From Juneau to Juno?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/09/2008 (6217 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s hard to know where to begin with the saga of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. She’s a gun-toting, skidoo riding former beauty queen who was plucked from relative obscurity and chosen to be John McCain’s running mate.Other than a lack of experience (not a small niggle given McCain is 72 and Palin might well end up running America) she seemed ideally suited to the Republican mantle. She opposes gay marriage. She opposes abortion. She’s got a passle of kids including her youngest, a baby she said she and her husband knew had Down Syndrome before he was born.That Palin has already used her infant as a sword to wieild againsit those nasty Democrats and other ne’r-do-wells is revolting. Mommy could have had an abortion, she has said, but chose to bring little Trig into the world.Palin made the same choice hundreds of thousands of couples have made. No one else, to my knowledge, has then chosen to use their baby for political points.Then came word that Palin’s 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant. That’s a tragedy by any family’s measure. Palin rushed to assure voters that young Bristol is marrying the father of the baby and the couple has the full support of the family.(The announcement was made to counteract Internet rumours that Bristol was actually Trig’s mother and that Palin had faked her pregnancy to cover things up. Nope, said the erstwhile VP, that kid’s mine. It’s the one to be born in three months that belongs to my teenager).Try to imagine being a pregnant 17-year-old and having the world know the details. Try to imagine you and your fetus being used to score more points. Palin is against abortion, every family has bumps along the way and this baby will be surrounded by love.As one blogger quipped yesterday, are the young couple getting married because Palin is a card-carrying member of the NRA?A number of us were already queasy that a mother of five (including a special needs child) would accept the nomination. Women have earned their way into every position in this society. That’s accepted.But Sarah Palin is a hypocrite if she waves the crown of motherhood while spend months on the campaign trail.You can’t have it both ways.As for young Bristol, poor kid. Shame on her mother for sacrificing her child’s privacy in order to further her own political ambitions.Look for my column in tomorrow’s Free Press.