More on Palin

A couple of new Palin stories have popped up over the weekend, and I feel the need to address them, since I talked about her on Friday.

• Bristol’s Pregnancy. Politically, I couldn’t care less about Palin’s teenage daughter’s pregnancy. I think that what we’ve seen publically (a family that is supporting their daughter, who is not only carrying the baby to term, but marrying the father) speaks well of the family’s dedication to their principles, insofar as they’re openly showing love and support for their daughter. I don’t buy the idea that this is a condemnation of abstinence-only education any more than I think that a more robust sex-ed program (including, say, distribution of condoms) is somehow undermined if some teens decide they’d rather risk sex without protection.

  Beyond that, I really don’t think this is any of our business.

• Alaska Independence Party I’ve seen this mentioned on a few blogs, but the closest thing I can find to an actual news story right now is a blog post at ABC News:

  Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which, since the 1970s, has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

  …

  [Lynette Clark, chairman of the AIP] says it’s not accurate to describe the party as secessionist — they just want a vote, she says, adding that the members of the AIP hold different opinions on what Alaska should be.

  “We are a state’s rights party,” says Clark, a self-employed goldminer. The AIP has “a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law.”

  …

  “Governor Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982,” Rogers says, providing some voter registration documentation showing her to be a Republican. “As you know, if she changed her registration, there would have been some record of it. There isn’t.”

  On the assumption that this is true, I have to admit it poses something of a problem for the McCain campaign in general, as I can imagine a lot of mainstream independent and conservative voters being perturbed over Palin’s involvement in such a group. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t bother me personally — it might, in fact, be a point in her favor — but then, I’m somewhat on the fringe myself because of my somewhat libertarian bent.

  That said, I’d like to have a bit more evidence than the say-so of a couple of members of the AIP before I believe the story is true. [Update: It's looking more and more like this isn't true. I'm almost a bit disappointed, but I guess it's better for the campaign this way.]

• She should be home with her son. Please. This is sexist claptrap. Biden was a suddenly-single father, and didn’t give up his political career for his sons after his first wife died. How many people saying that Palin should stay home with her children would have said the same thing about Biden^[a]? Singling out Palin makes it clear that these people believe that mothers should stay home with their children and that fathers can’t possibly get the job done alone. It’s doubly sexist and, therefore, doubly offensive.

• Ongoing investigation in Alaska If you’re not familiar, Palin is currently under investigation for having fired Walter Monegan, Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner. Monegan claims he was fired because he failed to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, an Alaskan State Trooper.

  Again, this is something that could come back to bite the McCain campaign overall, but something I don’t really care much about myself. Monegan was a political appointee, and I see nothing wrong with the idea that the governor can simply dismiss him, regardless of her reasons^[b]. Even if the reason given (Monegan’s refusal to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law) is completely true, it may not be as bad as it sounds — the brother-in-law isn’t exactly a saint, and, from what I can tell, deserved to be fired.

In Friday’s post, I said that I found Palin interesting, and that’s still true. To me, she’s still easily the most interesting of the four candidates in the national executive election, and I haven’t seen anything that sours my opinion of her, though I still reserve judgement until I see more of her.

I find it very interesting that all of this stuff coming out about Palin seems to be hitting the national news pretty quickly, but I’ve yet to see much of anything in the national media about Obama’s connections to Bill Ayers or Tony Rezko. Not that these are necessarily career enders for him, but it’s interesting that Palin (the presumptive VP pick for the GOP) seems to be getting more vetting from the media over a single weekend than Obama (the Presidential nominee from the Democrats) has gotten in his entire campaign.

Dang, this election is getting interesting after all!

1. Don’t get me wrong here. While I may not like the man’s politics, I have a great deal of respect for Biden’s dedication to his family and how he handled that situation. I just find it contradictory to laud Biden’s balance of politics and family while criticising Palin’s. [↩]
2. Keep in mind that I’m a strong advocate of “at-will” employment [↩]