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Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Can We PLEASE Get Back to Talking About Your Lousy Parenting?

posted by on September 2 at 10:46 AM

Conservatives are fed up with all this talk about Sarah Palin’s knocked up daughter.

The Republican backlash against coverage of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s family came on full display Tuesday, as the audience at a breakfast panel discussion groaned loudly in reaction to a question about 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s pregnancy.

“Lay off the kid,” said former Republican strategist and NBC news analyst Mike Murphy, responding to an audience member who asked how conservatives would respond if similar information arose about a Democratic candidate’s child.

Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, another panelist, dismissed the subject, tersely saying: “Next question.”

John at Americablog makes an excellent point:

I’m watching McCain surrogate Gary Bauer, a religious leader who had a fall from grace a few years ago, lecture MSNBC about how dare they cover the Bristol Palin unwed pregnancy story. McCain supporter Bill Bennett tried this tactic on CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday too. Someone needs to remind the McCain campaign, when they whine to journalists about how terrible it is that the media is reporting on the pregnancy, that none of us knew about Bristol Palin’s unwed pregnancy until yesterday morning when John McCain’s campaign leaked the story to Reuters.

RSS icon Comments

1


You condo dwelling SRO Belltowners don't get it.

Most people LIKE babies.

Posted by John Bailo | September 2, 2008 10:55 AM
2

Yah! Wha's wrong wit' babies?

Posted by Kidd | September 2, 2008 11:03 AM
3

its the HYPOCRISY.

this unplanned teenage pregnancy is only OK because it's a white christian republican's daughter.

but let's say it's a black teenager on ADC. now what does the GOP say?

Posted by max solomon | September 2, 2008 11:07 AM
4

Bennett gets on CNN and starts talking about how it's not relevant that the 17 year-old is pregnant and we all know that sex education is a failed policy. I can't believe the crap Republicans get away with, but the really danger (and Obama looks keenly aware of this) is getting anywhere off the topic that the problem is with abstinence education and looking like we're moralizing about her daughter's choices. Democrats all want it to be a personal choice, it's Republicans that don't. The Republicans would just love to be outraged with the treatment of this girl, and start lecturing about morals. On the other hand, I'd still like to know if that four-month-old is the daughter's kid and whether the daughter is actually three months preganant, and not really five months like the Republicans are saying.

Posted by left coast | September 2, 2008 11:19 AM
5

I thought this post was going to go in another direction and bring up an example of when the Repubicans had used something like this against a Democrat. Think there's a good example of this sometime in the recent past?

All I can come up with is the whole John McCain love child thing from 2000, which isn't the best analogy.

Posted by Julie | September 2, 2008 11:27 AM
6

uhm ... maybe the John Edwards love child?

Posted by formerly OR Matt | September 2, 2008 11:47 AM
7

Bristol's pregnancy is great news for the American voter because the GOP will actually have to LIVE their policies not just preach about them.

These people stand for anti-information sex education, and when ignorant kids fuck up, forcing them to get married at 17. Vote GOP and you know exactly what you and your kids are going to get.

Posted by Westside forever | September 2, 2008 11:49 AM
8

Speaking of lousy parenting: I still want an explanation for Palin putting her unborn child at serious risk during her insane jaunt from Texas back to Alaska. I want to know if she wanted Trig to die and was doing everything short of aborting him to make that happen.

Posted by keshmeshi | September 2, 2008 12:04 PM
9

It's not just hypocrisy.

Do the math on the kids down the line.

Someone got knocked up as a teen before marriage and it wasn't JUST the grand-daughter.

Posted by Will in Seattle | September 2, 2008 12:14 PM
10

I don't know where my comment went, but going after Palin's sexual "hypocrisy" isn't going to cut it. It's a losing strategy.

Right-wing Christians don't believe that they are perfect and we are sinners. They believe that we are ALL sinners, but that they have asked God for help in defeating sin, unlike us, who have embraced it; and they have asked God for forgiveness. That's what it's all about: Palin, like her daughter, gave in to the sinful temptations of sex before she was married, because she was weak, and human; but she did the right thing, and got married, and has stayed married, with many children, as God commanded, even when one of them was special. That's something they CELEBRATE as following God's will as closely as they could, even when sometimes it isn't very close. She asked for and received forgiveness. THIS IS WHAT THEY BELIEVE.

So you can shout "hypocrisy" all you want, and it only makes you look stupid, because you don't understand how they think. People who are not born-agains don't have this reasoning to fall back on, so, to the right-wingers, THEY look like the hypocrites.

If (to use one example) Bill Clinton had immediately admitted his fling with Monica Lewinsky, and wept openly on TV while praying for forgiveness for his weak, sinning, bastard human self, he'd be an evangelical superstar today. But neither "no, I didn't" nor "it's none of your business" hold any weight with them; it's ALL about submission to God's love and forgiveness.

So I think Democrats would be smart to drop the "OMG! Baby out of wedlock!" story, or to incorporate it into a larger narrative of irresponsibility and inexperience, and in particular to use it to redound against MCCAIN'S judgment.

Posted by Fnarf | September 2, 2008 1:19 PM

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