Sept. 5, 2008 \ The Clarion
Letters to the Editor
Page 5
VP nominee's daughter's pregnancy shouldn't matter
by Chris Dixon
Contributor
If you have watched any
news station, read any
newspaper or even glanced
around your Facebook you
have seen that Republican
Vice Presidential nominee
Sarah Palin’s 17- year old
daughter, Bristol, is pregnant.
Now I know she is not
married and is having a child
out of wedlock, but she is
keeping the child, and she is
marrying the father. Many
s^ that Sarah should drop
off the Republican ticket
because of this situation.
Why? That would, if
anything, show weakness of
Mrs. Pmin and from what I
can see she is anything but
weak. She has five children
and supports them to the
fiallest. Now I don’t how you
all feel but any woman that
has five children is a pretty
strong woman. Now
certainly, just because she
has five children doesn’t
qualify her to be the Vice
President of this country, but
it is certainly a very
admirable quality. So to
answer the question in the
title of this article... NO! It
does not in anyway matter
in the upcoming presidential
election. Are we voting for
John McCain and Sarah
Palin’s daughter or John
McCain and Sarah Palin??
Exactly, we are voting for
the latter on their stance on
political issues not their
stance on their family issues.
Does Palin's daughter's pregnancy matter?
by Travis Wirebacl
IVIanaging Editor
In many ways, my liberal arts
education informs my position
on politics. However, as
someone staunchly anti-Barack
Obama throughout the
Democratic Primaries, I was
undecided about who to vote
for in November, and even
contemplated voting for John
McCain.
That is, until the two Vice
Presidential nominees were
announced. Since then, I have
been questioning both John
McCain and Sarah Palin’s
judgment in her becoming the
Vice Presidential candidate.
The announcement that her
17-year old daughter is
pregnant amidst ramors that
Sarah Palin’s youngest
daughter was also her 17-year-
old’s child is evidence of the
turmoil in her family's personal
lives. And yet, she still
accepted the nomination,
knowing that her daughter’s
pregnancy would be thrast into
the national spotlight.
Not only has her daughter’s
private life been revealed to the
nation, but her pregnancy has
become a political tool. In an
effort to define her ‘family
values,’ Palin uses her
daughter as an example of her
stance on abortion. Its passing
unnoticed that PaUn’s daughter
is 17 years old, not even an
adult under legal terms, and that
Palin’s political viability
depends upon her daughter
not obtaining an abortion.
Instead of being a boon to
Palin’s political career, this
pregnancy should be
considered a disaster. Palin is
a proponent of abstinence-only
sex education, and her
daughter is living proof that
this type of sex education is a
failure.
Furthermore, this is a
ridiculous issue to be
discussing on the national
stage: the fact that a I7-year-
old’s sex life is in any way a
qualifying factor of someone’s
credentials to be second in
command of our nation seems
to detail the sharp decline in
the quality of political
discourse this nation is
experiencing.
However, instead of pundits
discussing Palin's pregnant
child, we should be discussing
her political history, and her
actual credentials to be in the
White House. We should not
be focusing on how she raised
her daughters to have morals,
but rather on her record;
inclduing her having flip-
flopped on the money trap that
was the Bridge To Nowhere.
This debacle was a project to
build a bridge in Alaska which
she originally supported and
fought to get funding for, then
denounced once the Senate
began investigating where our
tax money was going, only to
find that the bridge was literally
going nowhere.
Another issue we should
investigate further is her lack
of leadership experience. Many
people discredit Barack Obama
as being inexperienced in
foreign policy and with many
other administrative duties,
rightly in my opinion.
However that inexperience is
balanced by his extremely
experienced ranning mate, Joe
Biden. Because of Obama’s
Vice Presidential choice, I have
the utmost confidence in his
ability to ran the nation, and in
the event of a tragedy, the
competence of Joe Biden to
take over
On the Republican side, the
very real threat that McCain
will not live to see the end of
his presidency means that
Sarah Palin has a good shot at
becoming president.
While I supported McCain
over George Bush in 2000,
believing him to be a moderate
Republican, his stances have
become more and more radical.
Until now, I believed this was
simply politics at work, trying
to attract the voters whom he
isolated and disenfranchised in
his 2000 bid.
However, by choosing PaUn
as his VP, he was ascribing to
the win-at-all-costs tactics of
the Karl Rove brand of
campaign politics. McCain is
misguided if he thinks he can
draw women voters simply by
choosing a woman as his
ranning mate.
Anyone who traly listens to
Palin’s speeches will realize
that she is against women’s
rights, evidenced by her stance
on abortion. McCain must
have a very low opinion of
women to assume that women
will compromise their values
simply to see a woman in the
White House.
As we get into the heat of the
election season, we should all
give this election the attention
it deserves. I hope that we will
watch the debates with an open
mind and look at the real issues,
irather than Rove-ian
distractions.
Vote on their foreign poUcy ,
their fiscal policy, their
sustainable energy plan, the
issues that affect the nation as
a whole, and affect our
country’s international
standing. Rather than fooUshly
attempting to keep us safe from
outside threats by gutting the
Bill of Rights and surrendering
our freedoms, keep us safe from
outside threats by increasing
our international standing. To
paraphrase BenFrankUn, those
who are willing to surrender
necessary freedoms for
temporary security deserve
neither security nor freedom.