Obama Tries To Call Off The Dogs
This is how bad it has gotten:
“Let me be as clear as possible,” Obama said. “I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president.”
Obama said reporters should “back off these kinds of stories” and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother.
“How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off-limits.”
This is why he wants to control the message, because the “progressive” bloggers are really hurting his chances of being elected. Keep up the misogyny and see how you like President McCain. Hillary supporters were never going to vote for McCain in any significant numbers, but keep this up and they may not vote at all.
6 comments
The bloggers I have read have been very restrained, and haven’t gone after the kids. I think Obama is taking the high road, as well he should.
At the same time, there is going to be some of Obama taking the high road and surrogates fighting in the trenches. This however, I don’t think is that battle. I think the real battle is McCain’s judgement and leadership. I also think that any provable lack of judgement on Palin’s part can be used, but only to reflect on McCain’s lack of judgement. Palin is small fish to me.
At the same time, it does seem that the most families I see in trouble are those which are the most outwardly Republican. Not conservative, but more authoritarian.
I realize that people aren’t doing a “due diligence” as to where these stories are coming from, but almost all of them are from Alaskan Republicans, the Old Guard.
The woman has an 85% approval rating in the state.
It’s a stupid situation, that I hate the Republican Party, but I’m having to defend her. There are policies to attack, stop attacking the person and her family.
There were a lot of people angry about the FISA vote, and then he picked Joe Biden, who supported the Bankruptcy Bill. FISA ended any possibility I would vote for Obama, although it was already not much of a possibility because of disfranchising Florida Democrats.
Now they are losing my Mother’s friends, who were ready to do what they always did and vote. These are older women and they are angry about this garbage.
I’m frustrated about the FISA vote as well, and the bill. Biden isn’t my choice. At the same time, The blogs I read and respect are not doing what you’re accusing them of.
I respect your opinion, and in your initial message, I don’t disagree. However, I’m just not seeing all the mysoginy in the major progressive blogs. I’m sure you can find it if you search for it, since almost all blogs have the occasional crazed poster.
They shouldn’t go after her daughter…they should start asking questions about Sarah Palin’s views on abstinence and her wanting to take away the choice of other women’s daughters about their lives and bodies.
Misogyny is alive and very well in our society AND definately found on the web.
Teen pregnancy happens. We wish it didn’t. Families everywhere are dealing with that fact. We should concentrate on how the Republicans want to take away everyone else’s right to choose…how they want to take away everyone else’s right to privacy.
On the other hand, you’re talking about an unmarried 17 year old whose mother is supposedly a “family values” Christian. It is certainly reasonable to ask whether opposing sex education and promoting “chastity vows” is an effective mechanism for preventing unwanted pregnancies, given that Ms. Palin apparently raised her daughter that way and, well, her daughter somehow figured out that if boy’s peg A went into girl’s slot B it felt good anyhow. In short, the daughter herself is no different from any other pregnant girl in America, but the policies (no sex ed, “abstinence-only” chastity-based “education”) that led her to being pregnant certainly are worthy of discussion, with the failure of those policies clear and baby-bumptuous.
As noted, Palin’s nomination is a bone thrown to the religious right, which loves her views on feminism (she hates it and will go back to being barefoot and pregnant just as soon as she can get rid of the feminism that allows her to hold political office), abortion (she hates it), creationism (she loves it), and so forth. I don’t think there’s anything that will get the religious right to not be enthusiastic about Palin. It is other female voters who might vote for Palin simply because she’s a woman who are being targetted by liberal bloggers right now, who are simply trying to educate people on Palin’s views, which are not the views of the majority of women, the majority of whom support the ability to get an abortion, oppose creationism taught in the schools, and support at least some aspects of feminism such as equal rights under the law (something currently not guaranteed by our Constitution) if not “feminism” as a movement. Palin’s views on sex education are a prime example of why most women should not support Palin’s candidacy, and the fact that Palin’s own daughter is an example of the documented fact (via statistical research on “abstinence-based education”) that Palin’s views on sex education simply don’t work … well, you might as well try to stop an oncoming flood with a bucket of sand as stop folks from pointing that out.
– Badtux the Reality-based Penguin
Sorry, but they teach comprehensive, not abstinence only, sex ed in most schools in Alaska.
Alaska doesn’t take the Federal “abstinence only” funds.
The latest stats from Guttmacher are for 2005: Alaska ranked 30th in teen pregnancy, 1st in the availability of family planning services, 1st the funding of services among the 50 states and DC.