The Ghost Babies
You hear about these people who lose limbs but are so sure they can feel the sensations of a foot or a finger, they reach for it only to find nothing there. That's sort of what it's like in an empty home that's normally filled with shrieking, giggling, wiggling, dancing, "she's trying to get me!" shouting, mess-making, milk-spilling children.
I keep acting as if the kids are here, keeping the TV low and shutting the bedroom door. It's bizarre to step out to walk the dog or grab a bagel and forget that I don't have anywhere to be. Anyone home waiting for me. Anyone to even check in with.
I'm almost paralyzed by the options and how much I'm hoping to accomplish before they're back home nine (9) days from today. I'm not off to a very good start.
I spent pretty much the entirety of last night researching whether Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to cover for her teenage daughter who was actually the pregnant one. (Thanks Deb for the twittered link to Kos.) I am generally reluctant to jump on to wacky conspiracy theories. But this one gives me pause.
Also it's just so perfect for Labor Day. Heh.
It would explain why a vehemently pro-life woman would risk the life of a special needs baby when she noticed that her amniotic fluid was leaking, by finishing a speech in Houston, then rushing not to a Dallas hospital--but to the airport so she could catch a commercial flight from Texas to Seattle, then a connecting flight to Alaska. And once she landed, instead of heading right to the major Anchorage hospital she drove 45 minutes to her hometown hospital. Oh and she never informed the flight crew that she was in labor, and no one saw any evidence of it.
Oh, and was back at work three days later.
Oh, and her daughter conveniently had "mono" for 5-8 months and was pulled out of school this entire time. But Palin never worried about having a high risk pregnancy around her highly contageous teenage daughter.
What 7 months pregnant looks like in Alaska when your'e 43. Things really are different there!
I don't care whether you vote blue or red or flaming neon orange--as moms, does this story make one lick of sense to you at all?
I smell a ghost pregnancy.
----
Edited to add:
Evidently this post is rubbing some people the wrong way. What can I say, I'm a maverick! A rebel!
The question has been posed whether I might first broach the Sarah Palin subject with a line about how her nomination is a good development for women and good for working moms.
Let me answer: No, I don't think this is a good development for women.
Madeline Albright was a good development for women. Hilary Clinton was (and is) a good development for women. Margaret Thatcher was a good development for women. Even Condi Rice was a good development for women. Those are women who worked their way up with impressive knowledge and credentials equal or surpassing any of their male counterparts; not appointed for reasons that are still beyond me. (Or, more likely, because McCain couldn't do Lieberman and he nixed Romney and Ridge and so went with the person he's met once who looked good on paper.)
I fear that having an unqualified woman like Palin--she's on record saying she knows nothing about Iraq or the role of the Vice President--in the national spotlight is sealing up some of the cracks in that ceiling and it just kills me. Just freaking kills me.
Am I excited about the theoretical prospect of a working mom in the white house with a SAHD taking care of the kids? You betcha. But I am not excited to see a deer in the headlights debating one of our country's foremost foreign policy experts in a few weeks. How does that benefit anyone?
The pregnancy BS - that's a distraction but it captured my imagination this week and so I wrote about it. I still say it stinks. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to say it. You can count on it. Consider it...a campaign promise?
I keep acting as if the kids are here, keeping the TV low and shutting the bedroom door. It's bizarre to step out to walk the dog or grab a bagel and forget that I don't have anywhere to be. Anyone home waiting for me. Anyone to even check in with.
I'm almost paralyzed by the options and how much I'm hoping to accomplish before they're back home nine (9) days from today. I'm not off to a very good start.
I spent pretty much the entirety of last night researching whether Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to cover for her teenage daughter who was actually the pregnant one. (Thanks Deb for the twittered link to Kos.) I am generally reluctant to jump on to wacky conspiracy theories. But this one gives me pause.
Also it's just so perfect for Labor Day. Heh.
It would explain why a vehemently pro-life woman would risk the life of a special needs baby when she noticed that her amniotic fluid was leaking, by finishing a speech in Houston, then rushing not to a Dallas hospital--but to the airport so she could catch a commercial flight from Texas to Seattle, then a connecting flight to Alaska. And once she landed, instead of heading right to the major Anchorage hospital she drove 45 minutes to her hometown hospital. Oh and she never informed the flight crew that she was in labor, and no one saw any evidence of it.
Oh, and was back at work three days later.
Oh, and her daughter conveniently had "mono" for 5-8 months and was pulled out of school this entire time. But Palin never worried about having a high risk pregnancy around her highly contageous teenage daughter.
What 7 months pregnant looks like in Alaska when your'e 43. Things really are different there!I don't care whether you vote blue or red or flaming neon orange--as moms, does this story make one lick of sense to you at all?
I smell a ghost pregnancy.
----
Edited to add:
Evidently this post is rubbing some people the wrong way. What can I say, I'm a maverick! A rebel!
The question has been posed whether I might first broach the Sarah Palin subject with a line about how her nomination is a good development for women and good for working moms.
Let me answer: No, I don't think this is a good development for women.
Madeline Albright was a good development for women. Hilary Clinton was (and is) a good development for women. Margaret Thatcher was a good development for women. Even Condi Rice was a good development for women. Those are women who worked their way up with impressive knowledge and credentials equal or surpassing any of their male counterparts; not appointed for reasons that are still beyond me. (Or, more likely, because McCain couldn't do Lieberman and he nixed Romney and Ridge and so went with the person he's met once who looked good on paper.)
I fear that having an unqualified woman like Palin--she's on record saying she knows nothing about Iraq or the role of the Vice President--in the national spotlight is sealing up some of the cracks in that ceiling and it just kills me. Just freaking kills me.
Am I excited about the theoretical prospect of a working mom in the white house with a SAHD taking care of the kids? You betcha. But I am not excited to see a deer in the headlights debating one of our country's foremost foreign policy experts in a few weeks. How does that benefit anyone?
The pregnancy BS - that's a distraction but it captured my imagination this week and so I wrote about it. I still say it stinks. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to say it. You can count on it. Consider it...a campaign promise?
posted by Mom101 at 10:50 AM
60 Comments:
Yeah, that my water broke early in the morning and then I toodled around giving speeches, flew for hours on end, and then drove past the hospital with a NICU to have a baby I know could likely need help at birth at a small local hospital story struck me the first time I read it as a pretty odd story.
Told my husband that he knew damn well that I'd have made him come to me in Texas...(though I think her husband was even with her there).
Odd decision making there if you want the best for you and baby.
Whoop!
Its all just so trashy ad hilarious. Bree Van De Kamp for VP!
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/4628/sarahpalinla4.png
I had read this on Kos over the weekend too and thought it was just too gossipy to be true...
Either way, this woman is NOT who I'd want in my Veep seat.
Trashy and hilarious is right on :-)
Oh I agree it's so trashy. Way beneath me. I read the New Yorker!
(Well, I subscribe. Mostly I look at the cartoons.)
I suppose what bothers me is that she's made her pregnancy a cornerstone of her candidacy, asserting that she's so tough she's back at work 2 days later, she's so committed, she's going to breastfeed while in office.
It's not only a horrible lie (albeit somewhat noble if she was protecting the honor of her unwed daughter) it's perpetuating the myth that moms can do it all.
We can do a lot, but we can't do it all. No one can.
But that's another post I guess.
Oh yeah...
I mean, "allegedly."
It's allegedly a horrible lie.
To say nothing of the fact that this baby that she is pimping out to evangelicals all over the country was once a pregnancy that she hid until six weeks before there was a baby from everyone, her staff, and her state.
I think it makes way too much sense not to be true. But maybe it isn't. LOL
Well, but she's a hockey mom, right? Hockey inspires people to just tough it out. To skate on one leg. To play through the blood. To fly through the amniotic fluid.
Because she's a hockey mom (as she keeps reminding me) I will implicitly believe anything she tells me. No matter what the pictures prove.
Who cares? Whose business is it what she wants to do with her pregnancy and her babies and her children? Isn't this the sort of "women's choice" for which democrats are always clamoring? It's the same with the Republicans, who complain about Bill Clinton's disgusting dalliances with interns. I say the same to them...who cares? All politicians are disgusting lying pigs, the sooner we accept this, the better off we all will be. Oh wait, "If she's my VP, I want her to be honest!" Isn't that what everyone said about Bill?
I'll be interested to see how this plays out and if any facts are brought to life. It's fishy as hell.
Uhh, LizzyB -- if she were pro-choice, well then, her decisions about flying and all would be of a piece with that -- she's making her own decisions about her own body. Fine -- just extend that to everyone. Instead she's anti-choice -- including in cases of rape or incest.
So, you can't have it both ways. You either leave all her reproduction related choices off the table (and don't introduce her as pro-life supermom) or you open it up to this.
It's her judgment that I question, if she's so pro-life, what's she doing on that plane? Does anyone who has had a baby think having a baby on a plane would be a good idea?
Lizzie B, that's an excellent question, why we should care, and I've really thought about whether we should or not.
I guess when it comes down to it our elected officials should be held to a higher standard. They are representing us to each other and to the world. I still don't care about affairs, on either side of the aisle, unless you make your religions tenets a part of your campaign.
So I guess the hypocrisy is what gets me.
You don't get to be the "integrity candidate" and commit fraud. (Whose records were submitted to insurance anyway?) You don't get to advocate spending taxpayer money on abstinence programs while burying the most prime example that proves that they don't work. And you don't get to say look how tough I am that I went back to work four seconds after having a baby when you just freaking didn't.
More than this though it calls into question McCain's ability to lead in a thoughtful way and make major decisions that are well-considered and not reactionary. This is the end of him.
Ooh, I hadn't heard all of that. Creepy...
Your water breaks and you still travel for a few hours? No wonder his name is Trig. The math doesn't add up.
Thanks for the post - I've been following this obsessively, mainly as a way of procrastinating because I have so much work to do. You've probably just heard that Palin's announced that Bristol is actually five months pregnant. I wonder how people now view the implications? Is it now just a private matter? I'm torn. The poor kid(s), to be stuck in the spotlight, not just by the rumor-loving public, but also by the political machine her parents have signed the whole family up for.
I tend to believe the rumor, because let's face it after having a few children your belly pops out more each time...and she is not seven months pregnant in that photo.
That is just beyond bizarre...
Okay, for once I'm really regretting being clueless when it comes to politics and political news. All that sounds suspiciously wrong to me. Thanks for making politics fun!
As for the emptiness of the house, I really hope you can accomplish everything, and make it through with your sanity intact. I bet you'll be talking to yourself by the time they get home, if you not already, that is. ;)
So it turns out that Bristol Palin, age 17, is pregnant now and is keeping the baby and will, of course, marry the father of the baby. Personally, I hope she gives birth the day before the election.
Well, as fun as that all was (and wasn't it fun!), 4-month old Trig can't be the baby of 17-year-old Bristol who is now 5 months pregnant. (I just love using those names.) Unless there's some hocus-pocus going on there, too...
In any case, let's hear it for abstinence-only education!
Well, Bristol can be the parent if she's not actually pregnant.
Now excuse me while I replace the tin foil on my head with a cat.
For the record, I don't think a pregnant daughter disqualifies Palin for the VPency. I think other things do that.
But it should disqualify abstinence-only ed once and for all.
Try to enjoy the childless days! Try to think of all those moments when you wanted a half a second to yourself and imagined what you would do with it!
I feel bad for the kids...not for Palin, but for the kids who never asked to be thrown in the spotlight. Whatever the truth is, this teen now has the entire country analyzing her stomach and choices. It seems like the kids should be off-limits.
I confess to being intrigued by this story, and to thinking that it sounded pretty darned fishy. But I also remember what BushCo did to McCain with his adopted child, and I don't really want to be part of it. But, yeah, it does seem mighty fishy.
You know what, though, this is nothing new. People have been raising their grandchildren as their own, complete with the lying about whose child it is, for as long as teens have been having children before they're ready to be parents.
I sure as hell wouldn't vote for her, but this isn't the reason. There are plenty of other reasons for that.
Come on, Liz. You're better, _way_ better, than this.
You know Jonathan, I thought I was too.
I'm amazed at how captivated I am by this, and how personally betrayed I feel as another mother at an insane childbirth story that makes absolutely no sense to me.
I wish I weren't.
How about we get back to issues tomorrow?
For what it's worth, one of my official "silver linings" for a likely Obama victory is that it will make you very happy. (Another is that it will mean McCain has lost.)
I'm totally thrown by the news that the 17yo daughter is pregnant. Good golly, this is one fertile family!
My mom got married when she was pregnant with me---she was about 7 mos pregnant with me---and, while she hid it pretty darned well in the photos (a nice navy shift dress will do that), she didn't look like S. Palin does in that photo. Something seems fishy, but I can't figure out what it is, or whether or not I should care. Bottom line is I don't want S. Palin or J. McCain as my next VP/Pres no matter who is birthing, or not birthing.
I'll take it!
I'll also buy you a beer. What do libertarians drink? Microbrew? Or something from a big company, A-B.
Thanks for the drink offer. If Obama wins, I'll need it ;-) . Actually, _this_ libertarian drinks moderately expensive French wine. And in the spirit of fair play, if Bob Barr wins, I'll buy _you_ a bottle of 90 Château d'Yquem (I've had the '90 Château de Fargues and it was _excellent_).
While the pregnant 17-year old is troubling, it's not a complete deal breaker. However, lying about who Trig's momma is - that's a deal breaker. Did they fake the birth certificate? I guess if you're the governor, it's not hard to do...
Yeah, if her water had really broken, I don't even see how it would have been possible to do all of that--just driving across town with my water broken was a messy and nasty affair.
Something's wrong, I'm just not really sure what it is.
Some very few women NEVER look pregnant, not even at 39 weeks. My husband's daughter is one of those women, she gained very little weight and never wore maternity clothes. Both times she gave birth (at a midwife clinic) early in the morning to healthy children and was home for supper. The only reason she had them at a clinic and not at home was because she was over 35.
Yes Kathy, completely true. Particularly overweight women. But there are photos of Palin pregnant with her other children and she most definitely looks pregnant.
I still think something is very very weird here.
I can't say what I smell, it isn't for polite conversation.
That woman is a nutjob.
Lost a lot of respect for you with this post. Why do we always have to jump to crazy conclusions BEFORE we can just say, "wow - that's great that a woman and mom (of 4 or 5) can run for such high office," regardless if you agree with her values. I'm disappointed.
I will miss reading about your girls.
I can't tell you how much I am schadenfreudeing all over this story and her announcement that her unwed 17 year old daughter is pregnant. Now, if McCain can just please be the daddy.
Amy, I always welcome thoughtful discussion, debate and dissent whether or not you agree with some of my opinions or the topics I choose to discuss. (Just ask Johnathan - he's been tormenting me for years and I don't think he agrees with a thing I say.) If that is not deserving of your respect, I wish you and your family well.
Liz - I appreciate that. I just expected a little more from you on this issue. Maybe at least a sentence that acknowledges that this is a good development for women and moms, before you dive into the craziness.
I have to agree with Amy, although I was more surprised by your "miscarriage 08" tweet. The shock when I read it literally took my breath away. I would think that the etiquette master would be a little more sensitive about the pain involved in a miscarriage.
I respect that this is your space to write what you want to write, and I agree wholeheartedly with your political views. I just think you went over the line making a snarky remark about miscarriage.
anon I said miscarriage alert. I was snarking not on misscarriage but the concept of faking one. Do I put it past the GOP? No, I'm sorry I don't. But I'm truly sorry if I offended in any way.
More above in the post.
we'll see when Bristol actually gives birth, perhaps, how pregnant she was, and when. i can't believe i'm so into this story. yes to everything you said.
Well, I was all set to leave a lengthy comment, but my brain can't settle on one thought after reading the comments up until now...I'm exhausted. Is this an election or a soap opera? I may just have to put my own post together over all this...it is way too fascinating...I really never would have expected all this drama out of Alaska!
I couldn't agree with you more. THIS is not good for women. This is the GOP saying loud and clear that we are all idiots who can't see past a vagina.
They want a woman, give'm a woman. They'll vote for us!
I have never been so insulted as an American as I was when Palin quoted Hillary and then said, Hey, vote for me! Do they think we are so unintelligent that we can't do research, that we don't all see that she is NOT Hillary in the most drastic sort of way?
This is an insult, plain and simple. It's patronizing, and a slap in the face, and any woman stupid enough to play along deserves to be drug through the Vice Presidential mud.
Oh, come on. Not "looking" pregnant? She's fit. I've had several friends who don't "look" pregnant until the ninth month, and even then they just look bloated.
I agree, she's not qualified, but neither is Obama. So you can't knock her around too much there. Let's call it "change" and then everyone will be ok with it.
I'm one of those Hilary Clinton nut job woman who is still swinging from side to side. We'll see where the pendulum lands in November, but I disagree with either side and their trashy conspiracy theories. C'mon.
Don't knock one of your own because she doesn't "look" pregnant or chooses to return to work a few days after giving birth. (I did. It can be done.)
Madmama, with all due respect, she is not "one of my own." Not by a longshot.
AMEN!!! I don't get it either. Why is Sarah Palin a "good development" for women? Because she has a vagina? It doesn't make any sense to me at all. As a woman, I'm insulted. And her using HC's rhetoric in her own dialogue makes me ill.
Something is rotten in Denmark...
Yes. Some women are fit and healthy and don't look pregnant. I daresay, though, that any woman who's had four children...would not.
Anyone else appalled at how in the very statement that asked for privacy for Bristol, Palin gave out the father's name?
What you said in your latest post is quite true – in many ways, election year solidifies or disrupts relationships you have with other people!! =)
I have always been a predominantly Republican voter. I am an economic conservative (also the spawn of two accountants, so I suppose that this part was hard-wired into my genetics or else I was very effectively brain-washed at a very young age) and a social liberal. I may or may not personally agree with peoples’ social choices, may or may not express content (or concern), but ultimately I feel that our government has a responsibility to be socially liberal and to uphold both liberty of thought and action. I do, however, take issue with many financial decisions. This goes for the decisions that both Republicans and Democrats make – we elect representatives, not financial geniuses. And I am not a straight-ticket voter or a default Republican voter, but I vote based on finance and I have a tendency to go Republican on that front.
That said, in this election I have been leaning toward Obama.
And this is the result of the fact that I am also a very European voter. The one thing that I have never understood about American politics is how intimately dirty they are. I don’t care if my President is honest or a good family man. I don’t care if he cheated on his spouse or fathered an illegitimate child or has a pregnant teen in the home. So what? I would say that being a good husband and being a good leader are two different ball games. Some of our most renowned leaders have been philanderers, rapists, liars and thieves. And likewise, some of our most ridiculed leaders have been church-goers and excellent fathers. Yes, sometimes the judgment one shows in the family is an indication of the judgment one will show in office, BUT NOT ALWAYS. And arguably, not even most of the time.
Still, as a socially liberal woman in America today, I would have never voted for Hilary Clinton. I thought that she really was a step forward for women as a whole, though. I have always respected the headway she made for me and for my sisters and my nieces and my female cousins, etc. I have always thought that she was setting a great example and making it so that one day I could say to my daughters that they could dream as big as they wanted, that anything was possible.
And still, even though I respect Clinton and even though I will likely vote for Obama, I would say the same of Sarah Palin. I think she is a step forward for women. I think she is making headway for women. I think she, like Clinton, is setting a great example. I don’t care whether or not the baby is hers and I don’t even think that is significant information. Although I have to say that McCain’s campaign would have already researched Palin and the children in advance of selecting Palin, and odds are that he would not choose someone who had such a scandal attached to them, so it seems astronomically more likely that Palin is Trig’s mother. But the point is that I seriously disagree with you. I really feel that Palin is a good development for American women everywhere. Do I agree with her on, well, anything? Not really. But do I think that women all across the nation benefit from having a woman front row center in the political arena? Yes. Do we benefit MORE from having a woman like Rice or Thatcher, a woman who fought her way to the top? Probably. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t benefit from Palin. We do.
1) i agree that this her choice as VP pushes the progress made by women like hillary clinton backwards. it's sad.
2) while not impossible that a teenager would have a baby with downs syndrome, it's much more likely from a woman of 44 than of 16, given how the risk increases as the woman ages. That said, the whole plane ride story seems really fishy. I'm not 100% on board with the ghost pregnancy idea (especially since it seems that the daughter is *currently* 5 months preggers), but I am troubled by the pictures of her looking not pregnant at all and the water breaking but getting on the flight anyway...heck, when my water broke early, we debated whether we had time to go home and feed the dog before going to the hospital that is 10 minutes away. NO WAY would have have GOTTEN ON A PLANE and then driven past 2 larger hospitals to a smaller one. I would have gone straight to the closest hospital, no questions asked!!
regardless of whether the whole story is a lie or a cover up, or just a bad decision, it is a clear indication of why she has no business being SO CLOSE to holding the highest office in the country. Has the McCain campaign ever heard of vetting?
And here I was thinking she's named a couple of her kids some f'ed up shit.
Honestly, I think McCain just shot himself in the foot....maybe he shoulda just hung out with Cheney.
I am with you 100% on this one. As a mother (and an intelligent woman), I resent the assumption that I'm too stupid to see the truth. Or to see that he picked her, just hoping to get the Hillary supporters.
There's just something so bizarre about the whole thing. Do I care if she faked a pregnancy to cover for her daughter? At the end of the day, not really. What bothers me most is how oblivious she seems to the needs of her family. The *last* thing Bristol needs right now is to have deal with this situation in such a huge spotlight (and the poor father, oh my God). Even if the press does back off, the past few days of speculation are enough to do serious damage to the psyche of any 17-year-old I've ever met.
And Trig--poor kid. Assuming he's hers, I think the decisions she made after her water broke indicate an ambivalence toward a special needs child, especially since she knew *exactly* what she was doing--and risking. Ditto the decision to go back to work so quickly. But I'm biased--my brother was severely disabled, so I tend to be sensitive any time a special needs kid seems to get a raw deal.
I'm someone who has had to make hard decisions between what might be an exciting opportunity for me and what my children and family need. I can't compare it to being offered the vice presidency, but even on a smaller scale, it's hard to walk away from what seems like the chance of a lifetime. But parents (of both genders) have to do it all the time. Sarah Palin has to know she's not really qualified; she has to know that with everything that's going on with her family, it's hard to imagine a worse time to drag them all along on a national campaign.
I would love to see a working mother in the White House, but I'm hoping this one never makes it past the complimentary tour.
Wow, this was low. Very low. There is so much to disagree with on the issues, I can't believe that you would sink to this level of conspiratorial theorizing.
1. Why the hell would she fake a pregnancy only to be scrutinized within an inch of her life a few months later?
2. The fact that she is a political 180 to what you would like in a candidate does not mean she sets the women like Clinton back. Arguments like that set women back. For fuck's sake, when I vote for a man I don't even consider if voting for one would set men back, and neither does any man I know. And some men I know think all liberal men are pansies. (I live in the South.) They still don't think liberal male candidates are turning the rest of them into pansies.
3. I do think she is going to have to answer some questions on HOW her family is dealing with their seemingly many issues. But until those questions are answered, how can anyone criticize them? Ask the question, then step back and wait to get your answer.
4. Why the hell must we hate the political opposition? Maybe it's living in the South, and maybe it's because I have family members to totally disagree with me on issues, but I can't be that hateful. I just want to know what these yahoos are promising, if they have the guts to deliver and then VOTE.
I'm surprised more people didn't comment on the odds of a 17 yo having a Downs baby (1 in 1700ish) vs. a 44 yo (1 in 32).
But I guess somebody has to be the "1." We shall see...
Re: EGM
Is there really a problem with a woman having a child and deciding to return to work? Does that really demonstrate that she is somehow slighting her child, or that she is slighting her child because he has special needs?
Is there really room for us to criticize her for the choices she has made or does make in parenting her children? In birthing her children? Do we actually have enough information to do so? Do we really know her body or her delivery preferences/priorities better than she does, enough for us to say that she shows ambivalence?
I don't think so.
My husband is very good friends with a man named Douglas. His wife had a baby last year. She went into labor on Monday afternoon and had the baby that night (11pm, I think, is when we got the call). She went back to work on Wednesday.
And the fact of the matter is that nobody here, not even me, can really call her a bad or neglectful or ambivalent mother for doing so. I may not agree with her course of action (or Palin's actions) with regards to her family, but just because I would not personally engage in them does not mean that the person who does is doing a poor job.
You know what would eliminate the VP problem? When this country was started, the man who won the election was President and the man who came in second was Vice-President. Now, the VP position is admittedly more powerful and presitgious than it was in those days, but come on, wouldn't it be good to go back to that?
I'm all about balancing power, though, about having two different perspectives adequately represented, etc. So it could just be me.
Anon 6:34 (geez, can't you people at least use fake names and make it easier on me?)
I completely respect your pov and I am in fact envious of your benevolence. But I need to say for the record, I don't think that she sets back women candidates simply because I disagree with her.
I don't agree with women like Olympia Snow or Kay Bailey Hutchison on a lot of their positions, but I think they're pros and they are a better example of what politicians--on either side--have the potential to be.
Anon 7:01
You're right, there's no way of knowing exactly why Sarah Palin has made the decisions that have led her to this particular moment in time. I didn't call her a bad mother or neglectful mother, just an oblivious one (which we can all be from time to time). If she were a neighbor or an acquaintance, I probably wouldn't even give it a second thought. But I will criticize anyone who stands up and says she has the judgment to make the best decisions for the country when it doesn't seem like she's willing to make the best decisions for her family.
Deciding when (or if) to go back to work is a very personal decision under the best of circumstances, and I'm sure that a state governor has a few more factors to consider than most of us who have to make that choice. But it's been my experience (and I actually do have some, from my own family as well as close friends) that having a child with special needs--even if you know in advance--turns your world upside down. True, going back to work after three days could be one way of trying to get your equilibrium back...or it could be a way of running away from the situation.
Only Sarah Palin knows for sure, but I still don't want her for Vice President.
Sorry, etiquette mom. just see your remarks as haughty, unfair...and well, bitchy. Negative campaigning at its worst. Bummer. Signed, Obama's biggest fan.
Sorry if this was mentioned already, but I only skimmed the comments...
Even if the whole faked pregnancy were true, why the back story of the water breaking, flying back to Alaska, etc.? Wouldn't it be less messy to just fly back then say, "hey, fast labor, here's the baby!"
There are also medical professionals quoted in the original story back in April re: the birth, with her OB/GYN saying he had to induce -- are we to believe they are risking their medical license to protect some rinky dink governor? I have to apply Occam's razor to this one...
Prescott, just a correction: no medical professionals (s) commented that it was okay - only her confidante and family doctor. All other medical professionals say this does not jibe with protocol or common sense - your water breaks and you're having preterm labor? You do nooooot get on a plane.
"My water broke" = My daughter is in labor a month early, shit, I have to fly home to be with her.
I know I'm sounding like a crazy loon right now, but I'd rather think that she was doing a noble thing and protecting her daughter's honor somehow, than behaving recklessly and jeopardizing the well-being of her baby.
I am totally open to other reasonable explanations. I just haven't heard one yet.
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