Family Values?

If you look through my blog archives, I doubt you will find any posts of a political nature. I have my opinions but rarely discuss them because so many others have already said what I feel...and have said it much better than I ever could.

But two things struck me as odd after listening to Governor Palin's speech last night. (Okay, many things she said last night were bothersome and coupled with the fact that the conventioneers ate everything up like pablum and that I remember seeing very few people of color -- Black, Asian, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, etc. -- in the crowd, well I could go on, but that's not what this post is about.) First, Governor Palin supports abstinence-only education -- I think. I've found quite a few articles on-line written within the past few days regarding a gubernatorial questionnaire from 2006 but can't find anything about her actual stance. If she's advocating abstinence-only, then doesn't her 17-year-old, unwed daughter's pregnancy and Gov. Palin's subsequent "change of heart" to say that the pregnancy is okay because she's keeping the baby and marrying the young father, provide a glaring display of hypocrisy? How can Gov. Palin tout that the abstinence programs work when her own family visibly disproves that?

Second, I'm actually glad she said that if elected as Vice President, that parents of special needs children would have a voice in the White House. However, a 5-month old child living with Down Syndrome requires much love, care and attention. Will Gov. Palin be able to balance the possible Vice Presidency and the country's affairs with the needs of her child? I know I'm going to get slammed for saying this, but wouldn't the child come first? Shouldn't the child come first?

To answer in my own way any who will say, "Why are you even talking about her family? That doesn't have anything to do with her ability to govern. Stick to her stances on the real issues," (or something like that), these are real issues. These actions show how she handles difficult situations, and should she become Vice President, those issues will increase in both number and difficulty. And with her being such an unknown political quantity to most of the country, I don't see how the above-mentioned issues can be ignored.

(And if the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate or even former President Clinton and his family were in similar situations, the GOP would be all over it, muckraking, loosing the hounds and trying to beat the Democrats to a bloody pulp with it.)