The Pocket Veto | Christopher Devine
September 4, 2008 12:00 PM CDT
In recent days, a number of prominent figures–Barack Obama and Joe Biden included–have told the media to lay off Sarah Palin’s family. Again and again, we hear that her under-age, unwed, pregnant daughter has nothing to do with her ability to govern. And that seems like a fair enough assessment.
But if Republicans take pride in their family values, and the seventeen-year-old daughter of their vice presidential candidate is bearing a child conceived out of wedlock, doesn’t it seem natural that a few eyebrows might be raised?
What, for instance, does Bristol Palin’s pregnancy say about the efficacy of abstinence-only education?
And what sort of message does the entire affair send to seventeen-year-old girls nationwide? Premarital sex is bad. But even if you do have sex before you get married, you MUST NOT use birth control. If you happen to get knocked up, all you need to do is buy a ring and a dress, and hire a priest and a photographer and a band, and stand up before your family and friends, and vow to spend the rest of your life with a guy who you experimented with one night in the back seat of his mom’s minivan, because you’re a mammal and he’s a mammal and you have hormones and he has hormones and someone told you once that sex feels good and you kind of wanted to see for yourself.
The media is obliged to treat Bristol Palin with respect and decency. But no one should not be barred from asking questions about apparent shortcomings in Sarah Palin’s political ideologies. That those shortcomings are manifest in her daughter is unfortunate, but it does not make the story any less newsworthy.
In his speech at the RNC Wednesday night, Mitt Romney shared some of his thoughts on the notion of family values:
Opportunity rises when children are raised in homes and schools that are free from pornography, promiscuity and drugs; in homes that are blessed with family values and the presence of a father and a mother… America cannot long lead the family of nations if we fail the family here at home!
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PBS’s Gwen Ifill interviewed McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds Tuesday night. Ifill asked Bounds to confirm that McCain and Palin had only met one time before he offered her the job. Bounds responded: “He didn’t meet her just a single time before he made the selection. They had met a couple of times and they had had conversations.”
Really, Tucker? When?
The following night, PBS’s Judy Woodruff interviewed Cindy McCain. Woodruff asked McCain if she had just met Sarah Palin for the first time last Wednesday. “No, no, no,” McCain said. “I’d met her before. We’ve met her before.”
Great. WHEN?
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On Tuesday, I wrote a brief post likening Sarah Palin to Tom Eagleton. The Atlantic’s Joshua Green has provided a much more in-depth analysis of this comparison. Take a look.
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