McCain picks woman for VP slot

[Black Dog]

I think this is SO true as evidenced in this thread.

Actually, as evidenced by this thread, there's no left-wing consensus on the Palin pick vis a vis her family issues. Liberals are not a monolith.

[WIP]

I'm worried about Obama's kids. If elected how will he take care of them? Will they grow up with a run away father like him?

Who knows, but you guys are spinning in overdrive to try to shift the story to a discussion about working mothers. The daughter's pregnancy calls into question all of the BS about abstinence education programs that Sarah Palin and the conservative base of the Republican Party are pushing on the rest of the country even though states that have enacted 'abstinence only' show an increase in both teen pregnancy and STD rates.

Now that Sarah Palin has joined the legions of parents who have had teenage daughters become pregnant, she should be grilled about her policies that encourage teen pregnancy through ignorance, and the media should ignore her attempts to play the "private family matter" card and keep her feet to the fire on this issue, because she is an advocate for these programs, and would no doubt try to push them further if she became Vice President.

[GostHacked]

They are neither trivial or remarkable.....people do it every day. So what's the big deal?

Black Dog

Or perhaps Palin feels that she can manage both. That's her perogative.

Many parents take care of special needs children. To the majority of those parents, taking care of a special needs child is a full time job. This job like the VP is a 24/7 job. What do you have time for?

It "seems" that way because that's the narrative you've decicided upon. Personally, I don't see any evidence to suggest the pursuit of high office and dealing with the particular needs of her family are incompatable. Certainlt, if she becomes Veep, there'll be no shortage of dark-suited babysitters handy.

So when she becomes VP, she will have black suit nannies to take care of the child. She may be able to handle both as govenor of Alaska, but moving up to the second most important position in the land is a huge step from governing a state with a small population.

Even with how things are today with both parents working full time, nannies, daycare, they have little time to really interact with their children. It is not just about money, (it helps though) it is about making that connection to your children.

IF she is able to handle it,, then hats off, and I applaude it. Hopefully she did not take the nod from McCain without really thinking about it.

If she needs to ask this question ....

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/29/s...president-does/

...then she really is not qualified to be VP.

[stevoh]

Liberals like to pretend they are tolerant and accepting of those who are different but when it comes to anyone not ensconced in their progressive, elitist dogma they mock and attack their lifestyle to inspire hate. But because governor Palin is endearing, authentic–and with this latest revelation–easy to identify with, she invokes panic in the left. Why else would they assail a very popular, promising lady and her children?

Because she is the VP pick for the other side? This isn't some random football mom who liberals have decided to pick on from the american midwest. She might be the next vice president of the United States. I don't hate the woman, in fact, I respect her. But this doesn't give her a free pass, she deserves the same scrutiny and criticism that all politicians get when faced with the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth.

[WIP]

What matters is what role Todd Palin will have. As I asked four or five pages ago: is he going to quit his job and move to Washington to be the primary care giver for their baby? If so, then I have no problem with a woman like Palin running for and serving as VP or even President. If Todd Palin is not going to quit his job, but take on some kind of employment, whether in Washington or Alaska, I would think the Palins were doing a disservice to their family. Being the VP isn't like working as an accountant where one can leave the office early or telecommute a few days a week. A job at that level often requires lengthy travel, intense scheduling and will be the master of Palin's life. If she can do it with the undivided help of her husband, more power to her.

But an added problem for me is the 17 year old daughter. Where is she going to go? Back to Alaska to live with her teenager husband? Or will she stay in Washington (and will the teen hubby?) to be near her family? I'm sorry, but there are just times when a young woman needs her mom -- I know this as a single dad with two girls -- and I'd imagine that the first several months of teenage motherhood would be one of those times. Having her be in Alaska or having Sarah Palin off to Pakistan or Burundi or Germany would not be in her daughter's best interests. Todd could be the best dad on earth, but he's still not going to be able to fill the role of surrogate mom to their daughter. I speak from experience.

Judging from his MySpace page, the father-to-be doesn't seem ready to settle down. Looks like a Shotgun Wedding is in his future:

Johnston, 17, who is entering his senior year at Wasilla HS, plays on the school hockey team and was once teammates on a youth squad with Palin's older brother, Track, 19, who is now in the Army.

On his MySpace page, Johnston boasts, "I'm a f - - -in' redneck" who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.

"But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- - - and just f - - -in' chillin' I guess."

"Ya f - - - with me I'll kick [your] ass," he added.

He also claims to be "in a relationship," but states, "I don't want kids."

Campaign officials said McCain knew of the pregnancy when he picked Palin last week as his running mate.

New York Post Sept.3

I have to wonder, considering Governor Palin's extreme views, whether her daughter is deciding to marry the father of her baby of her own free will! This guy looks like just another empty headed jock who was just out to get layed!

[Black Dog]

Many parents take care of special needs children. To the majority of those parents, taking care of a special needs child is a full time job. This job like the VP is a 24/7 job. What do you have time for?

It's kind of condescending to assume this was not a consideration of hers before she accepted the nomination. Again, the focus sjhhouldn't be on her choices, but on how she has worked and will work to limit the choices of others. If she can be shown to be a hypocrite on that score, more the better, but focusng on her family and her choices by themselves is both unproductive and regressive.

So when she becomes VP, she will have black suit nannies to take care of the child. She may be able to handle both as govenor of Alaska, but moving up to the second most important position in the land is a huge step from governing a state with a small population.

Even with how things are today with both parents working full time, nannies, daycare, they have little time to really interact with their children. It is not just about money, (it helps though) it is about making that connection to your children.

Pardon me while I puke in my hat. Sorry, but this is nothing but concern trolling. No one in this debate genuinely cares about Palin's children and how her choices will affect them. She's not running for "World's Greatest Mom." This whole "won't somebody please think of the children!" guff is not only gross and insincere, it's also dumb when you consider how many other political cudgels are just lying around waiting to be picked up and used to bash the Methusela/Plain ticket's brains in. Focus on her inexperience, her love of pork barrelling, her socially draconian policies and so forth. Leave her fitness as a mother (or lack thereof) out of it.

[WIP]

I suppose one could take this view if one were willing to completely ignore the context of a conservative movement that has lambasted working mothers for abandoning their families to pursue their own selfish goals in a country where motherhood is often an actual barrier to employment. It's bad when conservatives suggest it of working single moms and it's downright ridiculous when deployed by "progressives" against a women of immense privilege who happens to be conservative.

Frankly, questioning whether Plain is abandoning her children to run for VP or whethe rshe would be capable of balancing the two is to ask the wrong question entirely. Her family situation is only relevant insofar as it is reflected in her policy choices. Like, say, if the mother of a teenage-mom-to-be at one time slashed funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers.

There are so many trees in this forest, I totally forgot about cutting funding for teen mother programs! Yet another reason why her twisted, two sided morality should be given a forensic examination!

[Guest American Woman]

Now that Sarah Palin has joined the legions of parents who have had teenage daughters become pregnant, she should be grilled about her policies that encourage teen pregnancy through ignorance, and the media should ignore her attempts to play the "private family matter" card and keep her feet to the fire on this issue, because she is an advocate for these programs, and would no doubt try to push them further if she became Vice President.

I agree with you completely. Furthermore, I'll personally respect Palin's "private family matter" pleas when she and her party do. They've been "politicizing" this from the time they made the announcement. "We're proud of her decision to have the baby." What?? She had a "choice?" Seems to me that's something Palin, McCain, and their supporters want to take away from other teenagers/women of all ages. "She'll have the love and strong support of her family." Lucky her. Too bad every pregnant teenager doesn't have that luxury. Yet she wants every 17 year old, even those who were raped, to be forced to carry their pregnancies to term. But is health care for these children a "right?" Of course not, says the same crowd. Furthermore, Palin doesn't want to see that any of them are educated regarding birth control, which makes no sense at all. Teach birth control and there's fewer pregnancies, and by the law of averages, less abortions. One woul think fewer abortions would make her, McCain, and the rest of her supporters happy. And of course the schools should only teach abstinence. Because it's obviously so effective. But we can't say that. "Life happens." Of course only teaching abstinence doesn't have anything to do with it. Life just happens. And of course all the social conservatives are praising Palin for living her ideals. In other words, they are politicizing it for all it's worth.

[WIP]

I agree with you completely. Furthermore, I'll personally respect Palin's "private family matter" pleas when she and her party do. They've been "politicizing" this from the time they made the announcement. "We're proud of her decision to have the baby." What?? She had a "choice?" Seems to me that's something Palin, McCain, and their supporters want to take away from other teenagers/women of all ages.

I still have my suspicions about how much "choice" the daughter has about getting married at 17! In the old days, she would have been forced to marry the father, and her boyfriend would have been told he had to do the "honourable thing" or face reprisal from the girl's dad. Let's just hope they are really ready for each other and don't have thoughts about whether they made the right choice five years down the line.

"She'll have the love and strong support of her family." Lucky her. Too bad every pregnant teenager doesn't have that luxury. Yet she wants every 17 year old, even those who were raped, to be forced to carry their pregnancies to term.

To me, that's the most shocking view this woman has! A 14 year old girl could get attacked and raped, and Sarah Palin is going to force her to carry it to term and give birth to her rapist's baby! She's right out of the Old Testament, except that Mosaic Law also demanded the rapist pay a bride price to the father and marry the girl that he had raped:

Deuteronomy:

22:28 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

22:29 Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. King James Version

Maybe that will be the next plank in the family values campaign!

[Liam]

So when do we start playing Palin Bingo? you know, an adaptation of that game bored college kids play in the lecture halls of repetitive, cliche-addled professors? I suggest a different version, where we pick 16 words we know the McCain apologists will all be saying about Palin's address (regardless of how good or how awful it is -- and it'll be good enough, I'm sure). First one to get four in a row wins. My board:

authentic fighter warm all-American

maverick reformer values home run (or any variation on the theme)

real winner experience family

elites conservative spunky private

[Stephen Best]

"Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and former John McCain adviser, Time columnist, and MSNBC contributor Mike Murphy were caught on tape disparaging John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate." See Peggy Noonan, Mike Murphy Caught On Tape Disparaging Palin Choice: "It's Over," "Political Bullshit," "Gimmicky". Also, it's--who would have guessed--on

.

[Sulaco]

Regarding the alleged cuts to that teen mothers state program:

http://www.anchorrising.com/barnacles/006281.html

Also encapsulated well here:

The Non-Existent Cut of [Jonathan Adler]

It's fashionable in Washington to characterize a decline in the rate of increase as a "budget cut," but even this can't explain the Washington Post's sloppy reporting on Sarah Palin's use of line-item budget authority as Governor of Alaska. Here the Post reported that Gov. Palin "used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live." As would be expected, the Post seeks to connect this to the pregnancy of Gov. Palin's daughter. Specifically, the Post claims she cut funding for the Alaska Covenant House from $5 million to $3.9 million. Only that's not really true.

The Alaska Covenant House's entire annual budget typically hovers around $3 million, and grant income is just over $1 million annually. This past year, the organization requested substantial additional funds for the construction of a new $22 million facility. Covenant House asked for $10 million from the state, the legislature appropriated $5 million, and Gov. Palin reduced it to $3.9 milllion. This was not a reduction in funding from prior years — no where close — and it was not even a reduction in proposed funding for Covenant House's operations, but a cut in the amount of new money the Alaska government would provide for a capital expenditure.

Thus - these was not a cut in existing budgeting for the center.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Sulaco

[Sulaco]

So many lies, so little time.

I still question, however, how Gov. Palin's daughter's pragnancy make Palin a hypocrite for not extending new funds to the aforementioned program? She walks the walk doesn't shee? Rather than having the tax payer help her unwed tenage preganant daughter along she is going to take the cost herself. Sounds like the budget cut is in keeping with her actions here.

But, let's examine the argument further. It appears that the argument is: Palin supports certain type of sex-ed as a way of preventing pregnancy. Her daughter got pregnant. Therefore she is a hypocrite, or her prescription is a failure.

The corollary is that if I can find a person who has tought his daughter about condoms and the pill, who supports such teaching in school, and whose daughter after receiving such instruction did get pregnant, tthen he whole idea of teaching about condoms and the pill as a way of preventing teen pregnancy is bunk.

What a strange way of arguing.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Sulaco

[Black Dog]

"Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and former John McCain adviser, Time columnist, and MSNBC contributor Mike Murphy were caught on tape disparaging John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate." See Peggy Noonan, Mike Murphy Caught On Tape Disparaging Palin Choice: "It's Over," "Political Bullshit," "Gimmicky". Also, it's--who would have guessed--on YouTube.

You forgot the best bit:

"Most qualified MILF."-Noonan

This is the same Noonan who wrote in today's Wall Street Journal that "Palin's friends should be less immediately worried about what the Obama campaign will do to her than what the McCain campaign will do." That, friends, is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Black Dog

[Drea]

The conservatives are all twisted up in knots trying to justify this so-called family values woman.

"She can handle it!" They say "She is doing the right thing!" They say

Well, we will see if this attitude from the conservatives --> "Women are People Too <-- sticks LOL.

I have bookmarked THIS thread for a future discussion about families, teens births, mom's working full time, etc.

So the next time some rightwinger says "But the mom should stay home and raise the children! They need her at home." I will bring up this thread and watch them twist and contort themselves again.

And Black Dog, it's the hypocrisy that have us centre/lefties pissed off -- conservatives who normally vilify women for working while they have small children have done a complete flip-flop. They are falling all over themselves. It's funny really.

Cheers!

Edited September 3, 2008 by Drea

[Black Dog]

And Black Dog, it's the HYPOCISY that have us centre/lefties pissed off -- not the fact that Palin made the choice -- but that conservatives who normally vilify women for working while they have small children have done a complete flip-flop.

If you want to string those people up (metaphorically), I'll be right there with you. But mostly what I've been dealing with has been nominal centre-leftists who are all over Palin herself for abandoning her special-needs infant and pregnant teenage daughter. That's a kind of hypocrisy too.

[Drea]

When you think about it, Palin is the best choice. She is going to sink the Republicans already leaky ship.

Go Obama/Biden!

[Shady]

If you want to string those people up (metaphorically), I'll be right there with you. But mostly what I've been dealing with has been nominal centre-leftists who are all over Palin herself for abandoning her special-needs infant and pregnant teenage daughter. That's a kind of hypocrisy too.

Well said.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Peggy Noonan spells things out nicely in the NYT.....

...More immediately and seriously on Palin:

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.

She could become a transformative political presence.

So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.

And it's going to be brutal. It's already getting there.

Like I said, White has played a Queen's Gambit opening...what will Black do?

That's bang on. She is a serious threat to the left. They will try everything to kill her. But you can't deny her appeal.

Elections are almost always about likeability, which is why Bush beat Kerry and why Bush beat Gore, and why Clinton beat Dole and Clinton beat GHW Bush and Reagan beat everybody.

When asked who they'd like to have over for a barbeque, americans picked Bush over Kerry bigtime.

Obama is likeable, but as with all of Oprah's hand picks, such as Dr. Phil, they start off folksy and end up being tell all blow hards.

Barack is dangerously walking that fine line between "hey, let's all love the cute fresh articulate black kid" and "quit tryign to tell us all how to live our lives you smug ingrate".

In this vein Palin comes off more as the "real deal" likeability whereas Obama is starting to look like a know-it-all smart ass.

SHould be interesting.

Edited September 3, 2008 by JerrySeinfeld

[Black Dog]

That's bang on. She is a serious threat to the left.

I read this, then I watch the clip above where the same person you're quoting calls the pick "Bullshit" and says the race is "over" and I just have to giggle. The G.O.P.'s water carriers don't know whether to shit or wind their watches.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Black Dog

[M.Dancer]

I read this, then I watch the clip above where the same person you're quoting calls the pick "Bullshit" and says the race is "over" and I just have to giggle. The G.O.P.'s water carriers don't know whether to shit or wind their watches.

To be honest, if I were a yank instead of a wank, I would be in a conundrum over the choice. I have no problem with an arch conservative..it's the evangelical social conservative part that I find unappealling.

In the end, I might still vote for McCain over someone who I believe is dangerously naive....and pray nightly and pray fervently that McCain's health holds for the next 3 and a 1/2 years....

[BubberMiley]

I don't think her family situation should enter into the equation at all. In fact, it's the McCain campaign that has been trying to extend the shelf life of this story to divert attention from the real story---that McCain showed his reckless lack of judgement by choosing her, as he clearly didn't know anything about her before he put her on the ticket.

Would a campaign that's motto is "Country First" knowingly put someone with ties to an Alaska secessionist party on the ticket? I doubt it.

Would McCain have put her on the ticket if he knew about troopergate, her history of earmarking and lobbyists, etc.? Only if he was very, very cynical and believed that by playing the identity politics card, he would attract disgruntled Hillary supporters.

Edited September 3, 2008 by BubberMiley

[bush_cheney2004]

To be honest, if I were a yank instead of a wank, I would be in a conundrum over the choice. I have no problem with an arch conservative..it's the evangelical social conservative part that I find unappealling.

In the end, I might still vote for McCain over someone who I believe is dangerously naive....and pray nightly and pray fervently that McCain's health holds for the next 3 and a 1/2 years....

There are plenty of other choices, but not on all state ballots...from Greens to Commies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...8#Other_parties

[M.Dancer]

There are plenty of other choices, but not on all state ballots...from Greens to Commies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...8#Other_parties

If I'm going to take a pass on Obama it wouldn't be for the likes of Nader, Ron Paul or Larry Flynt....

[bush_cheney2004]

.....Only if he was very, very cynical and believed that by playing the identity politics card, he would attract disgruntled Hillary supporters.

Nothing wrong with that...just win baby!

Judging from the lather that the left folk have worked up over this selection, it must be a good thing.

Hockey Moms unite!

Edited September 3, 2008 by bush_cheney2004