Cross posted because of the moderation control at swampland, re a commenter trying to equate media coverage of pregnant Palin teen to intruding on Obama's Halloween evening.
This is such an amusingly rich incident of wingnuttery that it deserves comment.
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First, we've got the classic "Clinton did it too" argument. This is the twisted hypocrisy argument. Here, it seems to take the form of "Vile people in internet comment threads and open diaries spread baseless rumors about Trig's parentage and therefore it's okay for the traditional media to harass Obama and his kid on Halloween."
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Second, of course, it's inaccurate. The only reporting in the traditional media I saw about the Trig pregnancy came from the McCain campaign, blaming those rumors on the need to tell the public about the teenaged pregnant drop-out.
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Third, it's kinda stunning they should say that the coverage of this has been unduly negative. The fact that the Palins represent a living, breathing example of the effects of abstinence only pregnancy prevention, with two high school drop outs as the result, has not been spoken about much, speaks to quite a bit of self-restraint. When one tries to imagine the firestorm that would have erupted if even a sibling of one of the Obama's had a pregnant teenaged daughter, it's literally laughable that they could complain about the restraint the traditional media has shown.
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Finally, and seriously, this is a reminder of what digby said earlier this week. These people do not blink at hypocrisy, at all. They will, turning on a dime, violate the principle they are accusing you of violating five minutes ago. We are going to suddenly be told about the importance of divided government, of voting against party, and, most important, of the perils of a jack-booted all powerful executive. In the most lurid and dishonest terms, at the same time they try that the pursuing exactly the same issues in the past administration is entirely political in nature.
[crossing fingers. No preview. Long post. Did I say @ss by accident somewhere?]
4 comments:
"Harass"!
I hate to admit that I hadn't even really thought about the implications of the Palin family for "abstinence-only" education supporters. I'd gone along with the "family is off-limits" line of rationale and hadn't really thought about it.
As you point out, were this to be Obama's family, rest assured we'd all know as much about it, and is frightening implications, as we do about Wright, pigs w/ lipstick, socialism, and all the other distractions the GOP and its allies have drudged up to work themselves into a tizzy.
Jay,
I have been trying to make this point with my husband (whom I'm trying to wean away from the "Democrats are dangerous" meme), particularly when he goes into "one party control bad!" spasms.
This, one party control, was EXACTLY what Rove, DeLay et al. were aiming for, including SCOTUS. And they wanted it to be permanent. It wasn't merely Christmas-wish-list, wouldn't-it-be-nice-if thinking, it was the very heart of their strategy. Take control, hold control, impose the ideology at all levels and be damned to the people. Yet now these same people, and their history-challenged followers, clutch the pearls and hie themselves to the fainting couch at the notion of – GASP! – one party rule.
And, yes, the Bristol analogy applies as well. Jamie Lynn Spears (isn't that her name?) was a trollop and her parents clearly unfit, and aren't we all just outraged? But Bristol and the Palins are heroic, see how they live their pro-life beliefs, and aren't we all just warm and melty?
It is beyond maddening.
Does anyone have more recent info on Palin's position on abstinence-only education? From what I've heard, this is her only comment on the subject:
Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support. http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/01/1320417.aspx
If I were a social conservative, I'd say that's a very evasive answer. Especially since she's on record as being pro-contraception in general.
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