Does Palin want to have her cake, or eat it?

So, Bristol Palin is keeping her baby. In the words of Madonna, "uh, I'm gonna keep ma bay-bay!"

Please forgive the strange channeling of Madonna. I can only assure you that it happens infrequently.

The Republicans would like us to ignore this story. After all, it's a private family matter, right? No one else's business, right?

But wait.....did anyone mention this whole "private family business" line to Sarah Palin?

I mean....why is her knocked-up teen private family business that has no bearing on Palin's character/values/judgement, but the fact that her teen is keeping the baby proof of her supposedly superior character/values/judgement?

Why is Palin's decision to give birth to her most recent child somehow proof of her character/values/judgement, and not "personal family business that is strictly off-limits.?" Isn't exploiting your newborn's disability for political gain kind of disgusting? I think it is. She's essentially saying "Look at how messed up my kid is and I still kept him. That's how you can tell I'm a hard-core conservative." And that's sick - to use your child to burnish your political credentials.

Look - if it's private, then Palin should have said nothing at all. "No comment - my family's business is their business only." Once she agrees to discuss it, and then uses it to make herself look even better to the fundies, it ceases to be private. Which is a real shame for her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend.

One other thing - apparently Sarah Palin is proud of her daughter's decision, and proud that she's about to become a grandmother. And good for her. But does she realize that it's nothing but dumb luck that her daughter is carrying around a baby and not HIV? Or a nice case of syphilis? Unprotected sex sometimes doesn't result in babies. It can result in death, or severe illness. Would she be crowing about her values in action (abstinence only education, for example) if her daughter brought home a virus instead of a pregnancy?



I'd like to offer a few additional observations here:

1) I think it's really interesting that Palin has indicated that she and her family will be providing her daughter and her-presumably-soon-to-be son-in-law with support. And it's great that they are both willing and able to do so. I wonder if Palin and her family are against providing support for girls in similar situations who do not have such a supportive family? Because when that support is organized and universal....it's called welfare. If you're truly pro-life, put your god dammed money where your mouth is. Quit bitching about welfare queens. Quit telling lies about how all the welfare mothers are "living large" while all the responsible people have to work to pay for their ignorant and immoral lifestyles.

And if that support is not organized and universal, why on earth should a ban on abortion be organized and universal? Again, put your money where your mouth is. It's somehow moral for you to force a woman to use her body to give life to a potential person, but immoral for someone to force you to give less than one cent out of each tax dollar you pay to the federal government for the TANF program? Why are your tax dollars private but every woman's body is public?

2) If Obama has a pregnant, unwed, teen-age daughter....there is no way he'd have the nomination. If somehow he managed to obtain the nomination, the Republicans would be all over him. "Look, there's the result of liberal values at work. Kids having kids. There's no way his daughter can support herself. If he wasn't rich his daughter would be sucking off the government teat. I wonder if she's going on Maury to find out who the baby's daddy is. " And so on.