……..and other various things circulating around about the McCain-Palin campaign.
If you are like me, you joined in with MomsRising in submitting questions to Gwen Ifil to be asked during last week’s VP debates. The viral email campaign was focused on issues important to women and it would be nice to know how Sarah Palin and Joe Biden would have responded to them. If you watched the debate, you know the only social issue that was asked of the candidates was about gay marriage – which is certainly an important topic – but I was still very disappointed that issues of teen pregnancy, sex education, federally mandated maternity leave, child care, and health care for children didn’t come up. I remained disappointed on Tuesday when none of these issues came up with Brokaw and the “Town Hall” debate.
That being said, one of many things about Sarah Palin that infuriates me beyond my ability to even express coherently is her extremely conservative position on teen sex education, particularly with a pregnant teenage daughter. Again, I absolutely believe that teens ought to be taught that abstinence is the best decision but I also live in reality and believe teens should be offered sex education and taught about the importance of contraceptives. There is a great oped in today’s Post about this very issue along with Palin’s position:
But wouldn’t it be nice to hear directly from Palin on these issues?
If the McCain camp is hailing her performance during last week’s debate as such a great success, then why haven’t they taken her out of hiding? Why are they still shielding her from the media? When is she going to sit down with the major newspapers in this country and conduct an interview and tell us what she thinks? When is she going to parade through the Sunday morning talk shows like every other candidate for president and vice president?
When is she going to be treated just like every other candidate?
And did you find yourself wondering exactly what people woud have done if Hillary had ever winked at the camera during a debate?
The woman couldn’t even wear a shirt that showed the slightest bit of cleavage without being villified. When are we going to realize that finding Palin “cute” and “folksy” is every bit as sexist as villifying Hillary Clinton for wearing a slightly cleavage bearing shirt…..or as the McCain camp is for protecting the scared candidate from the horrible elitist media? What’s remarkable is how much Palin exploits this to her advantage and cries foul when trying to distract from the fact that she is weak on substance.
Finally, if you are doubtful that Palin’s youngest child is actually her own child and not that of her eldest daughter, then go ahead and read what Andrew Sullivan posted yesterday….
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/births-at-mat-s.html#more
Here is a link to the most scathing piece on McCain I’ve read yet. Frankly, criticizing him as a POW makes even me VERY uncomfortable:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain/page/1
Now let’s end this entry with some perspective on where McCain stands in terms of foreign policy and funding women’s reproductive health overseas. In case you missed it in yesterday’s NYT, Kristoff has a very depressing and important column on how the Bush administration is “quietly” cutting off funding of birth control to clinics in Africa…oh…and McCain stands lock-step with Bush on this policy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/opinion/09kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Obama, however, supports UN funded programs to support family planning.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m an Obama Mamma.
