Accidental Blogger

After hurricane Gustav’s glancing blow derailed the Republican convention for a day, the news media and tabloids are all over hurricane Bristol, the real storm which is at the center of this year’s GOP festivities that threatens to expose the hypocrisy of the party’s "Family Values" bigots. Of course, the sanctimonious right wing morality brigade is spinning like Dervishes to put a holier than thou gloss over Sarah Palin’s messy personal story. John McCain is resolute in his claim that Palin was thoroughly vetted but nobody is buying. The public too sees the irony of the events that have unfolded at the cost of one 17 year old whose ambitious parents spared little thought before pushing her into the national limelight at a vulnerable time in her young life. Many are asking now, "What about other young pregnant teens, especially poor ones, who may or may not have the financial or family support that Bristol Palin apparently does? Will the Republican Party show the same understanding and sympathy for them?"

Here is a sample of letters to the editor in today’s Houston Chronicle; only one letter asks everyone to butt out of Sarah Palin’s personal life.  And a cartoon by Chronicle’s Nick Anderson.  (Anderson should have added, "…and I am a Democrat" to the young woman’s statement."

A woman’s place

With the announcement that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, how can Sarah Palin possibly think she can continue her run for the Republican vice presidency? The GOP players have been quick to praise her family values, but I question the values of any woman who would leave a special needs infant and her pregnant teenage daughter to gallivant around the nation in a frantic, round-the-clock campaign for vice president.

Palin’s family is in crisis and, at the risk of sounding like some moldy leftover from the 1950s, her place is at home right now tending to her five children. Women can have it all. They just can’t have it all at the same time.

BETSY DOLAN
Sugar Land

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Abstinence’s failure

There is one good policy — not political — reason why the pregnancy of Gov. Sarah Palin’s unmarried, 17-year-old daughter cannot be ignored, despite the wish of all of us to leave her family alone. That reason is that Palin and other social conservatives fight the teaching of birth control to teenagers and believe that abstinence is the only answer to unwanted pregnancy. Though it would be nice to believe that our children will wait until they are married to engage in sexual activities, or become 40-year-old virgins, it is not practical.

Fortunately, Bristol Palin has caring parents to help her through this tough time. Many do not, and, as usual, conservatives could care less about their problems.

Abstinence is simply another pie-in-the-sky, failed conservative nonsolution to a major problem.

MICHAEL D. BURKE
Houston

No ifs about this if

Regarding Tuesday’s Page A8 article "PALIN’S SURPRISE / Pregnancy announcement draws GOP support / Running mate true to consistent, ‘pro-life message’ ": If the shoe were on the other foot and it was a Democratic candidate with a 17-year-old unmarried, pregnant daughter, we would hear about the Democrats’ having no family values!

JOAN DOLEN
Houston

Waiting for apology

After hearing the absolutely shocking news Monday that the unmarried, 17-year-old daughter of the new Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sara Palin, is five months pregnant, I immediately thought of how ugly the press, conservatives and late-night talk show hosts were of Britney Spear’s sister, Jamie Lynn, when she too became pregnant at a very early age. Both of these young "girls" are in an identical situation, so all those ultra-conservative right-wingers now better apologize for those mean comments and jokes, or give Palin’s daughter the exact same treatment. I hope they choose the apology.

If John McCain is trying his best to win the women and ultraconservative votes by presenting Palin as a "family" example, then he should understand that her husband spends months on Alaska’s North Slope away from his family, mom works long hours as a governor and essentially must raise her children with nannies. These are the family values the Republican Party wants us to strive for?

When neither parent is home, kids tend to get in some form of trouble — case in point.

JOE H. HICKMAN
Houston

Sounds pro-choice

Gov. Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter is pregnant, and there is a lot of talk about this being a private family matter, as it should be. But let me make sure I understand Palin’s and the Republican Party’s position correctly. Palin’s daughter chose to keep the baby and marry her boyfriend, and her family kindly asks that the public let the family deal with this in private.

So Palin’s daughter’s reproductive choices are a private matter? Wow, it sounds like what pro-choice advocates have said all along. A woman’s reproductive decisions are best left up to her, her family and her physician.

DAWN BRUM
Baytown

Not our business

The media is sick, sick, sick. Sarah Palin’s daughter is not running for any office. Whether she is pregnant or not has nothing to do with U.S. security, our energy problems, economics or health problems, and it is not anyone’s business. The media needs to get over it. Let the reporter cast the first stone whose family is without sin.

BOBBIE JOLLY
The Woodlands