It's day 3 of the GOP convention. Bush has promoted McCain, as we all knew he would. Lieberman has done whatever it is he's doing, for reasons I still don't understand. Fred Thompson went out of his way to badmouth Barack Obama in every other sentence while still looking like everybody's grampa. Whatever, Fred.
Meanwhile, every person who's paid to do so is talking about Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter. Really? Senator Obama has said that this conversation has no place in politics. I agree. So, why is everybody from Anderson Cooper to Whoopi Goldburg talking about it? Because that's what McCain's camp WANTS everybody talking about, that's why.
Let me explain.
This all came up as a supposed preemptive strike, if you'll recall. The McCain camp caught wind of a blog that had asserted that Palin's daughter had actually carried the young Trig Palin, not Sarah, and accuses Sarah of covering it up by saying that Trig is hers.
To offer "proof" of the legitimacy of her motherhood to Trig, she comes public with her 17-year-old daughter's current pregnancy. Since Trig was born in April of this year, there is no way that Bristol was the mother because Bristol Palin is apparently 5 months pregnant now, so.... SURPRISE! I don't know how Bristol's pulled this off, but when I was 5 months pregnant, anybody with working eyes knew it without question.
But that's not the point.
My point is this: This is a lame conversation from beginning to end, but it's juicy. We are witnessing a big, giant Dog-Wagging here, folks, and it's working like gangbusters. Instead of talking about the fact that nominating this woman is an insult to all women who voted for Hillary by the implication that any woman will do and the substance of that woman doesn't matter; and instead of talking about the substantive reasons why Sarah Palin should most definitely NOT be the next Vice-President (shocking lack of experince, corruption, cronyism, etc), we're spending a gazillion media hours on her silly pregnant daughter and her plans to marry her melon-head boyfriend.
Instantly, the conservatives have been handed a flag around which they are rallying with glee, and because this "poor family" is "dealing with something" we're not picking apart Ms. Palin's record, and still, the conservatives are not pulling any punches.
At first I thought that she was being used by the GOP, but not anymore. Frankly, if I were Ms. Palin's family, I'd be ticked off. They are dealing with typical family stuff, but in an entirely atypically public manner. Aside from the fact that being a sports writer or the mayer of a small Alaskan town doesn't really count as experience (2 years as the governor of the least populous state in the union doesn't do much for me either), and aside from questionable employer practices, and aside from her name being mixed in with those under investigation for campaign contribution "issues", the fact that she knew all this stuff would become public fodder and she stepped up for the job anyway makes her priorities suspect in my book.
Somebody's being used, but I don't think it's Sarah Palin. That's the conversation we should be having.
