Sinking Low

For a while I have been laboring on a post to explain the Georgia/Russia situation. At least as I see it, anyway. However, I am taking a brief break to speak out about something that has lowered the national discourse to a sad place. I wish I could say we have hit an all time low, but that is a bar set very, very low indeed.

There is little known about John McCain’s VP pick Sarah Palin. I heard her name mentioned a few months back as a potential selection but I soon forgot about it. My only opinion back then was that a woman could attract some democrats to McCain; particularly after so many were drawn to Hillary Clinton based on the fact that, as Palin said, she had poked 18 million holes in the Glass Ceiling.

Palin was introduced to the public (outside of Alaska and a few politically-obsessed shut-ins) last Friday. Her honeymoon with the left-wing blogosphere and the major media lasted approximately 30 seconds. A story was immediately put out that Palin’s fifth child, the one born with Down Syndrome, was not really her baby, but the baby of her own daughter. There was no explanation in the various blogs and follow-up news reports as to why someone would make up such a story. What would Palin have to gain from lying about something that has no consequence to anyone but her own family? It makes no sense to anyone with sense.

In order to calm the media that was predictably feeding at the left-wing blogs, the McCain campaign put out the statement that Palin’s daughter couldn’t have been the mother of the four-month own child as she was five months pregnant herself. And, the capper, her daughter was pregnant out of wedlock and only 17 years old. Wow, what a revelation! But what does it have to do with the overall Electoral process? Nothing revealing, at least nothing more revealing or interesting than the very likeable Juno, a movie this year about a 17-year-old getting pregnant and putting the baby up for adoption.

As long as a 17-year-old has been brought into the political discussion, let’s examine behavior from other 17-year-olds. Let’s particularly discuss what the people we are actually voting for were up to at that age – and not their young daughter. John McCain at 17 had just taken an oath to defend his country by enlisting in the U.S. Navy and embarking on a storied and difficult military career. What was Sen. Obama, an actual presidential candidate, doing at age 17? By his own admission in one of his two autobiographies, he was using marijuana and cocaine and explaining that his drug use was a way to get through tough times while he was young.

On the one hand, the media and some on the Left want to examine the choices made by the 17-year-old daughter of the vice presidential candidate, but seem less interested in illegal choices made by the democrat’s presidential candidate at the same age. And, of course, no mention on the choice McCain made at the same age. If it’s fair game to go after choices made by young people, then let’s have a broader discussion that contrasts the choices made before the actual candidates were adults.

To his credit, Obama has said the candidate’s children should be off limits to such scrutiny and certainly the media held to this standard while Chelsea Clinton was in the White House and her entire family life turned into a soap opera. Having said that, Obama should speak louder and more directly about the press coverage of Palin’s daughter and throw a little cold water on his supporters in the blogs. If he doesn’t, one has to assume he is letting them do his dirty work and damaging the life of a teenage girl to score cheap political points.