Not My Hockey Mom

How many hockey mom's do you know who would abandon their infant and pregnant daughter to run for office? Over the next few days, the Republicans will try to sell Governor Palin as a woman of great character - a reformer and a maverick within her own party, who stood in opposition to the corruption of Alaskan politics. They will emphasize character rather than experience for the obvious reason - her experience is pretty shallow. So that makes character the focal point of discussion.

When John and Elizabeth Edwards discovered that her cancer had returned, my immediate thought was that he should drop out of the presidential race. But he and his wife decided that he should continue. Now, politicians can be very selfish people, and I thought John was being extremely self-centered in this decision, but Elizabeth was very convincing. She campaigned with him, and made it very clear that this was something they wanted to do with the time they had left. It was a choice made by two adults, and though I could not have done the same thing, I respected their choice.

I wonder what the good women of the family-values party think of Sarah Palin's choice to dedicate the next few months to a presidential campaign, with an infant at home and a pregnant 17 year-old daughter (the same daughter we always see taking care of the 5 month-old baby). To paraphrase John McCain, we're all feminists now, and therefore I'm sure Dad can handle whatever needs to get done, but isn't this a really bad time for Mom to be stepping up the intensity of her career focus?

One last thought, is 17 year-old Bristol marrying the father because it is politically expedient for Mom, or is it just good parenting on Sarah's part that marries off her daughter before she is even old enough to vote?

Family values, my ass.

For more on this topic, see Memeorandum.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin Family Values Other Pretenses of the Right-Wing

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