The Gift That Keeps On Giving

My, my, isn't this a fascinating time in which we live? The revelations about President Palin ( think about that for a moment...then move on) just get better and better...unless you think about the actual ramifications for our country, which John McCain always puts first. Unless Karl Rove tells him to do otherwise.

So, as Governor of Alaska, President Palin slashed funding for a teenaged mothers program. Perfect. Now it appears she tried to get her daughter to get married right after the convention. Her people say the young couple planned to marry all along. So, umm, why didn't President Palin introduce her as " my engaged daughter"?

Scott Simon of NPR interviewed a Palin spokesperson over the weekend, asking about President Palin's foreign travel. The flack, whose name I can't recall, answered that she had traveled abroad and seen other countries besides Germany and Kuwait, where President Palin had visited Alaska National Guard troops. Initially evasive when pressed to say which other countries, the flack finally answered "She''s been to Ireland."

And indeed she has. In the airport. On the stopover to Germany. The sum of her overseas experience is an Irish airport, an Army base in Germany, and an Army base in Kuwait.

Hey, that's a thick enough foreign policy resume for ME...but what do *I* know?

President Palin's campaign people have said that her daughter and the young man she is going to marry, Levi Johnston, should be left alone and should have their privacy. Which is why President Palin's campaign is bringing Levi Johnston's family to the convention. To the Republican National Convention. Where there are, ohhh, I dunno, 14,853 journalists and photographers, news crews from around the world, ( even Ireland! Where President Palin has been!), and talking heads of every stripe. So they can get some privacy.

( I wonder if FOX News, they of the "fair and balanced", will refer to Bristol Palin as Levi johnston's "baby mama"? Wanna take a bet?)

My guess is, they are hoping that the media frenzy surrounding them will disgust people. Whether that will translate into votes for McCain is debateable.

But lawdy, ain't they cynical?

Now on to John McCain's family values. People Magazine has a cover story on the Palin and McCain families, with pictures of the families. Wait a second...what's wrong with this picture?

Where's Bridget?

You know, Bridget McCain, his daughter adopted from Bangladesh, the one Karl Rove and Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager, called his "illegitimate black baby" in South Crolina in 2000?

Why isn't Bridget in the picture? More importantly, who made that decision to leave her out of the family portrait that would be prominently displayed in every supermarket aisle in America? Did Steve Schidt say "Senator, we can't have her in the picture. It just won't fly in middle America"? And McCain said yes? So McCain, the maverick, is getting told what to do by Steve Schmidt? Or McCain, the maverick, made the decision as a dad to leave his daughter out of the picture.

Either way, what a guy. As a father of a daughter by adoption, let me just say I am appalled.

Now, let's talk about families for a moment. Barack Obama is absolutely right that children should be off limits when we discuss the presidential race.

But as Barney Frank says today in the Boston Herald, they are the ones who brought up her family, and family values, as part of her qualifications for the Presidency. And the Republican party has for years presented themselves as the arbiter of American Family Values. Heck, even James Dobson, right wing religious fanatic, leads a group called Focus on the Family.

So, it's a conundrum. Is it legitimate to ask how effective abstinence only sex education is when the daughter of a vigorous proponent of abstinence, as in President Palin, gets pregnant out of wedlock? Is it fair to use her as an example?

Or should we leave them alone, and focus on the fact that a President McCain is likely to lead to a President Palin? And that their policies will just continue Bush's policies in education, energy, foreign policy, and tax policy?

I have to admit, it's always delicious to dish on Republican hypocrisy. But I am not sure it really gets us further down the road. So, I will attempt to avoid concentrating on the continuing President Palin Soap Opera.

But don't hate me for occasionally straying if it gets REALLY juicy. I'm only human.