Sympathy thread for all the other unwed underage teenage girls...

[LynneSin]

...the ones that will have NOTHING given to them because they may come from poverty or perhaps they are non-white or for whatever reason the republicans and their ilk will scorn them. They'll call them 'welfare queens milking on the government teats' and then find ways to slash even more social government programs that could actually give these girls and their unborn child a fighting chance in this world.

Bristol Palin and her baby will be taken care of quite nicely. I'm sure right now as we speak hundreds of right-wing crazies are probably knitting booties for baby palin and sending gifts as support for a girl who probably doesn't really need it to begin with.

So when the repukes start showing a bit of sympathy for all the unwed, underage girls out there and help provide programs that not only will help these girls in life BUT help drive down the overall number of unwed, underage pregnant girls then perhaps I'll have a bit of sympathy towards one spoiled girl who seems to have a mother way too busy regulating other peoples lives and not her own children.

[phantom power]

1. You know, I bet you're right about the booties.

[LynneSin]

2. Yep - Bristol is a pretty girl from a good republican family

So for these idiots this whole thing is 'cutsie' but these same people will then turn around and curse everyday people who happenstance into this situation.

[phantom power]

6. I don't know if you read Digby...

but she's influenced my thinking a great deal, in terms of what makes the GOP tick. One principle she gives a lot of weight to is the "tribal" nature of GOP politics. For one thing, they're not motivated so much by what their own leaders stand for (or actually do), but by who their leaders make enemies of (that would be us). This whole "internal consistency" thing we spend so much time scratching our heads over is mostly beside the point. Which, as a theory, clears up a whole lot.

I can see that everyone's been vastly engrossed and downright obsessed by all these revelations about Sarah Palin's bad parenting, reproductive decisions, daughter's sex life etc, over the past few days, but I doubt any of that will persuade people to vote against McCain. Indeed, I think the religious right will find the liberal sniping at her personal choices to be galvanizing while everyone else will see it as a lively sideshow, but unimportant in terms of their vote.

Anyway, the only people who make a fetish of other people's reproductive choices are social conservatives and they will forgive her anything because she's a right wing Christian. There are, of course, many many other things about Palin and her selection that are very damaging, but in my view this Jerry Springer, Jamie Spears stuff may even help her more than hurt her. (This whole thing has a bit of that old "dragging 100 dollar bills through trailer parks" vibe, which actually ended up making Clinton more popular, not less.) Here in Murika, people love to gossip about others' foibles and they love to compare their own lives to those who have made other choices ---- but they don't hold ordinary everyday problems against them. Redemption R Us.

Today I hear that the media is asking if she will stay on the ticket, because of all the "problems" her pregnancy story has caused. barring something else, I think she'll stay. The memories of Eagleton are fresh enough that nobody wants to repeat them --- McGovern was the one who suffered for both the choice and the removal of him. And this one is even more dicey. Palin's a woman, she's from a rural state and she's become the poster child for the religious right.

This was always going to be a turn-out election and without the churches to counteract the Obama campaign's modern ground operation, they don't stand a chance. They can't risk angering James Dobson's army and I don't think they will unless something a lot more damaging than the mundane news of a knocked up seventeen year old comes out

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/defying-his-mortality-by-digby-i-can.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I'm with you, my dear LynneSin...

K&R

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

4. Perpetuating Ignorance

is what they do. Abstinence-only? Anti-sex ed? Great, that'll leave an entire generation wondering about what that throbbing is in their groins, and when they do something about it (once again, out of ignorance) they'll all get pregnant and/or STDs. The Repugs are attempting to legislate ignorance.

LynneSin makes an excellent point: the double-speaking Repugs want to protect the wealthy white girl who got knocked up at the same time they tell inner-city youths that they are tramps and they're on their own.

[siligut]

5. Maybe this will help.

A young woman in an unplanned pregnancy, can use Bristol to defend herself, both internally and to those who might judge her. How this has been handled may play out well for less fortunate young women. Let's hope.

[regnaD kciN]

7. Oh, suuuuure...

...only if she's white, rural, and from a fundamentalist Christian family.

Every other such woman can go to Hell. Literally.