Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin's five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign...
I just seriously don't even know what to say about this.
The problem obviously isn't her having the kid -- I'm pro-choice. She's a woman, even if she's 17, and I'm hoping the decision was left up to her (I'll keep my doubts on that score to myself).
The problem is -- five months pregnant? How are we just now dealing with this? Why is Bristol afraid to tell her parents about this before now? What kind of family values do we have in this house? What kind of judgment have we been teaching our kids? Also, how's this seventeen year old not being taught about birth control? (Or is that something Ms. Sarah Feminist for Life Palin also doesn't believe in? Was Bristol supposed to Just Say No? Did she get the Abstinence Only Sex-Ed?)
Also, what kind of tool is John McCain, who claims he knew about Bristol's pregnancy (yeah, I believe it too) and chose Palin anyway.
I could go on, but I'll leave further objections to the class.
This is just beautiful. And now, they say that her husband has a DUI arrest on his record. What an obvious idiot mistake on McCain's part and another reason there is normally a detailed vetting process for the vice presidency that he thought, like most Republicans, that the rules didn't apply to him. What a freakin' joke.
ReplyDeleteSenator Obama is handling this issue very, very well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Bristol wants to make sure her new baby won't be under her mother's control, since she wasn't allowed contraception or abortion the first time around.
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ReplyDeleteThis situation sickens me on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. Since Palin is a stated "abstinence-only" supporter, the irony is obvious. It makes me wonder who is home raising the kids while she's out governing and campaigning. I believe wholeheartedly in women working and running for office, but I also recognize that when you have children, they have to become the first priority, and that is through their teen-age years.
ReplyDeleteThe conservative response is so typical--the same people who would just freak out if this were someone in the Obama campaign, yelling that this is an example of the liberal value system--are saying they support the Palin family decision, and even better, asking why anyone cares about a private family matter. You know those same conservative people would be yelling, "If he can't control his own family, how can he run the country?"
Ultimately, another example of John McBush's poor judgment.
What makes you think McCain didn't know about the pregnancy beforehand? Of course there was a detailed vetting process. Good grief, do you honestly think that a detail like that could have gotten past all of McCain's people (not to mention all of the people that the GOP probably has looking into those people apart from McCain's efforts)! He probably just understood that this was a decision made by and an issue to be dealt with by the daughter of his VP running mate and her family and not a decision that should reflect at all on his VP's ability to be the VP. He was obviously wrong, and people are blowing it way out of proportion. I just hope that the people who are using this as a reason to disqualify McCain for the presidency aren't the same ones who said that Bill Clinton getting a bj in the Oval Office or John Edwards having an affair isn't something that we should let affect our opinions of him as a leader. Those are decisions made directly by the president/candidate and which directly reflect his decision-making abilities and his ability to honor vows that he took.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to say that abstinence-only education brought this on is completely unprovable. I received pretty liberal progressive sex-ed in school and plenty of people just chose to not use any type of contraception for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDeleteI just hope that the people who are using this as a reason to disqualify McCain for the presidency...
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is a reason to disqualify McCain for the presidency, it just helps to shore up the MANY DOZENS of reasons why our country doesn't need him in the Oval Office. And why Republicans are huge hypocrites. And why Sarah Palin probably wasn't the best choice. And is this an argument against abstinence only education? Well, while you have a point (some people are stupid and irresponsible no matter how much information they're given) you have to admit that this instance doesn't make the best example of how abstinence only education works, rather it proves how sex= consequences and sometimes sex= baby at the ripe ol' age of 17.
Oh, one other thing, John Edwards, Bill Clinton AND John McCain aren't terribly honorable men in my book. Let's remember, before jumping on our high and mighty Republican horse, that John McCain left his first wife because she was fat and disabled (I'm sure the fact that his mistress held the title of "Heiress" was just an afterthought). Honorable? I think not.
ReplyDeleteWait just a god damn minute here. Afraid? Where did it say anywhere in the article that Bristol was afraid to discuss the topic with her family? No where. It didn't even say that she was reluctant! How much more could you people possibly be reading into this? Jesus, did you even read the article or did you just decide to spout out some filth? The Palin family knew about it at a time that was appropriate for them As for this becoming public, considering no one really even knew her until last week would you have even cared if she did mysteriously announce this, say, two weeks ago? I also love all the side-line generals who just "know" everything that went on in the McCain camp in regard to the vetting process. Incredible. They hypocrisy is staggering. If a Republican raises a child who leans to the left then the Republican is branded ineffective. If the reverse happens and a Democrat has a child that turns to the right, well, then it is the child who is clearly in the wrong and the Democrat did everything they possibly could. I'm sure the concept of free-will and the ability to form one's own opinions is lost on the lot of you. Of ocurse, I fully expect this comment to be deleted by the author.
ReplyDeleteI really don't understand what her seventeen year old kid's unplanned pregnancy disqualifies her as a vp candidate or makes her a bad choice, or why it is even an issue anymore than I understood why Clinton getting head was an issue. These things happen, regardless of education and politics.
ReplyDeleteMy mother is pro-choice,supports sex education that presents contraceptives to kids and teen; she talked to me about birth control, and babies and all that. She would've never hated me, branded me a slut, or punished me; in fact, she would have scheduled my first pre-natal appointment or taken me to get my abortion. Yet, I would've still been afraid to tell her because when you're young, you don't want to disappoint.
I have two cousins who were given liberal sex ed and both of them were teen mothers. I've another cousin who had abstinence only sex ed. Guess what? She was knocked up before she was eighteen too.
And I just don't like the "I'm chose her anyway" as if it is an issue and it proves something about McCain that suggests he's not such a bad guy. You know, like look what I do. I think the way that the McCain campaign handled it purposively manipulated McCain's image in some way that I just can't pinpoint yet. They waited with intent to tell the people that Bristol was pregnant. They used that girl and I don't think children should be tools in an election campaign. What it will do, how it will make him appealing to the American people, I don't know, but I don't doubt it was ploy. Bristol is a non-issue; McCain, I suspect, wants her to be an issue.
Keith- For what it's worth, the third comment with regards to this post was deleted by me because my 3-year old posted it before it was ready. I doubt delegar deletes your comment just because you're an ass. As for Bristol's pregnancy causing a stir: you're surprised??? I agree with you that two weeks ago no one would've given a damn but Sarah Palin issued a fucking press release about her daughter's pregnancy. Someone nominate the Governor for Mother of the Year! Way to be supportive of a private issue, Mom! Holla!
ReplyDeleteAs for your whole, Republican raising a Democrat and vice versa (fyi, I'm not affiliated with either party), what the hell are you talking about? Wait, no, I just can't care.
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Mouse, I think you hit the nail on the head. You don't pick someone for your VP nominee knowing that a *scandal* is just waiting to happen without having a plan for it. And McCain is a snake in the grass just waiting to pounce.
That's wonderful that she's decided to keep the baby. But you know, let's make a comparison here:
ReplyDeleteBristol comes from a well-to-do, loving home that contains both parents and plenty of sibling help in raising the baby. The father will marry the girl, so the child will have both of its parents. The child and its parents will never want for anything, monetarily or emotionally.
That's terrific. Poster child for pro-life. Baby is kept, lives happily ever after surrounded by people who love him/her.
Pan the lens a few thousand miles down to Los Angeles. Little 17 year old Maria is scared. The pregnancy test is positive. She slept with two guys last month, and she doesn't know which is the dad. She didn't really like either one of them anyway.
She's not stupid, even though she does some stupid things. She's the valedictorian of her high school, with a free ride to Big Name University. Her mom's single, and her dad's been gone since she was 5. They live with her grandparents and cousins in a cramped, craphole apartment in the ghetto.
She was the one ray of hope in the family, the one getting out and making something of herself. And now she's knocked up. She has no money. She has no job. She doesn't get along with her mom. There's no space where she lives.
It's for people like Maria that the abortion option exists, for the people that have no other options. A child is with you for life, but what if your life isn't ready for the child?
I know, because I have been in that situation. I know because I have made the choice to terminate the pregnancy, and it turned out to be the right one. We were not ready at the time to start a family, financially, emotionally, or mentally.
But now: we have a house. Good jobs. A stable foundation. And next year we're going to start trying to have a baby, on our own terms.
The fact that Palin's daughter is pregnant won't make a difference for liberals (other than them laughing all the way to the polls). It probably won't make much difference for undecided moderates, other than highlighting the idiocy of Palin's views on sex ed and McCain's questionable decision-making process.
ReplyDeleteThe people that it _would_ make a difference to are the conservative, religious whites - the base of Republican party. No matter how much spin / damage control McCain campaign puts on this issue, they aren't just going to ignore it. I think a lot of them are going to be disgusted and simply won't vote at all.
Earlier I thought McCain had a real chance - Obama's pastor scared a lot of people. Now, I am sure Obama is our next President, for better or for worse. (If anybody knows what McCain is smoking please share with us ! Whatever it is, the stuff must be great !)
Well, having thought this over, I agree with Mouse and Obama -- we should leave the kids out of it.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I can't help adding that it's great Bristol's getting plenty of support from her Pro-Life family, now that her abstinence-only approach did not work. Here in Arkansas, we have the same approach, and when our teen girls turn up pregnant (as plenty of them do) not all of them have that pretty network of support to fall back on -- though some do, I am sure, the lucky ones, or the rich ones.
My point, and the point of the pro-choice crowd, is that rather than teach kids "don't have sex and BC is murder and condoms always fail" it is far better to educate children about the reality of how sex works and how birth control does and then we will not have as many teen girls turning up pregnant.
Keith is right: we will have some, just as we will, despite years of teaching kids not to drink and drive and to wear their seat belts, we will always have some kids doing stupid things with cars, but, AS MULTIPLE ACTUAL STUDIES SHOW, we would have far fewer: which I would find pleasant.
Sarah Palin might like a world in which 17 year old girls have to choose between marriage, giving away a child, and abortion: I do not.
Wow, intothethickofit, what's got your panties all in a wad? I find it funny that you get upset when people (mainly republicans) try to push their political/religious views on you, but you are so quick to name call and push your own views onto others when you disagree with them. I am not affiliated with a party either but I listen to both sides and think objectively about each. Who really is the one being high and mighty here?
ReplyDeleteThe motherfucking patriarchy has my underwear in a big knot, anonymous. The McCain campaign has left a horrid skidmark and Wingers who can't see beyond a vulgar neon cross has left a couple decent sized holes in my drawers.
ReplyDeleteYeah. That should do it.
Heh, Tonks! You cover it for me!
ReplyDeleteI missed the speech last night, but I've heard reports.