Going Back to The Well or Kicking a Dead Horse?

The last few days have been truly astounding. I was going to drop the whole Sarah Palin Trig Palin birth scandal and wait for the National Enquirer to touch the story the MSM won't. But in tilting at windmills on the internets, or just being an ass, whichever you prefer, I've been dismayed by a few things that I want to talk about.

There was a comment left here and elsewhere that it's silly for me to believe that Palin should be exposed as a liar. Since all politicians lie we've no business pursuing that. Remind Bill Clinton of that one, would you?

Here's hopefully the last I'm going to post on this matter: Alaskans have been bandying this baby parentage story around since Trig was born in April. In all that time, the Palins never swatted the "silly rumor" down with a doctor's affidavit, a birth certificate, or even a simple hospital photo. Her name has been tossed about for veep since January. This is a simple little duck that could have been placed in its row in a half a second.

Tell you what. If someone questioned where Ima came from (actually, someone once asked me if I adopted her from Central America) I'd waste no time showing them this:

Flattering, I know.

It is a legitimate question to ask "Well, why should they have to produce those things? Isn't that an invasion of privacy?" And my answer is yes. If she didn't make the birth story a cornerstone of her qualifications to be president of the United States of America. And second, a charming loving family values photo is a whole lot nicer than a statement that your daughter couldn't have given birth to child #5 because she's working on grandchild #1. That is an inconceivable invasion of privacy, as BlueGal continues to point out, that was perpetrated by the mother.

And it is the only thing they have produced to rebut the rumor.

When they announced Sarah Palin's nomination, they should have said right away who they considered to be members of her family, and what their family story was as well. Levi got left out of the bio until he was expedient to them. That's sleazy. Apparently, according to my critics, so is pointing it out.

Now back to the issue of Sarah Palin being a liar. Of course it has been confirmed in a myriad of ways that she has lied about lots of things. You know, George W. Bush told a lie so big that more than half a million people lie six feet under for it. And in reply, the American public says "who's on American Idol tonight?" But if someone continues to explore these allegations that she is not Trig's mother and they are found to be true, she is not just a liar but a nutjob. These are things Karl Rove understands and exploits. Al Gore did not say he invented the internet, yet 90% of Americans believe he did, and they believe that if he said them then he's a little touched in the head. What Karl Rove did was lie about Al Gore. What I would like us to do is to search for the truth about Sarah Palin. Therein lies the difference between us and them. Is it distasteful? Extremely.

So are the photos of Katrina and the hundreds of thousands of people in the Gulf who were left without a government to help them because John Kerry wouldn't fight as hard as Karl Rove did four years ago. As I have said elsewhere: The high road is a road to nowhere. Your Eckhart Tolle books and your Randy Pausch books are meaningless until the people who hold power in this country are on our side. Until then it's Sun Tzu and The Prince.

Over at Shakesville I butted in on a thread where the poster said that this idea that Sarah should be home with her special needs son is just so much 1950's throwback bullshit. I left a comment saying that once you decide to have children, they should be your first priority. Sarah Palin said in an interview in January (supposedly six months pregnant) that she routinely works until 9 or 10 at night. If you believe her story, she was doing this while her teenage daughter was home sick with such an infectious and debilitating case of mono that she had to be kept out of school for five months. (How long was Levi out sick with mono? I am going to assume that he exposed himself to that disease whilst impregnating Bristol). What the other children were doing, who knows? Todd Palin's job involves him being gone from the home for two weeks of every month, so it's not like dad, equally responsible for their welfare, was home raising children. I said that for me, I chose to be a stay home mom because I chose to have my children and nothing, nothing that I have ever done is more important than that. Todd and Sarah Palin's priorities seem to be Todd and Sarah Palin.

I was immediately called self-righteous.

Apparently, it is okay to be proud of yourself in a profession, but shut your damn mouth if your career choice is not to have one, lest you make others feel bad. You know, I don't hold it against my doctor that she chose to go to medical school and I'm hoping that she worked then and now to be the best damned doctor she could be. I reject the idea that you can't be critical of another woman's parenting skills if you are a mother yourself. Judge lest ye be judged, I guess. My kids are too young for me to say how they are going to turn out. They may wind up in a boatload of trouble when they get older and the theory is that I wouldn't want people to claim that I'm a crappy mom because Lotta can't put down the pipe. That's true. But I'm not trying to run the most powerful nation on earth (well, not counting China) based on the idea that I'm great at what I do. I like to think of it as 'peer review'. Lady, if you don't ask for my opinion or my praise, I won't give it. I won't even think about it. But if you do, best be prepared for what you get.

Two parent and single parent working families can raise fantastic children, but only if the children are a priority. Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton are the democrats shining examples of that.

When I mentioned that in reply over at Shakesville, a commenter said that Joe could be a great dad because he had lots of resources many other people don't. Well, duh. He was also a senator who could have chosen to let the nanny do it. Choices - do you see the recurring theme?

Sarah Palin is for forced childbirth. And she is anti-contraception. Anti-choice. How many resources will be available to people who are forced to have children? And who are forced to work at the same time. But who can't get childcare. Who are denied the right to make their own choice. The fundamentalist Palin-ite republicans love love love to rail on the idea of welfare queens and people expecting handouts from the government for the children they just pop out willy nilly, yet do not see that it is irresponsible to bring children into this world when the parents are improperly prepared to care for them. That is true if the parents are seventeen years old or are 44.

In other news, today is a happy one for me and my anti-career choice. Ima is spending her first day in kindergarten as I post this. I hesitate to say that I sacrificed for her and her sister by staying home. In some ways that is true. But everyone who raises children responsibly sacrifices for them. Everyone who chooses a career makes a sacrifice. Anyway, I did the best I could. And I am proud of myself and of her. My next step is to work at a part time job with flexible hours, and to start a business that will allow me to be at home next summer when school lets out.

And because I have that choice, I think that still gives me my feminist cred. Even if others would disagree.