The news that the 17-year-old daughter of V.P. Candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant was very quickly calmed by Barack Obama's immediate expression of support for Mrs. Palin and her family, and the fact that the Democrats, taking their marching orders from Obama, have pretty much left it alone. It's the right thing to do - the story is the vetting process of the McCain camp, and although there is probably an important point to be made about the failure of abstinence education, keeping a 17-year-old girl from becoming the subject of political attacks is taking the high road.
I have to wonder, though - what if the teenage pregnancy were on the Democratic side?
It doesn't take much to figure out what the right-wing smear machine would be doing with this. Limbaugh and his ilk would be having a field day with this, painting all Democrats as immoral hippies who encourage their children to have sex by teaching them how to do it.
I'm completely torn. I'm glad that my guy is taking the high road. I think it's the right thing to do. But I want to stand up and shout "see what your STUPID policies and your IDIOTIC ideals create? Maybe with a little more realistic education this high school student gets to enjoy some time as a twenty-something, not as a young mother! And most importantly, HOW CAN THIS PARTY CLAIM THE RIGHTEOUS MORAL GROUND?????
Arg.
*UPDATES*
Some really nasty stuff is being thrown around as if it were truth. As I find them, I'll try posting them here.
- The baby's father is an 18-year old high school student, and seems like a pretty typical high-school hockey player - not a man 9 years older that started dating the girl when she was 14.
- The right has begun eating its own. Specifically, Robert Stacy McCain (no apparent relation) in
The American Spectator somehow feeling that the teenager should be subject to questioning by the press because she has "caused a crisis of global significance". I'm sure that the global significance of her act was no closer to her mind than was the significance of her abstinence education in the heat of the moment.
