Reply #75: "better"?

[torbird]

No, being "better" than the Republicans is a mentality that makes it OK to lose elections so you can preserve your supposed moral purity. Get over yourselves. Public figures have public lives, and Gov. Palin made her children fair game as soon as she joined up with and espoused the doctrines of a party that wants to tell each of us how to raise our families. She can lie in the bed she made--the daughter is incidental except insofar as she has forced the public to decide what credibility her mother has on her own championed issues.

As for these insipid, endless posts commanding all of us to "leave the kids alone!", they begin to sound like "won't someone think of the children!" after a while. I, for one, don't call myself a Democrat because I want others to tell me what to do and how to think. If you have a civil request to make, make it. But this holier-than-thou attitude and these demands that we all agree that this very relevant story be quashed so a few squeamish souls can sleep at night is unacceptable. This is politics. It ain't church.

The folks making this silly demand for "respect" and "privacy" don't seem to be all that united, either. Some want us to ignore this story because Bristol Palin has a "right" to privacy. Her mother's GOP doesn't think so. I think so, anyway, for private citizens, but it shows a galling lack of political acumen for her to have become pregnant in spite of her family's very public positions. Others on this board relate their own experiences as young parents (as Obama did with his mother), without realizing the stark difference between being pregnant and anonymous and being pregnant and famous. They are not equivalent situations. Still others on this board object to anything that will make us look like "bad guys" -- but does helping McCain get elected despite knowing what you know make you feel really great about yourself?

The Republicans, with their nonsense positions on the issues, made this mess. We have a right and a duty to observe and, if we feel so moved, to comment. It's not personal, people. It's strictly political.