It looks as if my prediciton is finally coming true. I’ve been predicting that America was going to hell in a handbasket ever since the election that propelled Nixon into his second term. That paranoid, cheating, liar whipped like a yard dog the decent man and candidate that was the unflashy George McGovern and proved pretty resoundingly that the American voter can actually be slapped in the face with something like the Watergate break-in and still back the crook.
There’s been a steady slide in presidential leadership since then (Bill Clinton showed promise, but let his zipper problem get in the way). I thought that George W. Bush’s two disasterous terms were the nadir of American politics, but recent weeks indicate that we can sink even lower.
The Wall Street crisis/debacle seems to have come as an appalling shock to everyone. But wait! Haven’t we seen this kind of thing before, and didn’t we learn anything from the history of the Great Depression? Evidently not! Since the Reagan Administration, we’ve seen the dismantling of all the protections set forward during the administration of FDR. The bad times could never happen again. No Siree. Not possible. We’ll all get rich and have fried chicken and RC Cola and Moon Pies and live forever….if you’ll just let us deregulate this one more little thing.
I’m so upset about what is happening with our tenuous economy and how our “leaders” have handled it that I really can’t even write coherantly about it. But there is something I can write about. It’s Sarah Palin.
Governor Palin of Alaska first appeared on the national scene when John McCain, the Republican nominee for President suddenly invited her to join him at the top of the ticket. By now, it seems obvious that this decision was a cynical choice to try to gain disaffected Hillary Clinton voters. Or it was simply the latest evidence that McCain is growing senile.
How did McCain’s team come up with this choice anyway? No one would agree to his first choice of Joe Lieberman, who often appears with McCain in the unenviable position of “handler.” You see, Lieberman, though technically an Independent, actually served for many years as a Democrat and ran for vice president during the still-disputed 2000 election, as a Democrat. He often votes with the Democrats. Having him run alongside McCain would just be too weird.
McCain doesn’t like Mitt Romney, so that was out. There were too many negatives to choose the better known, more experienced people who live all over the country. Thus, Sarah Palin.
Here’s how well the McCain people vetted Palin. They didn’t. They left that untidy detail to Cindy McCain, the presidential candidate’s wife. Yep. And how well did Mrs. McCain do that job? It came out of the McCain camp (I mean they actually released this information) that Cindy McCain asked her if Palin thought that she had the time to be both the mother of five kids, one of them a special needs newborn, AND be the vice president of the country. Palin’s answered with a question of her own, “What does the vice president do?”
WHAT DOES THE VICE PRESIDENT DO?!
Did this woman take no civics courses in high school? How about an entry level government course in college, which she alleges to have graduated from? This is the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard from someone who purports not to be… well, ignorant.
Then, continuing with the obviously very deep vetting process with Cindy McCain, she answers, “I’m a mom. I can handle it.” By that logic, then every mother of any age in America is qualified to be vice president. I don’t think that’s the case.
Surely, surely, the McCain campaign went up to Alaska to further investigate Palin’s background, experience, and fitness to serve. Surely, they’d check for scandal. Well, guess again. When the national media were let in on the vice-presidential surprise and beat a path to Alaska to do research, as they should, they were met by media folk from the northernmost state who proclaimed, “We wondered when someone was going to come check her out. You guys are the first ones up here.”
Let’s look at that statement a little more closely. The media was told that no one in McCain’s campaign, nor the Republican National Committee, nor anyone who might be conceived as a Republican operative had been curious enough to investigate Palin’s background.
I won’t be so cynical as to question whether Ms. Palin ever deigned to drop the bombshell about her teen daughter’s pregnancy. Either she kept it a secret or she divulged it. The McCain campaign, if they didn’t know, got bamboozled by Palin. The McCain campaign, if they did know, tried to keep this info quiet until after the Republican convention. Then, they pretended that they knew all the time and thought it was a wonderful thing and tried to sell the American public on that. Unbelievable.
Even more unbelievably, if we are to believe the polls taken immediately after the convention and for several weeks thereafter, the American people did buy it. Heavens to Betsy, what are we coming to? Teen pregnancy, which the Republicans have preached against for decades as proof of the need for family values, their family values, was suddenly now okay.
It was widely reported that Republican operatives shone a bright, shiny light on the Palin’s family values. Mrs. Palin supported abstinence-only birth control programs in Alaskan schools. Well, I guess we can see how well that all worked out. But the Palin’s were lauded for not being hypocritical. Bristol would be keeping the baby and marrying the 18-year-old father. I wonder how much input the two of them had in that discussion.
A word must be said about the father-to-be, an 18-year-old high school hockey player. He has been described, by his friends, as “sex on skates.” That sums up just about every 18-year-old boy I’ve ever come in contact with, but just for argument let’s suggest that before the Palins allowed this person to date their daughter, whether or not they knew of his description, that they sat down with him and explained just exactly what they expected of him while he was in the company of their daughter. Governor Palin could come to the meeting with a prop, say her moose gun. Her big, ole husband, the blue-collar worker who looks plenty strong could be in the room, looking grim. This might even be the time to bury the hatchett with that ex-brother-in-law, the state trooper, and have him in attendance.
Call it a teachable moment. The young fellow may have dropped Bristol Palin like a hot rock or he might have been less likely to make the moves on her. Either way these young people would be less likely to be faced with an unplanned pregnancy and way too early marriage.
It may not have made any difference at all. Even way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, when I was growing up, such things happened, just not with so much frequency. All through my high school years, and some of my junior high years, I witnessed one girlfriend after another fall by the wayside through unplanned pregnancy. Each was a victim of teen sex, inadequate birth control, and a social system that preached, “Just Don’t Do It.”
I suspected something was amiss with the Palins during that first introduction of Governor Palin and her family. One thing you can say for them is that they are a telegenic bunch. That was quite a tableau that we were presented with. The undeniably pretty Palin, her hunk of a husband, the great-looking kids, the new baby that was supposed to be an advertisement for the no-abortion-for-any-reason-ever crowd.
But wait! I noticed something that didn’t seem quite right. In those first moments, as Palin afflicted us with her uncharming accent, I saw that they had put the oldest daughter in charge of the four-month-old baby. And she was holding the child strangely. Bristol Palin had the baby in front of her, not the way one normally would hold a young one, especially one with a problem. I saw the awkwardness of the eldest Palin daughter and wondered two things: (1) Why is that kid holding the baby instead of the father or another surrogate for the mother? and (2) Why is she holding him like that?
She had to hold the baby in that fashion for quite a while, long enough to test the back of the strongest unpregnant 17-year-old. And then, of course, we all learned the truth within a few days. She held her little brother in order to hide her own pregnancy. I’ve got to question Governor Palin’s concern for at least two of her children. Why on Earth would any caring parent put her pregnant unmarried teen-age daughter through that? Why would she put the girl in charge of the baby that obviously needs the undivided attention of a committed adult?
I have nothing but the most sympathetic feelings toward Bristol Palin. She has been thrust onto the world stage at arguably the most vulnerable time of her young life. She’s been the subject of all sorts of media and civilian reports (some from her classmates). She’s been the butt of jokes.
I recently attended the musical Spamalot on Broadway. It’s in its third year, but producers obviously are making an effort to change jokes to keep the play fresh. Toward the end of the play, one character, a talking tree, states, “I am the real father of Bristol Palin’s baby.” The comment was met with a couple of seconds of silence while the audience pondered it, then the audience broke into sustained laughter and applause.
Okay, Bristol Palin was not there, so she wasn’t embarrassed at that moment. But this is the kind of thing that has been thrown at her since this announcement. If her mother and father didn’t anticipate something like this, they should have. Shame on them. She’s seventeen and she needs the undivided support of her mother. However, she has been required to support her mother in her mother’s quest for high office. That ain’t fair. That’s not devoted motherhood, that’s overweening ambition.
And while we’re on this loving mom topic, let’s discuss the baby, little Trigg Palin. Bless his heart. Who’s looking out for his best interests? Not mama! She’s got bigger fish to fry.
Here’s what Palin did when she was in this pregnancy. They did the necessary tests, so they knew that the baby would have Downs Syndrome. They elected to continue the pregnancy. Well, good for them. But see what she did after that and you’ll begin to wonder just how committed Miss Sarah was to delivering a healthy special needs child.
Palin flew to Texas to attend a governor’s conference. Her water broke there. Well, if you have to be away from home when you’re about to give birth, you could do a lot worse than to go to a big city Texas hospital. You could, for instance, go to an Alaskan hospital in a small town. I have relatives who live in Alaska, and even they don’t go to Alaskan hospitals. But that’s what Palin did. She hailed a plane and flew 12 hours back to Alaska to have the baby. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is, for mother and baby?
I’ve had two babies myself, many years ago, thank goodness. The memory lives with me. After having my water break on its own with one kid and having it broken in the hospital with the other, I can attest to the fact that many, many babies come within the hour after the mother’s water breaks. Both of mine did. I’ve also known lots of women who had the same happen to them. I guess it’s possible to cross your legs for twelve hours so you can fly home to have your child (perhaps for political reasons?), but why on earth would you choose to do that? It’s bizarre and unsafe.
It’s apparent that Governor Palin does not have a clue about certain guidelines concerning the childbirth process. I can’t believe that any woman who’s already had four babies has to be prompted on this, but let’s help her out here. First, if you are pregnant, and it’s not quite time yet, and your water breaks, go immediately to a hospital in the place where you are actually standing. Second, do the same if your water breaks and you go into labor. Third, if said labor is premature and you are going to deliver either a healthy baby or a special needs baby, go directly to a hospital where you are. Fourth, do not get on an airplane, espcially for a 12 hour flight. Fifth, there is no fifth.
So now that little Trigg is here, and by some miracle he’s been able to survive his birth, he’s hardly had a chance to sleep in his own crib. He’s being trucked from one place to another and is hardly where he needs to be, which is in his mother’s arms. I’m not suggesting that she breast-feed him during an interview, but my gosh, could she show him a little concern?
I mentioned to my husband last week that I had yet to see Palin carry or otherwise hold this child. Barack Obama picks up more kids not his own daily than I’ve seen Palin do to her own. Then last week there was footage of her carrying the baby down the steps of an airplane. Finally, I thought. But the manner in which she carried this child was strange for the mother of any baby, especially of one descending from a place where an accidental fall might occur, like an airplane. And she carried him exactly like our two daughters used to tote around their dolls and the family cat. It was absent-minded and lackadaisacal. Her body language told a lot.
Is anybody asking how attentive a parent Sarah Palin can possibly be to that baby and her other children if she is the second highest officer in our land? I remember when I was a young mom. I had no babies with special needs, other than the special needs that all babies have, which adds up to 24-hour a day, 7 day a week attention and work.
One of my daughters seemed to arrive on the planet with no need for sleep. She was not an easy baby, but very loveable, which served her well. I spent nearly the first two years of her life with her attached to my hip. It was necessary. The only way I could get her to sleep was to lie on a couch with her on my belly and chest and then to stroke her until she fell asleep for a few blessed minutes or hours. Sometime during the third month I believe that I began to hallucinate from lack of sleep, but I adored her. We all survived that time, but that is not an atypical experience. A baby requires the attention of its mother.
I decided that I would not vote for Sarah Palin the second I saw Trigg Palin. I would love to have a woman be vice president or president, but I am not so cynical that I would vote for one who would not be good for the country or her family.
It has also been reported that Sarah Palin’s quest for high office is not a new thing. Someone who was a mentor in Alaska told her before she ran for mayor of Wasilla that she had a future in politics and stated that with luck and hard work Palin could someday be the governor of Alaska. Palin replied, “I want to be president.” Am I the only person who finds that an incredible statement? It’s not quite as egomaniacal as George W. Bush’s comment that he thought that God wanted him to become President, but it’s in the same territory. We saw where that led us, didn’t we?
And, of course, in the past few weeks we’ve been treated to the many ways that Palin needs to be kept away from the White House. Numerous interviews prove that she has no grasp of national or international issues. I don’t care how long the Republicans prep her for interviews or for her debate, she pretty much doesn’t know squat.
In a former life I was a teacher. I’ve taught in junior high, high school, and college. I know the Palin “I-don’t-know-anything-about-this” look well. It’s pretty easy to discern when she’s been caught off-guard, and it’s hardly ever with a “Gotcha!” question. The Katie Couric interviews are now the stuff of legend. The only way Couric could have made it easier for Palin was to ask her what her favorite color was.
All of Couric’s questions were simple, straight-forward stuff, but Palin either said something ridiculous, resorted to gibberish, acted cute, or got that look that says, “Oh, no. I didn’t study this.” In my teaching days, I called it the “There are those who say….. and then there are others who say….” It’s a time-worn tactic of the unprepared and/or the not-very bright. And they always are surprised and upset when it doesn’t work.
For her part, Couric either looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing or that the phrase, “What the Hell?” just ran through her mind.
The vice-presidential debates are tomorrow night. If Palin does what I think she can’t help from doing, this whole messy business should be over soon. Surely at long last, the American people can recognize all of this as what it is and we can begin the long road back to sanity and decent government in this country.