white house. badly. Is it possible that he is a dumb visionary with no common sense, yeah, there is.. But if he were totally a dumb visionary he wouldn't have picked Biden, he would have gone for Gore, or another crazy visionary type. Is it possible that he's just a slimy politician and is saying what liberals want to hear then will promptly do nothing about them, or never find the money for them? Yep, it's possible.
But I have hope. I have hope in our government for the first time in 8 years. I have hope that there is someone who actually cares about the good of the American people, not the American people who agree with hm, but *all* American people. I have hope that we can change the damage to our civil liberties, to our international reputation, to the ideals upon which this nation was founded. And that's something I haven't felt in a long time.
*As events over the last few years have proven, BCPs CAN be dangerous (one blood clot and one round of bleeding so serious someone who was not pregnant thought she was having a miscarriage.. Folks, avoid seasonale, it was annoying for me, but jesus. In essentially 13 years on the pill (I was off for about a year right around Fi) I have never known someone who had major problems with BCPs... Until now.