Today's a holiday for The Atlantic, which I used to attend to all those personal affairs left hanging while I flitted off to Aspen. So naturally, Sarah Palin goes and pulls this totally bizarre stunt. I'm not saying Sarah Palin's out to get me. But she could have been a little more considerate, I think.
All one can say, really, is "what the hell?" We don't know yet whether this resignation comes in advance of some financial scandal (or to ward one off), to save her family from the really disgusting attention it's gotten from some quarters, or simply because she's got some sort of serious impulse control problem. But even explanation two reflects badly on her. I'm second to none in my condemnation of the attention her family has received. But can you imagine a male politician resigning because comedians and bloggers were being too mean to his daughers? The state of Alaska elected her to serve a term. She owes them that much.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Well, everything I've read is speculating on a presidential bid. She's stuck in Alaska and can't travel.
Even if you think that's bunk, the fact that you didn't mention it shows you didn't even look around the Web before writing this.
"the fact that you didn't mention it shows you didn't even look around the Web before writing this."
As opposed to tiprunt, who checks the Web and repeats what others have said.
Perhaps she thoroughly checked it out and found it wasn't worth mentioning. Is that what you're saying? Megan, care to chime in?
If that's the case, it's quite admirable. Most bloggers would mention B.S. rumors if only to gleefully tear them apart and ridicule them. Megan's integrity really impresses.
Just because others are said it, should tiprunt discard it as a possibility as Megan McArdle appears to have done.
While it's good to see McArdle denounce Andrew Sullivan, er, I mean the "really disgusting attention [Palin's family has] gotten from some quarters", if you have a website, and you want to strike back against those who've smeared Palin, here's how to do it. That only applies to those who have established sites, but there are a lot of people like that around.
Governors are replaceable, presidents not so much. In the end she has faith in her Lt Gov and she knows she needs to focus if she is going to make a run in 2012. Or it could be that her son Trig needs his mom. Either way who are we all to judge who are not in her shoes.
"who are we all to judge who are not in her shoes."
If she plans to run for the office of President of the United States, as all indications are that she is, it is our serious obligation and responsibility to judge.
As the infamous Republican Peggy Noonan once said, "It would be irresponsible not to specualte."
Beg to differ. I watched Johnson replace Kennedy and Ford replace Nixon. If you weren't a Washington mandarin, you didn't even notice the difference in your daily life.
I think its pretty clear that its a preparation for a Presidential bid. Part of one term is all you need now a days before you start spending all your time campaigning - Edwards, Obama. And she did get things done for Alaska.
"And she did get things done for Alaska."
Which is a heck of a lot more than Obama did for those of us here in Illinois.
Some quarters... in The Atlantic? Has Sullivan's obsession with her vagina creeped out even his colleagues?
Maybe she's just tired of paying out of her own pocket to defend herself from spurious legal attacks. Maybe she thought the national press would stop attacking her family once the campaign was over, and has decided this is the only way she can restore a semblance of a normal life. Or maybe (and this is my guess), she's decided to go to Washington with an eye toward a run for the White House in 2012.
Maybe she's just tired of paying out of her own pocket to defend herself from spurious legal attacks.
Spurious? According to you? Or according to Alaska law enforcement?
Maybe she thought the national press would stop attacking her family once the campaign was over, and has decided this is the only way she can restore a semblance of a normal life. Or maybe (and this is my guess), she's decided to go to Washington with an eye toward a run for the White House in 2012.
What a WATB!! I've got the world's smallest violin waiting for her.
According to anyone who's paying attention. If she's actually done something wrong, her opponents aren't using it.
The legal attacks that have been decided so far have been spurious according to the decisions. With past legal cases, that's pretty much the only way to judge.
Sullivan is obsessed with her lying -- in case you didn't actually read his posts (which apparently you haven't).
Is it always an "attack" when the media points out huge flaws in candidates/politicians? Was the media 'attacking' Clinton during the lewinski scandal?
There was never, ever, the slightest bit of evidence Trig was Bristol's child, and his conspiracy theories got more and more ludicrous as time went on. It's pathetic that anybody actually fell for that, as you seem to. Let me guess - the Air Force is lying about Roswell, right? And the planes that hit the World Trade Center were really pentagon drones with special holographic technology to make them look like airliners. Do you actually wear a tinfoil hat, or did you build a Faraday cage around your bed?
If you read his blog -- you would find more than a score of easily disproved lies that she has told.
By the way, he never said she lied about the baby, he merely pointed out that she could have easily put to rest rumors but never did.
It's routine for politicians to stretch the truth, but Sullivan's valid point about Palin is that she would lie in such an incredibly stupid way. Look at her latest lie about Todd's membership in the Alaskan independence party and the secessionist nature of that party -- a lie she told to Steve Schmidt in an email - can you make any sense of that kind of lie? It is truly astonishing. And yet it is just one example for her.
Yeah, the rumors that he himself started. Hey, I'm not saying you beat your wife or anything, but you should really release her medical records just so we can all be sure.
I found it rather interesting to look at the question of who the mother was as an exercise in bayesian or a posteriori probabilities. For women 20-24 (where the statistics cut off), the incidence of a downs syndrome child is 1/1562, for a woman Sarah Palins age, it is 1/19. Lets say you have no other knowledge of who the mother is, then the a priori probabilities of who the mother is are each 1/2. Then the probability that Sarah Palin is the mother is (1/19) / ( 1/19 + 1/1562) or 98.8%. Because the odds of having a downs syndrome child would be even lower than 1/1562 for Bristol, this is a pessimistic estimate.
I am frankly amazed that idiots like Sullivan could maintain with a straight face that Trig was Bristols child - the odds are overwhelmingly against it.
I'm frankly amazed that anyone reads Sullivan any more.
Derek
Your mistake here is that you assume people understand statistics.
I appreciate the analysis --it's good to see someone who thinks about the numbers -- but your analysis is only valid if we consider just age as the only factor affecting the likelihood of trig being Bristol's baby. It neglect some important facts...
44 year old pregnant woman.
Starts leaking amniotic fluid a month early
Continues to leak amniotic fluid causing high infection risk
Woman gives 30 minute speech.
Travels 45 minutes to airport
Waits in lounge
Boards plane and flies 4 or so hours to Seattle
Never tells flight attendants she was very heavily pregnant and in labor (showed no signs of pregnancy)
Waits for stopover flight in Seattle.
Flies another several hours to Alaska
Long drive home from airport
Delivers 6.2lb baby in small medical center near home that night
Dr. unavailable for comment.
Daughter has "mono" for months before trig's birth.
I agree that these facts do not in any way "prove" that trig is Bristol's child, but a rational person must conclude that they alter the probability of trig being Bristol's son.
Just for variety, let's try looking at the reasons Palin actually gave, to see if those make sense.
Why would it be better for her State if she stayed in as a lame duck Governor, with partisan hacks attacking her constantly and forcing her to spend much of her time defending against those (so far utterly baseless) attacks? If she believes that her Lt. Governor is prepared and will do a good job, whereas she will just be forced to fight lawsuits over what jacket she wore recently, why not let the Lt. Governor officially do the job that he'll effectively have to do anyway?
This allows her to 1) spend more time with her family; 2) raise funds to pay for her defense against the many baseless lawsuits; 3) give speeches that (in addition to raising funds) help to influence the public debate while giving her some experience on the national stage and with national issues; and 4) hopefully take the edge off of some of the particularly nasty attacks that her children have had to face.
And how many male politicians can you name whose families have faced attacks as vitriolic as Palin's family?
Exactly. I'd never pull a lever for Palin, but describing rape jokes as merely "being mean" is pretty off-base. If I took a high profile position and my daughters were Sullivaned the way hers were, I'd quit so fast I wouldn't have time to type the resignation letter.
What rape jokes are we talking about here. I've seen that a lot lately...who made those jokes? We're not talking about Letterman are we?
And how many male politicians can you name whose families have faced attacks as vitriolic as Palin's family?
Such a short memory. Or do you not remember what Limbaugh(and even John McCain) said about Chelsea Clinton?
Not even in the same ballpark.
Or do you not remember what Limbaugh(and even John McCain) said about Chelsea Clinton?
Yes, I do. There weren't any rape jokes. Matter of fact, Chelsea was left pretty much alone.
David Letterman did not make a rape joke.
It is obvious that he was thinking about Bristol. He said the joke was about bristol. It wasn't funny but it was about the 18 year-old un-wed mother daughter.
There is no need to act like you don't know it was not about the 14 year-old daughter. I didn't even know that Palin had a 14 year-old daughter until some people started going crazy over what appears to be a willful misinterretation of Dave's attempted joke.
"I didn't even know that Palin had a 14 year-old daughter"
You don't pay attention to politics, therefore no one else pays attention to politics?
People have to know the number and ages of the Vice-Presidential candidates' children in order to claim that they 'pay attention' to politics? That's setting the bar pretty high, no?
Other people have suffered a comment here and there. No one else has taken the intensity or volume of slime that Palin did. She blew Bush out of the water in terms of slander, something I really didn't think possible. From jokes about her being gang raped to claims that she was a whore to claims that she was a man to claims that she'd been a "weathergirl" to claims that she was a stepford wife dominated by Todd to claims that she was a child abuser to claims that she attacked rape victims to... the list just goes on and on, and that's just in the first weeks of the campaign. The obviously photoshopped pictures of her in a bikini with a gun made front pages in serious newspapers around the world. Her family were subject to more intrusion than all the other candidates combined.
Again, even Bush didn't get the media to sink to that levels, with the Bush twins receiving relatively mild treatment. Seriously, think about the claim that Chelsea being called ugly or a dog and compare that to Bristol's treatment, or Trig's, and I think you'll find yourself feeling pretty foolish about your statement.
Yes, let's DO look at poor Sarah's actual words, shall we?
source: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/07/03/transcript-of-palins-announcement/
The GOP VP nominee:
"… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out."
And she responds.....by quitting.
You GOP voters picked her, not me. But you are looking pretty goofy choosing her as your standard bearer right about now....
I think she wants to be president and realized that no more good can come from being the governor. Her approval ratings are have been slipping. Alaska's revenue heavily depends on oil and since oil prices are no longer sky high, there might be issues there. There are a few investigations going on, being governor of Alaska doesn't allow for much touring, speaking, etc. in the lower 48, and so on and so forth. In short, she had nothing left to gain, but plenty to lose by staying there. Since her desire to be president is stronger than her desire to actually govern Alaska, she decided to just punt the governorship before it sank her.
I don't really buy the whole, "she wanted to shield her family from the press" argument since she seems to have absolutely no problem dragging at least one of her children along to every engagement, photo shoot, etc.
"she seems to have absolutely no problem dragging at least one of her children along to every engagement, photo shoot, etc."
Amy Carter used to be allowed to go to State Dinners (and sit there reading a book at the table). Did that make her fair game? I seem to remember seeing pictures of both Clinton's and Obama's daughters at campaign events, so rape/illegitimacy/fake birth jokes about them are on the table too, right?
After all, it's suspicious that Palin doesn't keep her children locked indoors all day, like hostages. Especially the baby - any normal mother would want to leave her baby at home, far, far away, rather than bring him with her so that she can spend more time with him. She should act as if she's ashamed and wants to hide him, if she really cares about him.
Did anyone else notice the quick intake of breath, at the end of each sentence, during her speech? If I didn't know better, I'd say she is under an enormous amount of stress and/or heavily medicated.
My money is on some scandal about to break.
Yes, because resigning as Governor isn't stressful at all.
This last election was unusual in the sense that there were two candidates that were mirrors. Obama became whatever anyone hoped he would be. Palin in an odd way brings out what people are.
Neither are exceptional as politicians or candidates. Obama had a spotty record as legislator, and could, other than his above mentioned gift, be one of hundreds of Illinois politicians. Palin was a populist governor, timed when resource revenues were high, and simply not being a thief and blatant liar was enough to be above the rather muddy crowd of Alaska politics.
But the reactions two both are enlightening. There are commentators that I will never believe or listen to again due to their over the top reactions to one or the other.
I've seen this type of cycle in local politics. Larger than life characters end up disappointing, inevitably. The electorate learns their lesson, and turns to boring but competent people. For a while.
My guess is that she is going to take up an offer in media. Unless you win big in politics, it is a very expensive hobby. Especially for Republicans right now.
Derek
"I'd say she is under an enormous amount of stress"
This is also explained by the attacks she has already had to face. Alaska seems to allow anyone to file ethics complaints for pretty much any reason. She has so far been cleared of every complaint, but defending against the attacks takes time and money. Again, how it is better for Alaska that she continue to collect a paycheck as Governor when she has to devote so much time to fighting against frivolous lawsuits and ethics complaints? Now she can wear any jacket she wants.
It's my understanding that she's already carrying about a half a million dollars in debt as the result of defending herself against these ethics charges. So it may simply be that she can't afford to continue serving in office. The Palin's aren't that wealthy. IIRC ABC News estimated their net worth to be about 1.2 Million, though this is tied-up in the family home, her husband's business, fishing rights, and some land holdings. So resolving these debts, and facing the ongoing threat of future litigation may present an undue risk to their welfare.
And as for whether a male politician would tolerate such a sustained and vicious attack against his children - I don't know that Megan's assumption is correct. When the national media start promoting the sexual conquest of your 14 year old daughter, in the midst of an ongoing campaign to humiliate your 18 year old daughter, and condemnation for not having aborted their downy brother, who they claim is actually the bastard child of the 18yr old, it's time to weight your priorities. I suspect that a lot of men would remove themselves from the public stage to protect their children from this sort of thing.
I am noticing the "talking points" that must go out to hundreds at the drop of a hat.
Today the word is "bizarre". Can't you folks come up with words, phrases, thoughts of your own? It's the word used on TV, and in many blogs......
Poor Sarah..she's been acting "bizarre" lately, she pulled a "bizarre" stunt......
Show some originality!!
And jmo3, Sarah did not look to me like someone under a lot of stress......she looked classy, sharp and happy. Thought her remarks took too long......but then when has any politician made a "short" speech? At least she wasn't using a teleprompter!!!
Meh? It's pretty much the right word.
I mean, come on, it is just a job. She tired of it, the same way any of us might tire of something. It has hard for me to watch the news lately without thinking what a bunch of bullshit it all is (I live in So. Cal., so I get this impression on federal, state and local levels). Isn't it possible she just came to the same conclusion?
She may be the sane one.
I'm going to suspend judgement for the time being. If she enters the 2012 race, then yes, her resignation would be totally bizarre and irresponsible. If she doesn't enter the race, then I'll accept her reasons at face value. Either way, she is not presidential material. Maybe someday (2020?), but currently I cannot take her seriously. Her actions are not those of a person who is interested in elective office.
However, maybe she's going to do something very unconventional, like lead a raid on Harper's Ferry to capture guns for the coming taxpayer rebellion.
She'll be campaigning full-time.
It's a natural move, outside of the media who hate her so passionately I don't know why people are so surprised. She's a huge draw.
There's already a semi-permanent tea party protest circuit. Just wait, if this nationalized health care plan and the "ruin our economy in the name of a dubious enviro-apocalypse" bill get passed, people are going to be flocking to her rallies.
BTW, did you see the UAH global temperature anomaly for June? .001 degrees. Thirty years of "warming" and we're .001 degrees off mean. Yes, it's one month, but the overall satellite data trend is way too flat to justify these measures.
Anyone who says the AGW science is settled doesn't understand the science. No one can claim to know for sure the water vapor feedback is strongly positive, and there are several studies that say it may be negative, which destroys AGW as a theory (though not, I suspect, as an environmental cause).
Palin should have stuck out her term or given us a better reason why she couldn't. Too many people worked hard to get her elected for her to quit without a better explanation. I am expecting one.
The vicious treatment of Palin by the media reveals more about them than her. The contempt they feel for her is the contempt they hold for all of middle America.
I'm so tired of hearing this 'contempt for middle america' BS.
When Sarah Palin stepped onto the national stage, the vast majority of Americans looked at her 'middle american' values and said "this woman is awesome -- she's smart, tough, competent, committed to her family and seem full of integrity, just what the country needs".
The problem wasn't her 'middle american' values, it was the fact that her behavior completely betrayed those values.
She isn't smart (I can see Russia from here and Putin flies over Alaska soI'm an expert on foreign policy).
She isn't tough (The press is so mean to me).
She isn't competent (Look at hos she managed herself during the campaign and what she's done in Alaska since then).
She's lies like a rug (insert any one of scores of obvious lies here).
If the Sarah Palin presented to us at the outset was the real Sarah Palin, then she would have been incredibly successful.
She never claimed to be able to see Russia from her house, that was Tina Fey. The real Palin's line was that there are parts of Alaska you can see Russia from, which is true. And she never claimed her foreign policy experience consisted solely of being close to Russia - as I recall, she was involved in genuine foreign negotiations, a pipeline deal with Canada or some such. I won't address the other ones, but on the "She isn't smart", your evidence is pretty weak.
I never said that 'here' meant her house -- that would be insane even for Palin -- everyone agrees that "here" means Alaska, not her house.
Dim Sarah makes my point so much better than I can..
"As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state."
Where do we start?
1) Using the phrase "rears his head"
2) Triumphantly saying "where do they go? Alaska" -- in what universe is this relvant to her foreign policy experience?
3) "It's just right over the border" as if she is speaking to a five year old.
4) "because they are right there, they are right next to our state." -- more repetitive jibberish.
Sure, politicians say stupid things on occasion -- but you really don't see the difference between that kind of quick factual mistake (made by both McCain and Obama) and this blubbering? It's not just one error,it is a woman digging herself deeper and deeper without the sense to just shut up when she clearly has no answer. In addition, her words are the words of a child -- do you honestly not see that?
And this is just one of her statements.
Nice try, Steve, but Alsadius put you in your place, a hole you cannot crawl out of. You cannot claim you didn't confuse Tina Fay with Sarah Palin said because you didn't think "here" meant her house. What did you think "here" meant? As Alsadius pointed out Palin specifically said "from parts of Alaska". Now, how does "here" fit in other than a very lame attempt to cover your error? It might be "insane even for Palin", but apparently not for you.
You claim Palin "betrayed" middle class values, but provide not a single example (except to repeat the same line).
Then you claim she "isn't smart". Your "proof"? A standard phrase (rears his head); "he files over Alaska"; ever heard of the polar route? Maybe you could use some non Euclidean geometry instruction. You fear she is speaking to a five year old. Well, that seems a perfectly appropriate level to address you.
Not only do politicians say stupid things occasionally, so do commenters. Congratulations. You are approaching the Biden level.
Rick
Rick, this isn't 1958 and Russia isn't the Evil Empire anymore.
Is Sarah saying that she expects Putin to launch an invasion of the United States? If so, she's trading in fear-mongering delusions.
Of what relevance to Palin's foreign policy experience is it that Alaska is near Russia? How does mere proximity translate to meaningful knowledge of international relations?
It doesn't, of course, and that was made plain as the campaign progressed.
Sorry, Rick, the proximity argument was just plain silly. Arguing whether she meant her house or just some parts of Alaska is completely irrelevant. She could have mentioned some of the negotiations between her state and Russia, but she didn't, she tried to explain the geography of how the two land masses are situated, which was an inexplicable tactic to me.
People didn't like Palin b/c she had middle class values simply isn't true as I've seen it. They didn't like her b/c it seemed she was attacking half the country instead of wanting to lead them. That's just my opinion of course and you're entitled to your own, but at least understand why a lot of us don't understand why Palin is considered the samrtest policy wonk in politics.
The delusion here is pretty stunning.
Sarah Palin just quit the only substantive political job she ever held, halfway through her first term. For her swan song as Alaska governor, she gave a rambling, incoherent speech mentioning every buzzword from the liberal 9th Circuit to Big Government to the troops in Kosovo. "We're doing well!" she says... so why is she bailing out? Perhaps because her approval rating in the state is in full freefall?
Palin is finished, done, toast as a national political candidate. It's over.
Palin is finished, done, toast as a national political candidate. It's over.
And maybe that's ok with her. The way things are going these days, I wouldn't disagree.
That's fine.
I speak of the people who are saying "I think its pretty clear that its a preparation for a Presidential bid" and "she's decided to go to Washington with an eye toward a run for the White House in 2012" and "she'll be campaigning full-time." That's wishful thinking at best, willful delusion at worst.
Yeah, but is it delusion on the part of the commentators, or Palin? That's the real question here.
I don't know where Palin goes from here. If she's sane, she's getting out of politics and getting ready to cash in on her notoriety.
I don't know if there's a scandal brewing, or if she's just preparing to write a book and stump for the party faithful. Maybe she's getting ready for a run, though I don't think she'll get far at this point. But to give her her due, it can't be easy to govern a state when people from Andrew Sullivan to David Letterman to national and Alaska Dems see your personal destruction as among their highest priorities.
If her leaving office allows Alaska to have a governor more focused on Alaska than lawsuits and dealing with national politics and media, she's done a good thing.
"..he never said she lied about the baby, he merely pointed out that she could have easily put to rest rumors but never did." Like Obama's birth certificate, then?
I doubt this will make a difference to you , but maybe you should look at
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
I doubt this will make a difference to you, but maybe you ought to look at:
http://wire.factcheck.org/2008/09/16/forget-it-jake/
I want to thank you, Steve, for being such a fine example of the loony left. Let's see, factcheck "proves" Obama's citizenship, but factcheck is of no help with Trig's mother. How can you stand your own hypocrisy?
Rick
to save her family from the really disgusting attention it's gotten from some quarters
Yes, assuredly she's done everything she can to minimize her family's exposure to national attention.
I for one cannot believe the "disgusting attention" that "some quarters" have given to her family. How dare they bring her family up, as if it were some political football, to be used to lose or gain capital in the minds of drone ideologues. Shame on them!
If one was wondering if SP is making a strategic move leading to a Presidential run you can just forget that.
Read her words from her web page. This woman is ranting. This is not the next leader of the free word doing this writing.
http://gov.state.ak.us/
Maybe we would be better off if lots of politicians just decided to quite out of the blue. Ted Kennedy, Corrine Brown, Maxine Waters, George Bush, ect. ect. ect.
Barney Frank!
Obama!
I imagine she'll be on the circuit. Going to Fox News or talk radio is a better fit for her anyway. As soon as I heard her first National speech I was pretty sure she more of an ideologue than a stateswoman.
Just look at the posts here. Her followers eat this crap up, but noone else does. Perfect for radio or TV, but not running things.
So she's Obama with a backbone...
Pretty much, yes. She says what she thinks, but a lot of people don't think that way and she makes no apologies for viewing those folks as "no-good"...but that's no good for politics. In politics, unless you're a Churchill-like phenom, you compromise or die. And let's not forget, Churchill was voted out of office after the War.
I think she'll follow L. Ron Hubbard's advice and start a religion or church of her own.
This reeks of Karl Rove. They are probably throwing her down the memory hole so as little as possible of the 2008 republicans will be visible in 2012 when they take on The One.
Damn, Megan. What the heck did you do to deserve this much Right Wingnut in your comments as karmic punishment?
Like the sound of a dream.
The splendour
of the laughing
clouds appears
in the calm
of a quietness,
with delicate
breaths and a
restless seaside.
Francesco Sinibaldi
Miss McArdle, I gather you're not a parent. I'm not playing the Absolute Moral Authority card here, because I'm not one either. But, like you, I had parents and I see these parent-people around me all the time.
I presume you have the capacity to empathize. That capacity, by the way, is as much cognitive as it is emotional. It involves understanding the emotional reality of others, including the legitimate, justifiable emotional reality of others.
You make no attempt to understand that reality, as evidenced by your almost deliberately stupid "comedians and bloggers were being too mean to his daughters" remark. The mainstreaming of "retard" jokes about Palin's baby; the mainstreaming of rape jokes about Palin's daughter; your damaged colleague Sullivan using the Atlantic Magazine perch for his sick Trig Trutherism - all this is new, in our culture. It's loud and proud hate, no longing willing to hide in the gutter, but now on public display, with the approval of our elite cultural institutions (e.g., Sullivan still has a job.)
If you had a kid, you would defend her from this evil. But I ask you to remember, again, that empathy is in significant part a cognitive capacity, which perhaps you should further develop.
"If you had a kid, you would defend her from this evil."
As the mother of two children, one of whom is brain damaged, my experience has been that any hint of ridicule hurts a lot more when directed at a special needs child. Granted, Trig is too young to understand now and may not even fully appreciate it all later, but the other children - including the 14 year old and the 8 or 9 year old - would be aware of the attacks on their very vulnerable baby brother, and those attacks would hurt in a special way because of his vulnerability.
The attacks on Palin and her family have been unusually nasty and have continued far past the election. Again, Megan, can you give even one example of a male politician whose children have been targeted so viciously?
The net is a very big place, full of unregulated speech. So, ultimately, is the set of 100 channels on cable or satelite, and the set of 1000 publications at the newsstand. There will always be people making horrible, nasty comments and insinuations. There's just no way to get around that, in the modern world.
That means there's limited value in finding the craziest or nastiest things said and calling them out as proof of the depravity of the other side. Outrage is the easiest thing in the world to find.
This is why a staple of both left- and right-wing commentary is finding an outrage-inducing comment from someone on the other side, and using it to build up outrage. (Outrage is much easier than thinking.)
Palin got a bunch of commentary that was basically linked to her being from the wrong social/educational class to take up a major leadership role in the nation, as well as a lot of seriously nasty comments (mostly from the fringes) about her family. But that doesn't change the fact that, by her performance in debates and interviews, she gave the impression that she just flat didn't have the depth of knowledge and understanding needed to do a non-disastrous job as president. Similarly, she doesn't have a long history of accomplishments, which might convince you that she is very capable despite not being all that verbally adept. And she has a history of pretty erratic behavior, which led to (among other things) some ethics charges, and which has now extended to this bizarre mid-term resignation.
If you're a Palin supporter, it's pleasant to focus on those nasty and indefensible comments about her family, rather than the stuff that makes people like me cringe at the thought of her being in the white house. This is the same phenomenon as the folks on the left who really obsessed over the nasty Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack ads on Kerry, rather than on the fact that he was a singularly unappealing candidate for all kinds of people who had no doubts at all about his war record.
I'm not a Palin supporter but:
We're now calling David Letterman, The Atlantic and Wonkette the fringes?
Odd, I don't remember her running for President? And I don't remember Biden looking so hot either.
Nor did Obama OR Biden at the time. If you don't count getting elected, Obama still doesn't.
Never, ever confuse glibness with intelligence. They appear together often but aren't causally related. See Obama...
I think the simplest explanation of the latter is the former, though no one wants to talk about it. They've all been dismissed, but have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $500K of her families money.
And for her troubles she gets rape jokes about her daughters and insults from sitting Senators months after the election. Was anyone making John Edwards jokes in Jone of '05, Lieberman or Gore Jokes in June of '01? How about jokes about their children? Hell, has anyone even mentioned that Joe Biden's daughter is a coke head?
"......a male politician whose children have been targeted so viciously?"
I seem to recall Bill Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, on the receiving end of pretty vicious commentary. And John McCain's adopted daughter was subject to racially-charged speculation during the South Carolina primary. If you say these weren't as bad then you're venturing onto the area on the map known as moral relativism
Contrary to what seems to be the predominant position here, the left does not have a monopoly on this type of viciousness and shame on those here willing to point fingers in one direction only. Children should always be off limits.
You don't seem to know the meaning of moral relativism.
Making value distinctions based on facts is actually the opposite of moral relativism.
If someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff, that is bad.
If someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff and kills your wife, that is worse.
It's not relativism to make this distinction.
Well Jenny, on this topic I think I know exactly the meaning of moral relativism. Attacking/mocking/slandering children, including those of public officials, is always vicious regardless of the perception of its degree. Trying to excuse it or make exceptions or spinning it as some seem to be doing here seems pretty relativistic to me. Or would you prefer the term 'engaging in moral idiocy'?