Sarah Palin's Shotgun Politics

Let's hear it for Bristol Palin. The pregnant 17-year-old daughter of John McCain's vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, is going to have her baby and marry her beau, Levi Johnston. That's a brave move, and she deserves all the support she can get. It looks like she'll need it. Her 18-year-old husband-to-be describes himself as a "fuckin' redneck." His MySpace page (which has since been taken down) said he is in a relationship and doesn't want kids. Bristol's mom and dad, we are told, are delighted. We know because they issued a statement. "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents." Good for them. Now they would like us to talk about something else. "We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy," they said. Not so fast.

The fact is, Bristol could make the decision to keep the baby only because, in legal terms at least, she had a choice. A choice, as it happens, that her mother wants to criminalize. Contrary to popular wisdom, the decisive issue in Sarah Palin's vice presidential nomination was not her gender but her views on abortion. Had she not been antichoice she never would have made it onto the ticket. The principal objection to McCain's purported favorites for the job--Joseph Lieberman and Tom Ridge--was that they support abortion rights. The woman who would like us to keep her daughter's pregnancy a private matter is running for office so that she can make the pregnancies of other people's daughters an affair of the state.

There is precious little to gloat about here. It is depressing how quickly attacks on Palin and her family descend into misogyny, as was the case with Hillary Clinton. Speculation as to how Palin could possibly balance her responsibilities as a mother of five with the vice presidency, or whether her daughter "strayed" because her mother was too preoccupied with work, is inappropriate and offensive. McCain has seven children--two of whom are older than Sarah Palin--and those questions are never asked about him. Bristol Palin is not fair game.

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