Blogs > Liberty and Power > Smart Politicians Worry Me

Sep 3, 2008

Smart Politicians Worry Me


by Liberty and Power


For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com

And the smart just keeps coming...

The San Francisco Chronicle reports, The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. Levi Johnston's mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy's mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant."This is just a bonus," Johnston said.

This is exactly what Palin needs to do -- embrace the young man as family and publicly glow about the expected grandchild as wonderful news. Make the liberals (and not the conservatives) be the ones to cry out"OMG, a teenager had sex! The horror! The horror!" Make them look petty and ridiculous, anti-family and anti-forgiveness. Let them take the rap for politically exploiting the sex life of a 17-year-old; let them be the ones to smirk with glee or foam with faux outrage over a child that is wanted and welcomed. Meanwhile, as long as Palin's daughter carries the fetus to term and marries the father, will show compassion and applaud the manner in which a commonplace -- albeit unfortunate -- situation is being handled. This kid's pregnancy is a plus for the GOP.

I wouldn't be surprised if Palin literally embraces Johnston on the GOP convention stage. What a photo op that would be! Not that Palin needs to draw media attention by dangling enticements. The woman has accomplished a near-impossible feat. She's made Obama 2nd-page news.


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Common Sense - 9/4/2008

Politically, they have no choice -- the daughter and the BF must marry and have the child. I wish the GOP would quit touting this non-choice as some great moral statement of walking the walk. A new question is another Lifetime Channel movie theme -- Can This Marriage Survive?

Chris Westley - 9/3/2008

Right. But isn't this analysis enormously cynical? Her daughter is pregnant, something that happened largely because mom has been off doing the career thing, and now you are recommending that he adopt a public posture to (i) exploit her daughter further at a time when she needs her family's support) and (ii) do it in such a way that will cause people who would otherwise avoid McCain and Obama (but especially McCain) in November to get involved again.

Palin should embrace her daughter and son-in-law-to-be, but I'd feel much better about her if she used this incident to drop out of the campaign too. Otherwise, her actions further McCain, and she looks like her daughter is being used again. Looks to me like Palin's daughter's rebellion against an absent parent backfired.