The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand
Posted on September 1, 2008 at 3:09 pmThe revelation that 17 year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant will have an impact on this race, no question. Some “politically and culturally savvy” Republicans will no doubt question the already questionable pick and Democrats will pounce on the fact that, yet again, a socially conservative pol who cautions abstinence for others did not seem to instill those values in her own teenage daughter.
Couple this with the fact that Sarah Palin herself may not have had a ring on her finger when she conceived her first child and we have the makings of an political flashpoint which will not soon die down.
Make no mistake, whatever you think of Sarah Palin and how she runs her family, the fact that we now have a Vice Presidential nominee running for the second highest office in the land with teenage daughter set to give birth right around inauguration day is a big deal.
The attacks on Sarah and Bristol Palin, whether from sanctioned surrogates or not, will continue no matter what Barack Obama says. Campaigns in the internet age have had and will continue to have trouble containing their message and that is why, in the end, the Republican Party should be glad this happened.
As a friend just told me after the news broke, the left is fully unprepared to win this debate. He may not have meant it how I heard it, but he is right nonetheless. The Left does not understand the fundamental nature of the socially conservative mind. That, and what is likely to be their over-exuberance in attacking what they perceive as hypocrisy, will be their downfall.
Bristol Palin has single-handedly dealt the Republican Party its winning hand. With an economy in decline and an unpopular war started by Republicans, Bristol Palin’s unborn baby has now made the Culture War the focal point of this election. This is one ground and, in fact, the only ground on which Republicans can win this election.
In 1992, when the Republican Party was facing a similar prospect, Pat Buchanan gave his famous speech on the Culture War. The speech was roundly criticized but what many failed to recognize and what was lost in the subsequent mythology around the speech was that the exit polls the day after he spoke, George H.W. Bush’s poll numbers went up, not down.
Buchanan explained his speech’s focus on culture not so much as personal preference, but as a tactical imperative. George Bush had broken his no new taxes pledge. America was on the precipice of a recession and the Bush victory in the Gulf War was all but forgotten. The Culture War was all the Republicans had.
Same as it ever was. Cutting to 2008, the Cultural War is again all Republicans have. What failed in 1992, however, may save John McCain because this time it is not Pat Buchanan, angry white male stoking up fear and resentment on behalf of an unwilling standard bearer. This time it is the kinder, gentler social conservative, Sarah Palin. This time it is a woman with a stake in a game, a pregnant teenage daughter. And Palin will get to fight the war, not as invading offender, but as a victim in defense of her child and family, as well as her values.
The Obama campaign may realize that their supporters are about to give John McCain the upper-hand but with the explosion of the internet they will be unable to stem the tide of a netroots community far too eager to expose the hypocrisy of one more wayward social conservative.
The Left on the internet and elsewhere will attack this mother of five for failing to live up to the code that she preaches. They will explain that this is proof that traditionalism doesn’t work. That the religious right is a fraud. That the preaching of abstinence is a fool’s errand. They will explain all this thinking they have just laid down the trump card when all they have done is hand it to the opposition.
I say again. John McCain cannot win this campaign on Iraq. He cannot win it on the economy. He is not the most charismatic man in the world and he has trouble with his base. That last one, of course, is the kicker. Bristol Palin just solved his problem.
All the talk this election has been how Barack Obama will expand the electoral pie. He will get the votes that went to Al Gore and John Kerry but he will couple them with his new voters, the young and the black and win a sweeping majority.
However, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and Bristol Palin is that reaction. Sarah Palin now has the capability of being what Hillary Clinton claimed to be — a hero of the blue collar working class.
Sarah Palin is a working mom with five kids who managed to become Governor of her state. Now Palin has been confronted with the great fear, and for many, the difficult reality of a pregnant teenage daughter. Sarah Palin lived by a code and tried to have her kids live by it as well. Did she fail?
Maybe she did. But as many parents know, you do the best you can with your children.
The Left will fight this battle as a political debate. They will argue that Bristol Palin proves their assertions about traditionalism. They will lay it out point by point. The evidence will be solid. And their case will make sense — in theory.
But this is not theory, and to a certain extent its not even politics, this is life. Steve Schmidt is not wrong when in reaction to the news he says, “Life happens.”
Life does happen. It happens again and again to people in rural America who go to church, work and pray hard. Everyday life happens. Despite their prayers, it happens.
The Left simply misunderstands the Cultural War because they believe that social and religious conservatives think they are perfect people. Rural, working class people know exactly who they are. The Left seems to think that they are somehow breaking the news to social conservatives that sometimes, even often, kids will have sex and get pregnant. Social conservatives know these things. They are not as divorced from reality as they sometimes get painted.
You see, conservatives have code by which they live that accounts for it all. Whether they are “right” or “wrong” is immaterial. It is the Left’s misunderstanding which is important here.
Conservatives know they are imperfect. Instead of embracing the imperfection and “giving up” they instead prefer to strive for something better.
Now, whether this outlook is conservative outlook is true or untrue, healthy or unhealthy is, again, not the point, politically speaking. Telling the American working class that Sarah Palin was wrong to have tried to bring up her daughters by a code in which she believed and that Bristol Palin’s unborn child is the proof that the Left’s arguments about traditional life are true will not resonate with anyone who is not already an Obama voter.
The Left cannot win this Battle of Bristol. The more they try to win it, to demonstrate they are right, the more they will lose ground with those voters they desperate need to stay home or vote for Barack Obama.
For what the Left sees as hypocrisy, most folks who are not Obama voters just see as falling short. As, of course, we, as humans, all do.
Bristol Palin’s journey is a human story. She tried to be good. She fell short. Instead of aborting the baby she will carry it to term and marry the father. To socially conservative America, there is nothing tragic about this.
You see, to many of the voters Barack Obama has not yet seemed to reach and who have thus far been ambivalent about McCain, this is exactly how these things are supposed to go. Their reality has not been shaken, the scales have not fallen from their eyes.
Sarah Palin did nothing “wrong.” And Bristol Palin did nothing other than sin, which we all do. She is now managing her sin as prescribed by tradition. To the traditionalist the situation is not ideal, no, but it is not a disaster.
This is a human story. The more the left attacks, attempts to expose “hypocrisy”, the more the personal will very much become the political. Unfortunately it will become political in a way that leads all those hard working Bubbas, all those church-going single mommas, right out to the polls to vote for that war hero and and those women they now identify with, Sarah and Bristol Palin.
To the Left, this situation looks like that big fat change-up they have been waiting for coming right across the plate. Let me assure you, friends, what is coming at you is a knuckleball, a greased pig with wings.
You are gonna want to take this pitch. You may win the “argument”, but you will lose the election.
SEE ALSO:
The Evangelical Daily Double
Jon Wright
Chris Sanders
Ilissa Gold
Moore Thoughts
Comments
97 Responses to “The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand”
My friends, this is not the kind of theory on culture war that we can believe in.
I think you’re right Klondike. I know you’re right when you articulate that most liberals, and even establishment Republicans, don’t understand traditional conservatives.
[...] The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upperhand : Post Politics: Political News and Views in Te… writes September 1st, 2008 3:09 pm [...]
Imagine this post. Now imagine this post and replace “Sarah Palin” with “Hillary Clinton” and “Bristol Palin” with “Chelsea Clinton.”
Oh what a different story we would have. And that is the hypocrisy that is the real tragedy.
Life happens, indeed. But if life happened to a Sarah Palin who happened to have a “D” next to her name, would she still be a “hero of the blue collar working class” the Dobsons and the Lands and the right-wing smear machine?
The Left may not understand the fundamental nature of the socially conservative mind, but those that do understand it all too well. And they exploit it fully to their political advantage.
If all humans sin and all humans fall short, then shouldn’t all humans be forgiven, no matter what their sin and not matter what letter they have beside their name?
This is perhaps the most redundant screed I’ve ever read, with the most overdone argument.
So Mama brainwashes her kid for 17 years that abortion is evil and limits the kid’s choices, emotionally and practically, if (thank goodness) not legally.
Now what is this young couple waiting for to get married? A paternity test?
Imagine this post. Now imagine this post and replace “Sarah Palin” with “Hillary Clinton” and “Bristol Palin” with “Chelsea Clinton.”
Oh what a different story we would have. And that is the hypocrisy that is the real tragedy.
Life happens, indeed. But if life happened to a Sarah Palin who happened to have a “D” next to her name, would she still be a “hero of the blue collar working class” to the Dobsons and the Lands and the rest of the right-wing smear machine?
The Left may not understand the fundamental nature of the socially conservative mind, but those that do understand it all too well. And they exploit it fully to their political advantage.
If all humans sin and all humans fall short, then shouldn’t all humans be forgiven, no matter what their sin and no matter what letter they have beside their name?
This is a plus. As Mark Steyn points out in his recent best seller, America Alone, if our western civilization is demographically to survive in the increasingly “hostile to the west” islamic world — and not end up like the sinking European populations — these are the precise people (the Bristol Palins’) we should thank for increasing their progeny.
The problem is that these hypocrites on the right are constantly trying to impose their ineffective policies on the rest of us.
Maybe “family values” Palin and her oil executive and skimobile racer husband should work on their OWN family before they have anything to say about AMERICAN families.
If you want to push “abstinence only” education in your own family (and reap the consequences like Palin), fine.
But keep your ineffective philosophies to yourself.
Actually, ACK’s pretty much correct on every count in this post. If lefties really think that this subject is some kind of winner for them, they’re going to screw this up een more than they already are, which is pretty bad already.
This is an issue - and poor Bristol Palin is under international scrutiny as she goes through a tough patch - because Sarah Palin and John McCain made it so.
A lot of parents, fathers and mothers, given a shot at a big job that would mean hardship for their family, would say, “Not now.”
McCain knew, Sarah Palin knew, that if she became the VP candidate her daughter would become a political football for the international pundit class. They knew that, for life, she would be that kid that was knocked up during a presidential campaign. She will carry the notoriety until the day she dies.
It wasn’t necessary. Her mom could have said, not this year. McCain could have said, spare the child and pick someone else. But they both put their perceived political advantage above the welfare of this suffering child.
To me, that’s the issue. I know plenty of people who turn down jobs because they won’t subject their kids to a move away from friends and family. I know plenty of people who put what’s right for their kids ahead of what’s fun for them.
Do we really want people running the country whose first act as a unified ticket was to throw a 17 year old under the paparazzi bus?
Life is a country song.
Not sure why Post Politics chose to issue its longest screed ever about this subject, especially when you’re wrong.
Your argument is that because democrats don’t understand the “conservative” mind, they will mess this up and heand John McCain an election. Well, the fact is the people with the “conservative” minds were already voting for John McCain. Democrats need to win over people with the “middle” minds, i.e. moderates.
Those people will see this for what it is: if Barack Obama had a 17 year old daughter that was pregnant, James Dobson and Bill Hobbs and probably Post Politics would be jumping up and down and hysterically decrying a “lack of values”.
The moderates, the middle people who decide elections, will see through this, and I am surprised Kleinheider didnt get that somewhere around the 29th paragraph of his repetitive opus.
This election was already over, but it is really over now, and will be the first election since McGovern chose Eagleton that a VP pick really screwed things up.
McCain-Palin will probably win.
If lefties really think that this subject is some kind of winner for them, they’re going to screw this up
Because everyone knows that only Republicans corner the market on disingenuous pandering to social conservatives.
Actually, i don’t disagree that liberals should stick to the economy and to foreign affairs as winning issues. The pregnancy issue is a diversion. There are plenty of other qualities about Sarah Palin that potentiall make her a drag on the ticket in a more mainstream context.
But ACK’s generalizations about liberals and their tactics in the culture war are caricatures as much as “conservatives think they’re perfect” is a caricature.
The callousness of her mother and McCain for going ahead with full knowledge of what they are doing to this child/mother is the most cogent point made anywhere in all this. And ACK’s trying to say that it is okay for social conservatives to blink at this one personal tragedy (as long as she has the baby and marries the father) but to foam at the mouth over inner city welfare mothers and illegal immigrants giving birth to US citizens shows the same lack of humanity and humility that he is trying to condemn.
Here’s an example of a liberal position that doesn’t fit ACK’s generalizations about liberals:
We don’t care about Palin’s daughter. Her life is her own. She’s not running for anything. What this does show is much more confirmation of what Republican operatives and pols are saying loquaciously off-the-record: that they don’t think there was any real vetting of Palin. Acting out from the McCain camp will not change that.
Contrary to Roger Abramson’s comment, I would argue that such is an effective progressive argument concerning the pregnancy that is appropriately focused criticism.
[...] Kleinheider understand the conservative moral ethos better than anyone I’ve read who’s on the Left: However, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and Bristol Palin is that reaction. Sarah Palin now has the capability of being what Hillary Clinton claimed to be — a hero of the blue collar working class. [...]
It’s cold–Sarah and Bristol sought out the warmth in the darkness, okay I get it. I won’t dwell on it for a long time, nor should the liberal blogosphere. But I don’t think this is a cultural winner for McCain and even more so for Palin. Palin has single-handedly shown that abstinence-based education is a farce and that yelling at kids that “even if you are brutally raped you will carry the child, and who the heck knows what a condom is” will not lower the pregnancy rate, but increase it.
[...] think Kleinheider is probably correct in the essentials that attacking Palin on her family life is bad, bad strategy for the left. Obama knows this, and that’s part of [...]
To Mary Mancini: The answer to your question is yes. Bill and Hillary were embraced when they were open about the struggles in their marriage. If Chelsea had gotten pregnant AND carried the child to term she would have been supported and commended by the Dobsons and the local pastors. Oh of course there would have been the whack job preachers who would have thundered against the immorality of it all but that would have been the exception. The presumption among many liberal people is that the blowhard/judgemental/extremist preacher is the norm.
I don’t think this pregnancy is that big of a deal.
Maybe it will turn out to be more important than Iraq, more important than the economy.
Maybe the “culture war” is the most important thing in America.
God help us all if that’s true.
BTW, did you have too much coffee today?
Dr. Kennedy,
If you honestly believe that the Dobsons et al would have embraced Chelsea Clinton rather than attempting to hang her from the nearest tree, then you must not remember the 90s all that well. These people are partisan to the core. It will always be far more acceptable for a Republican to be in this situation.
Anyone, who is a true Christian and parent, knows the single most important thing we do in life is raise our children. They are the charge God bestowed on us and are more important than any job or position.
This woman has a severely disabled infant and a pregnant unwed teenager. Both children need a lot of attention and time from their mother. The father sure isn’t filling the void. How could anyone, who claims to be a Christian, support voting this woman into a position which will take her out of the daily life of these troubled children more so than she already is?
Yes, this is a culture war. It will separate true Christians from the cardboard cut-out types.
If this is all that there is to the story, that Palin’s daughter was knocked up, its not a big deal. My Mom conceived my brother before she was 18, and I know many other women who have done the same.
However, the press release they put out today just doesn’t make a lot of sense. So far as I could tell, nobody was theorizing that Bristol Palin was currently pregnant, rather, that she was the mother of Trig and that Sarah Palin covered it up by claiming him as her own. Implausible? Probably…easily refutable? Yes.
It just seems awfully coincidental that as this theory was going out, the McCain camp responds saying she wasn’t pregnant then, but is now, and she conceived at the same time Trig was born.
Coincidence? Quite possibly, but if I were a Republican I’d want to be absolutely sure now, rather than one month from now after the National Enquirer starts spreading money around a small Alaskan town.
The other major issue is that McCain’s attack on the liberal blogosphere over the parentage of Trig came in reaction to an article that was rebutted very well in the Daily Kos. They showed that women who are 44 are 4% likely to give birth to a child with Down’s Syndrome while a 16 year old is only .005% likely to have a child with Down’s Syndrome–it was never something that was getting traction. Calling it an Obama smear is laughable, it was a non-issue that they have made into the number two disaster story of the news cycle.
I was born when my mother was 17. She was married and then pregnant at 16. Very common back then in wartime and in the years right after WWII. I do consider my mother’s life an abortion because she married and had kids so young. My father did not really want to be married — he needed to have some youth after 3 years of combat as a teenager — and they eventually divorced.
GoldnI, The poster below you - Meg - is a good example of someone with a distorted Christianity. She probably would have hung Chelsea from a tree. Most Christians, in my experience, and most people of good will regardless of denomination, are not like that. Perhaps you focus too much on those who wear their Christianity on their sleeve… often a bad sign.
And Braisted, didn’t you get Obama’s memo? Didn’t he say to back off?
Like I said, if that is all there was to the story, then it doesn’t have to do with Sarah Palin, and therefore shouldn’t be an issue.
I had just seen a report early this morning about Palin’s son not really being hers, and then to rebut the argument they put out a statement saying she is pregnant, just not when people think she was.
A plausible explanation I hadn’t thought about was simply that someone found out a small detail about the truth, concocted their own timeline and story details, and that forced the campaign to acknowledge the real truth. If that is what happened, I have no problem with her 17 year old daughter being pregnant, and don’t think it reflects in any way on the Governor.
Good recovery Sean. I think Klondike’s post though is very good, very insightful. Some big mouths on the left will have a hard time keeping their respective mouths shut and bloviate on sex education, a mother’s role, that people who sin are hypocrites etc.
It is nice that he, Klondike, is allowed to let us know what he thinks every once in a while.
Well, I’ll be more than happy to criticize her position on sex-ed, as I think it is a very bad one for American boys and girls. However, I also have known of plenty of girls who have gone through sex-ed, and still gotten pregnant, so its not a panacea answer, but most certainly should be part of the equation.
People who sin are not hypocrites. People who sin and then turn around and attempt to shame others for committing the same sin are hypocrites. I’m seeing plenty of them coming out of the woodwork right now, in spite of your assurances that they’re not “real Christians.” I wouldn’t know what that means anyway, I’m not Christian.
First, this isn’t the first right-wing (supposedly) Christian person to do the exact opposite of their teachings, and it won’t be the last. GoldnI is correct when she points out that if this had been Chelsea Clinton, the Goopers would have gone insane and demanded that she be put in prison. it’s the principle of IOKIYAR at work.
Really, I’m so used to Republicans blaming Democrats for the bad things the GOP does (and does them worse and more often, it’s called projection, people) that I could care less who shtupped Bristol Palin.
What we SHOULD care about is that SARAH Palin and her husband belonged, until recently, to a crackpot group in Alaska called the Alaska Independence Party. They believe that the statehood vote in 1959 was INVALID, that the federal government has gone way too far in enforcing environmental regulation, and believes Alaska should secede from the Union.
Wackos, nutjobs, fruitcakes. And THIS is the person that John McCain believesisready to step in if he doesn’t make it through a first term? Someone who has been in higher office less time that THIS McCain campaign has existed?
That, my friends, says more about McCain and what the GOP has become than the fact that Bristol Palin got knocked up, THAT is the issue.
It’s time to leave the insanity and chaos behind.
Besides, people, I’m almost 50, and I know what REAL conservatives are and are supposed to be; these people are not conservatives, they’re nutjobs.
They make the late Mr. Buckley look like a Dirty F—ing Hippie by comparison.
Oy.
One last thing: it is that “code” to which AC refers that has this country in the worst shape it has known since the beginning of the Civil War.
If we don’t stop it here and now, there may well be another one, and NO ONE will win that one. America will be dead and gone.
Doesn’t this just boil down to presuming that “regular folks” who have problems of their own will relate to the complications of Palin’s family life? But how many “regular folks” are a freaking governor, and a governor’s family, and isn’t there an expectation that our leaders represent something higher than the regular foibles of regular people?
This is a lesson in advanced apologetics. Outside of the already-committed Republicans, who have and will choked down ANYTHING, including the despised McCain, to hold onto power, I can’t see anyone– especially moderates– thinking that they want to be led by this example.
Great post ACK. And the moralistic Left (or simply, The Left) is reaching for that knuckler.
And Goldnl, remind me how old you were during “the 90s”?
Old enough to know that you and the esteemed Dr. Kennedy would have probably been among those trying to hang Chelsea Clinton from that proverbial tree had she been in this situation.
This may be the single wisest post AC has ever written.
GoldnI, You seem like a decent person. Please don’t grow into one of those people who demonize constantly those with whom they disagree.
I think people are led by what they want to be led by. The strict moralists already had doubts about McCain — Palin’s daughter’s situation isn’t going to make much difference on the matter. Never doubt the power of rationalization. People who are thinking about the issues and trying to make up their minds rationally are going to see this as a non-issue, and people who don’t think but vote from slogans or party-bases will vote for who they were going to vote for anyway.
Mary Mancini - try basing your thoughts on reality rather than what you imagine. Imagine enough and you can rationalize anything.
[...] Post Politics | The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand [...]
Kleinhelder,
“With an economy in decline and an unpopular war started by Republicans….”
Cute, but I wouldn’t exactly call an economy growing at 3.3%, as has just been announced, “in decline.” Or maybe you just have higher standards than the rest of us?
Furthermore, we’ve effectively won that “unpopular war” in Iraq. I guess you also didn’t see the announcement that we’ve turned Al Anbar over to the Iraqis. Al Qaida in Iraq won’t be signing any surrender agreements on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri with us, but it’s rapidly fading away and that’s every bit as good as a victory.
Indeed, in 50 years, military historians will likely look back on our effort in Iraq and say, “Given all the political, legal, and military constraints and mistakes imposed and made, it’s nothing short of astonishing that we still defeated a singularly fanatical, sophisticated, and vicious insurgency on its home turf.”
McCain and all Republicans can also win on Energy - drilling for oil. So Palin helps in two winning areas. And Palin also helps with her history of fighting corruption and cutting wasteful spending, two more areas which resonate with the public.
Mary Mancini, you hit the nail on the head. While I think it is completely irrelevant to Palin’s qualifications that her daughter may have gotten pregnant outside of wedlock, if this were to happen to a Democrat, the religious right and their media lap dogs would be making this the central issue of the campaign. It would not only be “relevant,” but it would be the best evidence of the Dem’s lack of fitness for office. That is the real hypocrisy. It’s only irrelevant because it happened to one of them.
Having said that, while I often disagree with ACK, I think this post is very insightful. Democrats need to get off this pregnancy issue and get off it quickly. Far from causing McCain to LOSE votes, ironically, Palin’s family “failure” to follow the values they preach will be just the thing to WIN this election for the Republicans on that very family values issue. Is it hypocritical that they will “forgive” one of their Republican own for merely being “human” and “falling short” when they would use the same facts on the Dem side as evidence of lack of fitness for office? Perhaps, but that doesn’t make ACK any less correct about how it will play out. ACK also insightfully articulates just why the liberals will think they are scoring points when they actually giving the election away.
Good post, ACK. I find this dynamic infuriating, but you are dead-on accurate in your description of it.
Kleinheider says, “…an unpopular war started by Republicans.”
I had no idea Osama Bin Laden and his radical Islamists were Republicans!
[...] A.C. KLEINHEIDER: [...]
How can the left criticize Palin without alienating a big chunk of their demographic, many of whom have had two kids by the age of 17?
[...] http://politics.nashvillepost.com/2008/0…; [...]
Hey, Anton,
>>>I had no idea Osama Bin Laden and his radical Islamists were Republicans!<<<
Well, I had no idea Osama Bin Laden had something to do with us going to war in Iraq!
Oh, that’s right. . . he didn’t. Try to follow the bouncing ball. The war in Iraq is absolutely “an unpopular war started by Republicans,” as AC calls it, and that has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden or 911.
Your analysis is spot on. Here’s hoping your conclusions are as well.
“How can the left criticize Palin without alienating a big chunk of their demographic, many of whom have had two kids by the age of 17?”
No, the left’s demographic is people sitting in Starbucks while trash-talking “corporations” and still trying to decide, at 35, whether they want kids. These are the people who are sure they’re smarter than everyone else, and who don’t understand social conservatives.
It’s not that they really think Sarah Palin is a hypocrite, it’s that they think she’s a stupid hick and they now have permission to ridicule her in public. Because of that, they’re showing their ass in a big way to a segment of the population that will now show up and vote just to spite them. I think Obama understands this, which is why his strong statement on privacy for families. Too bad nobody else in his camp does.
LeftWingCracker - forgetting the bizzarely wrong notion that this country is in anywhere near as bad a shape as it was around the Civil War (Great Depression anyone?), I’ll just say that if your Next Civil War does materialize my money’s on the side that hasn’t sworn off the right to bear arms.
[...] LeftWingCracker - forgetting the bizzarely wrong… [...]
Stacey,
Based on your comment, you appear as ignorant about how the liberal mind works as many liberals are about how the conservative mind works. But I realize that it makes it easier for to continue to cling to poorly-thought-out positions if you can avoid substantive discussion by merely painting anyone who disagrees with such broad-brush strokes.
I return to my initial comment about ACK’s post - he nails it! He has articulated just how many liberals don’t get it, and how they may give away the election, all the while thinking they are scoring points, because on average they just don’t understand how the other side thinks. Well done AC. Obviously, it’s a problem that exists on both sides, but in this instance it is going to bite the Dems.
When you read the liberal comments, above, you will understand why this author, Kleinheider, has it exactly right! The left do not understand, and they are simply going to pile on with the hypocrisy charge, which won’t work. The comments above PROVE this.
There is truth to the idea that had this been Chelsie and Hillary and Bill, the right would have attacked. That is in fact sad. But what I have seen for the last twenty years, is that both sides are far too expedient in their attacks of the other side while excusing their own side. (Hey you republicans, if you don’t agree with me, just take a look at that monstrous disgusting sleazebag Larry Craig that so many of you so desperately try to defend!)
The Dems - especially the feminists- defend rapist, gropist, take the trailer-trash to the motel-room Bill. Use-your-power to play sex games with Monica-the-intern Bill. Too many people have sold their soul to defend indefensible behavior within their own party. They should stop.
I’m finding it hard to believe that attacking Seniors and Women is going to be a good strategy for winning the election. Attacking a 17 year old, small towns, small states, and bitter people clinging to guns sure isn’t going to help either. Who do you think Obama is counting on to win this election?
Where Democrats are seeing an opening I see a trap. Yes, Republicans think teens should not have sex but the primary reason is because they think people should take responsibility for their actions exactly how Palin’s daughter has done here.
Democrats should have listened to Obama on this one. His mother was in the same situation that Palin’s daughter is now in. Through their attempts to smear a Republican they are smearing his family. Explicit attacks on Palin are implicit attacks on Obama’s family and I guarantee he’s not happy about it.
Attacking Palin on experience is only going to reflect the lack of experience on the top of the Democratic ticket. The hypocrisy being displayed by Democrats is rightfully going to hurt them. These attacks are desperate and obviously so.
Homerun, A.C. Best piece you’ve ever done.
And you nailed the conservative mind so well. I was 19 and pregnant before marrying the father as well. Certainly not ideal and in fact very hard at times, but it was the reality I had to live and work with. I wouldn’t trade it today for anything in the world.
Taking responsibility is also part of the conservative way. A card laid, so to speak, is a card played.
As the liberal posters on board demonstrate, the minute they open their mouths on this topic they just end up looking mean and hateful.
Because they are.
And when they do that, they just push more swing voters to McCain and Palin.
Obama called it right on this issue: leave it alone.
They should follow his example.
“Obviously, it’s a problem that exists on both sides, but in this instance it is going to bite the Dems.”
It bites them a lot. There’s a reason it’s so easy to stick the elitist label on anyone even slightly associated with the left or “liberals”, no matter how little the individual may deserve it.
[...] Klanheider is right this time (although he could have been a little more brief). Bristol’s pregnancy does not hurt McCain. It actually helps him. It reinforces the idea that Palin is one of us, going through the same things that we all go through. Also, it puts the crazies out front to continually embarrass their candidate. It is amusing to read the wackos who think that McCain didn’t know about this. Of course he knew. He just didn’t care. [...]
I don’t care how many babies Palin or her daughter pop out for the evangelical vote, Palin is NOT QUALIFIED to be VP of the USA. Moderates and voters in the “middle” are not willing to sacrifice the WH to Jesus freaks and religious zealots any time in the near future.
“I don’t care how many babies Palin or her daughter pop out for the evangelical vote, Palin is NOT QUALIFIED to be VP of the USA.”
Then Obama isn’t qualified to be president either — they have roughly equivalent experience.
In fact, Palin has more executive experience than he does — she has served as a mayor and state govnernor. He has none.
You’ve walked into a minefield with that argument — be smart and back out slowly.
To Meg: You mean it will separate sexist butt-holes like yourself from the true Christians that remember the Woman at the Well. “The father isn’t filling the void”!? Well, why not? Are you saying Todd Palin is unfit to be a parent? How do you know? Or are you saying, in fact, “A woman’s place is in the home,” you sexist pig? And I don’t give a rat’s patoot if you’re a woman. Doesn’t make you any less of a filthy sexist.
The christian response is that when you sin, do not compound the sin with more sin. Kudo’s to Obama on his response. He is well aware that if the response to an 18 year old having an abortion is this circumstance, then he would not have been born.
[...] The Battle Of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand All the talk this election has been how Barack Obama will expand the electoral pie. He will get the votes that went to Al Gore and John Kerry but he will couple them with his new voters, the young and the black and win a sweeping majority. [...]
Think of it this way: we can now do what’s best for the family.
Give them the Secret Service to get diapers and keep their playgrounds safe for the next dozen years.
The Democrats were always deluding themselves if they thought this election was going to be a walkover. From my P.O.V. here in Britain I don’t know whether Palin was a good choice or not. But from what I’m reading barak Obama is in more trouble right now with his citizenship issues.
The mainstrwsam media might be ignoring this issue but it is not going to go away.
“She is now managing her sin as proscribed by tradition.”
Paging Dr. Freud. . . .
Best typo of the week, by far. What would Hester Prynne do?
This may be the single wisest post AC has ever written.
A reference to wisdom from a guy who argues that conservatives don’t practice identity politics.
you are an Idiot
culture war did not win for Bush in 2000
despite CLinton blow jobs
( chad, butterfly ballot won it)
and wont again
It’s a darn good thing for all of us that the right-wing is out of touch with America.
ian thorpe is a certified MORON
if he would tell me where he lives I will fly there and take him to an institution
[...] Kleinheider: “Bristol Palin has single-handedly dealt the Republican Party its winning hand” [...] “As a friend just told me after the news broke, the left is fully unprepared to win this debate,” writes Kleinheider in a politics.nashvillepost.com editorial titled The Battle of Bristol: John McCain Has The Upper Hand [...]
Ian, you are an uninformed idiot. The whole citizenship issue was refuted, booted, and has disappeared from sensible debate except for a few wingnuts who are probably french-kissing their blown-up pictures of Palin as we speak. Nor, should McCain’s being born in the Panama Canal Zone be an issue–they both are Americans–let the campaign begin anew.
Just from a political-watching perspective: BEST ELECTION EVER.
[...] Palin pregnancy story. But I did see two commentaries about it that deserve more attention. First up (H/T) is a piece that discusses the evangelicals reaction, which is much different than [...]
I have never understood why leftists think hyprocrisy is worse than amorality.
I have also never understood how “hypocrisy” came to be equated with failing to live up to one’s morals.
A hypocrite is someone who doesn’t believe in the code they claim to believe in.
From OED:
One who falsely professes to be virtuously or religiously inclined; one who pretends to have feelings or beliefs of a higher order than his real ones; hence generally, a dissembler, pretender.
Sarah Palin would be a hypocrite if she were secretly teaching her daughter she didn’t have to be abstinent, but publicly saying something else. She’s not a hypocrite because her daughter wasn’t abstinent.
What I find interesting is how this election is shaping up as a “city” versus “country” battle. High gas prices hurt country folk a lot more than they hurt city folk. Sticking your nose in other peoples business, especially embarrassing family business is considered supremely bad form among country folk while the Obama city elites apparently waltz right into it. Pennsylvania and Ohio have tons of country folk. This is where Obama is in trouble. This Sarah Palin stuff is going to kill him there. It’s where I grew up. Trust me, he’s toast.
“People who sin and then turn around and attempt to shame others for committing the same sin are hypocrites. “
Yeah, and, what? If I went and killed a bunch of people, then said, well, killing people is wrong and others should not do so, what is wrong with being a hypocrite? There’s nothing wrong with the tribute vice gives to virtue. If you think the argument is done when you point out the person you’re debating is a hypocrite, you’re just engaging in juvenile coup counting. Everyone is a hypocrite. The question is, are they defending authentic virtue with their hypocrisy?
Someone’s a little off today.
If I killed a man and turned around to tell everyone that killing was wrong, I would be a hypocrite.
On the other hand, if I killed a man, repented of that sin and turned away from it, never to do it again, then one is not a hypocrite.
Just because Palin’s daughter got pregnant, that does not necessarily make her a hypocrite. It makes her human. People who use this as some sort of invalidation of her belief system are being intellectually dishonest. It’s morally reprehensible - especially coming from the Left. Let’s get serious - they’re not exactly shining examples of morality.
Matthew
I’m a conservitive and when I read the things the left posts here I think how can they write this stuff, that’s what they are. The bottom line is that if it happened to Chelsea no one would know about it because the MSM would not report it. Think I’m wrong? How many stories have you heard about Biden’s son and brother? How many did you see about Gore”s son when he ran?
Jerry
[...] Podívejte se třeba sem nebo sem. [...]
And how many stories will we hear about Obama’s middle east adviser resigning after being caught holding talks with Hamas? (reported in the Chicago Sun Times… Once..) Or Obama’s $800,000 payment to the criminal group ACORN?.. Or Obama’s terrorist BFF Bill Ayers… Or Obama’s friend who slid a little money around so Obama could by his house at 1/3 off (But that’s ok, he’s getting sentenced to prison next month for 16 counts of fraud, money laundering, ect).
But hey, let’s focus on the real story. A 17 year old girl getting pregnant and how the evil ‘publicans are trying to control your life.
I’m gonna vote for the vet and the mommy - not the plagiarist and the commie.
A.C., this is possibly one of your best posts ever. Yes, it really is a losing issue for the Dems, especially when you compare it to Barack’s statement that he’s all on board for abortion and though he’ll teach his own daughters the “right” values as he said, he wouldn’t want to punish them “with a child” if they get pregnant at 16.
The reality is, Barack Obama is the most radical proponent of abortion that I know of to run on the Presidential ticket. Most Dem leaders understand that though there is a large number of Americans who don’t want to criminalize abortion, there is an even larger number who want limitations. And Barack wants none of those limitations.
This issue is a loser for Obama. Nancy Pelosi went and mucked things up by rewriting Catholic doctrine. Abortion wasn’t even on the dad gum radar and now she got the Archbishops stirred up and issuing letters, responses, condemnations, etc.
And now going after Bristol on the heels of nasty comments about Palin’s own baby, well, they just stirred up a whole lot of folks who were no McCain fans.
As Palin moves on the tackle the energy issue—THE ISSUE—she’ll leave in the wake of the Democrat rude assault, an activated base that has been very lukewarm at best.
Actions have consequences, that’s the message from us “hypocrites on the right”. None of us know what is in the hearts of these two young people, nor the circumstances of their lives, nor frankly is it any of our business, but what is our business is to make sure that all of our children know that one wrong decision can’t just be “aborted” away. And that just because “sex is natural”, “feels good” and “we can’t stop children from having it anyway” excuses us from teaching the truth and urging them to wait until they are grown up enough to handle life, babies and all.
ACORN is NOT a criminal group
Ayers is NOT his BFF
and no proof of any other allegataions
But hey, let’s focus on how good liars you are !
To all of you who say Tu quoque, that GOP would savage Dems and the family ruthlessly maliciously insidiously efficiently - and that they would be allowed to get away with it? Not revealed? Cui bono for Edwards? Anybody still a little sick over that one?
And I don’t credit the lack of any notable GOP gaffes on Edwards (aside from the odd Nelson Muntzian “HAA-hah!” from this or that blogger or commenter) to charity so much as not interrupting a suicide, in fact I don’t recall anything said much at all in the papers.
Palin is bigger news? Maybe she is. Hmm. Dumbasses! Tactically this is a no-win situation FOR YOU!!!
To those of you who claim to cry up the family’s burden and blame GOP and candidates for stupid selfish slack Caligula’s-horse alt.*.alaska action or whatever, and I confidently await the Palin stories to come, I got news for you. Two news.
1) “Picket Fences”
2) You could make all the harms go away if you did the right thing and just SHADDAP!
3) When you have new family oblications what do some people do? the look for a BETTER JOB!
4) The family is obviously very strong and you haven’t got a chance against them. Once upon a time your party leaders would never have made these mistakes.
Four news. Yes, you could. Just. Shut up. What insectile calculation of political destiny can justify this kind of rubbernecking? You would scorn it if you read it in the gossip sheets at the supermarket aisle about people who didn’t matter to you, like celebrities. You would, the better of you, react against such responses to someone you actually knew.
All the Palins have now become political hammers who can be swung about to beat opponents. Big fleshy two-hundredweight down to a new ten-pound-4-ounce model, all of whom will go splat if you swing them hard enough against something you don’t like. Or cudgels, chisels, planes, whatever. They are tools to be used.
If you are so much better than the nasty Chelsea-mugging GOP (or is this a revenge for that long-ago talk radio remark? Looong reach, that), why not show it? Shut up! Put down that sledge; where is the nail let alone a spike to be hammered down?
Be better than the conservatives, the hypocrites, the Other, the Emmanuel Goldstein (we see better as time goes on how the Left has dropped Orwell like a bad habit and the Right has picked him up, ha).
If “shut up” is too much for you to process, how about “show some restraint - pray, consider what you are about!” “Decency?” “Soul?” “Limits?” “Taste?” Do these words mean anything to you? They do to many. Are all of them to be made into M/P voters? (Can I just vote for Palin?)
“Shut up” is not necessarily a front for paucity of ideas. A negation. Yes? “Accept it or go without it.” Not now. Tace is the Latin for a candlestick. I’ll explain later. How about those Mets? Ladies present, LOL. Or, just not interested. Null wahad, I am not profoundly stirred.
I was well educated in childhood that “shut up” is in fact taboo for civillized children in their mothers’ presence. And yet it’s really quite useful.
Barack Obama knows this. You know, if you consult Barack Obama, that he would really like you to Just Shut Up about teenage pregnancy, thank you very much, because he may have to slap someone himself if this goes on, though he has Plugs Biden (I say that with love, so I do) to take care of such chores for him.
BO has made a public statement to that effect. If you were in a debate being told BO favored or sponsored this campaign, you would be the first to reply “But he immediately issued a strong denunciation of the tactic! How can he be accused of wanting this?”
Do ya really think BO can be accused of wanting this?
It’s like being a patriot for the US. If you work long and well you may get to see things that are not quite as one could wish, and do things one does not like, certainly to deal with people and situations you do not like. These things are difficult, and you may not like your choices, but perhaps you feel you have to back the US. Happens all the time.
If you are a patriot for Obama, you have to back him up in these tough times. When he drops Rev. Wright and Ayers and Rezko, when he drops grandma, when he drops the burdens or punishments of unwanted children, when he drops every political cliche of his life under the bus, you know it is no longer profitable to deal with it. Old news! No longer operative! Move on!
Likewise, did Obama order the Code Red or didn’t he? I say he didn’t - Kiefer Sutherland acted on his own or else the enlisted men did. Maybe they can just say the retard did it, they want to keep the black guy (Wayans???/??/?//?/backlash?????), he’s strac. Clean, articulate, etc., and he looks good in the uniform.
So who do you want to blame?
So who should you listen to?
…
Obama, right? So, shut up! “If it were not so, He would have told you.”
…
Let me ask you this: Who here has wished the Palins well (I say all of them, I’m sure I can never be bothered to keep track)?
–You know who the last really fecund First Family was? The Kennedys. Imagining Sarah Palin becoming President and then in twenty or thirty years, Track runs with Bristol for his AG? (’Cause now she’s going to law school so she can sue all your asses, I make no doubt.)
…I can go on all night but won’t. But this is mud and will stick to anyone’s hands at the wrong time.
What I can do constructively, other than contribute which I have never ever done before, is to post this ramble and go write the Palins a letter of support. If not read, perhaps it will be counted and appreciated in the aggregate, but more likely they are the mail-reading type.
Also, in the textfiles corner of teh intarnets, we can peek into Palin more gynecologically. Or in this case gynopolitically. The political pink. We may do this, now, because Andrew Sullivan says so. Yes, let’s look at the young and preggo Palin ~20y ago, just married or about to be. How did she get that way?
Well, we all know that, ha-ha. But really, how?
Failure, right?
First, was it failure at all? Did they decide to make a baby and then get married, or whatever? If so, GOOD FOR THEM! Better to marry than to burn. PROFIT!!!$!$!!
If it was failure, failure of what?
Knowledge of how babies are made?
Consent?
Amnesia as to marriage state?
OK, but she does support contraception. She supports sex ed, if not some ‘extreme sex ed’ they are talking about. She seems to prefer abstinence as a policy.
Obviously she herself does not care for abstinence, but it is a choice nonetheless. Nobody will die - do we understand this? - if we don’t lose our virginities in college. And in her case, speaking from the miles and years traveled by a mom with five kids, is the voice of experience.
We don’t in fact know what education, or country education which has its own value, Sarah Palin received, let alone what the family sought to taught Bristol.
Maybe Palin knows quite well just how condoms work, and how they fail. Or pills, IUDs, whatever. Or the rhythm method, or withdrawal. Or Dr. Bronner’s homeopathic remedy (now with more juicy lemon pulp! Anybody want to try that one?), crocodile dung, hot baths, whatever kind of superstition.
Maybe she knows that abstinence is most likely to lead to a happy life, if not a decorous one. There was life before the institution of marriage, you know. Who married Adam and Eve?
None of this is knowable in decency. Or otherwise.
Look, if the Palins are one big poly family I can see the point. Tactically maybe. Of oppressing them in such a naked way.
But strategically, you are indeed shitting on mothers. I’m not quite sure you get that.
No man, and I see lots of men throwing the slag, can know what a mistake this truly is. At best we can appreciate the emanations of its penumbras.
Kleinheider,
You have produced quite an insightful essay. As well, you coherently communicated in a prose I received well.
I’ll go along with it, I will agree with this argument. However, I will not be voting for either McCain, or Obama. Who? Well, Who Is John Galt? I will be voting for him.
What is his name today? Where is he? I do not know. However, when people shrug their shoulders up, and let their wonders fall prey to either manipulative party, they sure hope there is a John Galt; one who would use their logic supremely, with motives to serve them. There is only one problem. John Galt doesn’t want to serve them.
What a conundrum. I want to vote for someone that does not want to serve us. How could that be? This man, for one, sees the gutless reaction, of the masses, that follow like lambs, ready for slaughter.
The Human Race is a miracle by itself. Given that assumption, who can defoul a miracle? What I’ve come to realize, as a citizen, herded along with everyone else, is that we are ALL Gods within ourselves. Some just know it better than others. With that Godliness, comes a spirit. I see the spirit, the one I choose, to come in the form of love. I reach to that spirit, when I need it the most. I revel in how erases my shortcomings, and gives an energy, I could not ever imagine came from me. However, maintaining it is the key.
Palin may very well be such a choice, I have no way to know, in a biased media. Perhaps, I would know, if I sat down, and had a tangible conversation with her. Government has lost it’s neutrality. The most simplistic way, to know that as fact, is to check the motives. Even more important, check your own.
Technology has outpaced the control, of the higher minds, that serve us. This is where the motives come in. Should the motives be for control, or, for purpose? Either way, our government is prey to the Capitalistic powers that be. Shareholders look for the bottom line, not so much with what the company’s product is, unless that, too, can really help the bottom line. Our Presidential Candidates, must serve these Capitalistic powers, to make nomination. Well, that just doesn’t sound By The People, For The People. Granted, I absolutely LOVE all the amenities Capitalism has been responsible for. However, I have always been a stickler, against dishonesty, deceit, and manipulation.
I need a candidate, We need a candidate, that would attack the same issues, that would burn him down. Yes, we need this renegade, it’s just that, one, has to sell their soul, to reach nomination for either party.
In fact, our system has grossly lost it’s checks, and balances. Would either candidate survive their own parties, if their main platform, was to restore our Bill of Rights. From here, the argument can get very deep.
I always hope from people, tell me the solution, not the problem. I’ll toss one out there. With technology today, we, as a people, can actively, and collectively, control our government, for our own, true, motives.
This, would require, the sleeping giant, I know our country has. It came out, in the days, immediately following our Twin Towers attack. I feel decayed, to ponder, if that was a staged attack. If so, how could we ever, just, shrug our shoulders, to such realization?
Our constitution is losing it’s intent, because it is losing it’s content. Instead of “change”, how about, “return to?”
Tony Carter
“ACORN is NOT a criminal group
Ayers is NOT his BFF”
To the contrary, ACORN members have repeatedly been convicted on election fraud charges, primarily for voter registration fraud.
And Barack Obama launched his political career with a fundraiser hosted by Bill Ayers in Ayers’ home.
Facts that you can actually look up.
The irony of the abstinence sex-ed argument is that Bristol Palin actually went through a public school sex-ed program that many liberals are touting as being preferable. Perhaps an abstinence program would have been better.
(No, I don’t really think so; sex-ed programs are largely a waste of time and an excuse to spend money.)
John Galt is CFR. Besides, he has no executive experience. And an energy policy based on static electricity? Pure pork barrel politics as usual. That’s not change we can believe in.
Who is CFR? And might anyone consider Lou Dobbs for president?
OBAMA = BETRAYAL
Obama supporters are foolish to think that he will never betray them.
Obama was a close friend of Pastor Wright for TWENTY YEARS.
Obama threw Wright under the bus for personal ambition.
McCain would not betray his country even after 5 years of torture.
You can put lipstick on a traitor, but he’s still a traitor.