Sarah Palin resigns Governorship to gear up for 2012

[Berkut]

The irony of Marty slandering someone else on sexual grounds (much less sexual promiscuity grounds) would be funny if it wasn't so trite and common.

Nothing particularly ironic about Marty pointing out that the same sort of people who call him out as being immoral are not exactly paragons of virtue by their own standards.

But he didn't do that - he called her a "retarded whore". Her being a whore is not dependent on Marty fucking anything and everything that gets close to him, or her opinion (which as far as I know she has never once expressed) about his homosexuality.

He didn't blast her for being a hypocrite, he blasted her for being a "retarded whore" and he blasted Palin for "selling her".

[Valmy]

Her daughter is a whore and she gives birth to retarded babies that should have been aborted.

DP gets it!

[Martinus]

The media would have gone after her family anyway, but yeah you're right in that she was asking for it in trying to use them publicly to help define her.

Yeah well if you are going to do the whole social conservative thing you need them for your political credentials.  Pity they weren't a very good political family.

I disagree. It's not like Cheney's lesbian daughter would have scored him a lot of points with the conservative right, either. But then he didn't choose to parade her around and the media didn't go into feeding frenzy on her either.

[Caliga]

I am still confused as to why Palins family is so much more a train wreck than anyone elses. Is this all about her daughter have a child out of marriage? Isn't that bitch a bit outdated these days?

I think it's less the child out of wedlock thing than the "you can't see your child" thing re: Bristol and the baby daddy, whose name I can't even remember.  I don't really care about Palin's family all that much, I merely like to point out the irony in it all.

...and I think you've made the point about all politicians making family values part of their platform before... but I don't know that I agree with that.

[Berkut]

I am still confused as to why Palins family is so much more a train wreck than anyone elses. Is this all about her daughter have a child out of marriage? Isn't that bitch a bit outdated these days?

I think it is about advancing how abstinence only education is the way to go and then...whoops.  Egg on face.  Context is important here.

So as long as Palin thinks abstinence is a good idea, then the fact that her daughter has a kid is somehow "egg on face"? I am not sure I understand how that context works.

Maybe her daughter wanted to have a child? I don't know - I just don't see how it follows that her daugher having a kid is somehow a good reason to accuse Palin of 'selling her retarded whore of a daughter".

Maybe you could explain that chain of reasoning to me?

[Martinus]

I think it's extremely intellectually dishonest to accuse the media of being hard on her family or private life. Her family is a train wreck, but most journalists wouldn't dig too deep in that if she didn't choose herself to parade them in front of cameras for political gain. She was selling her retarded whore of a daughter as an "abstinence advocate" for fucks sake.

I'd agree but it seems that all the candidates had their families out there during the campaign. Just what they do - show the family, no biggie. I'd be just as annoyed if the the kids of Biden, McCain, Obama were trashed. I guess it could be argued that Palin did more with family in the campaign, but then, she was also just coming on the national scene so her family, life and habits in Alaska, were in the media a lot more.

I don't know about that. I don't remember McCain's daughter being given a lot of limelight - in fact, the first time I heard about her at all, was when she came out in support of gay marriage after the elections.

[Sheilbh]

I'd agree but it seems that all the candidates had their families out there during the campaign. Just what they do - show the family, no biggie. I'd be just as annoyed if the the kids of Biden, McCain, Obama were trashed. I guess it could be argued that Palin did more with family in the campaign, but then, she was also just coming on the national scene so her family, life and habits in Alaska, were in the media a lot more.

The difference is that their families haven't been that interesting.  I mean given that joke McCain made in the 90s about Chelsea Clinton being so ugly because her dad's Janet Reno I don't think that campaign could cordon off their families.  But I'm sure we'd hear a lot if, say, Chelsea Clinton got pregnant when she was 18, or what have you.

Speaking of her I recently met her landlords from Oxford.  The security stuff they were saying about was ridiculous.  Some of it had to be removed recently because, for example, the high speed gates that clamp shut when a panic button's pressed put someone into hospital for a few days when there was a party at the house and someone drunkenly pressed the panic button

And hwo did she use it politically, at least insofar as they then "deserved it", whatever "it" is?

Well I think she's discussed Trig, for example, a lot more than is normal.  Sometimes I think it is just crass and political (Runner's World) but her pro-life speech in Indiana when she discussed the thought she had of having an abortion I think is terrific and gives a hint of the politician she could have been with a bit more time, and possibly that she could still be in the future.  It's a really remarkable, very moving and honest speech.  By far and away the best she's given that I've heard of.

I think using a family politically is a bit like porn.  It's difficult to describe but you know it when you see it.  There've been a couple of times when I thought that of Palin.

[Valmy]

So as long as Palin thinks abstinence is a good idea, then the fact that her daughter has a kid is somehow "egg on face"? I am not sure I understand how that context works.

Maybe her daughter wanted to have a child? I don't know - I just don't see how it follows that her daugher having a kid is somehow a good reason to accuse Palin of 'selling her retarded whore of a daughter".

Maybe you could explain that chain of reasoning to me?

No I am not defending Marty's histrionics as my own ideas.  I simply pointed out how her family was a source of political embarrasment not that she is a pimp or anything.

Palin's deficiencies, in my eyes, had little to do with her personal life.

[Berkut]

I think it's extremely intellectually dishonest to accuse the media of being hard on her family or private life. Her family is a train wreck, but most journalists wouldn't dig too deep in that if she didn't choose herself to parade them in front of cameras for political gain. She was selling her retarded whore of a daughter as an "abstinence advocate" for fucks sake.

I'd agree but it seems that all the candidates had their families out there during the campaign. Just what they do - show the family, no biggie. I'd be just as annoyed if the the kids of Biden, McCain, Obama were trashed. I guess it could be argued that Palin did more with family in the campaign, but then, she was also just coming on the national scene so her family, life and habits in Alaska, were in the media a lot more.

I don't know about that. I don't remember McCain's daughter being given a lot of limelight - in fact, the first time I heard about her at all, was when she came out in support of gay marriage after the elections.

McCain had a granddaughter that was pretty prominent, and certainly Obamas family was paraded in front of the cameras at every opportunity. I don't think there is a choice here - if you are a politician, your family is going to be on camera whether you like it or not. If you are ancient, and don't have young children, your fam will get something of a break, I guess.

But really. The bush daughters, Clintons kid, the Obamas, they are all going to be seen.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know about that. I don't remember McCain's daughter being given a lot of limelight - in fact, the first time I heard about her at all, was when she came out in support of gay marriage after the elections.

She was stumping round the country and had her own blog during the campaign.  She just wasn't that interesting.  Of course you wouldn't have known given that you apparently get your news from some gay newswire :p

[Martinus]

I certainly do not recall her daughter claiming to be an "abstinence advocate"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5288179/Bristol-Palin-campaigns-for-teenage-abstinence.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-06-palin-teen-sex_N.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7510385&page=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/bristol-palin-says-abstin_n_197597.html

I could easily come up with more links for this.

[Berkut]

I think using a family politically is a bit like porn.  It's difficult to describe but you know it when you see it.  There've been a couple of times when I thought that of Palin.

I think it is more a matter of whether you wish to use them to slander someone or not. If you do, then of course it is compleetely ridiculous to whore them out for the press, and if not, they are just a fine example of an upstanding and pleasing icon of the American Nuclear Family.

Palin's family is nothing special. Seem like a pretty well put together family, and the fact that she has a kid with autism or downs or whatever is certainly a bit more interesting than the fact that she has a daughter who had a child.

Marty suddenly becoming the Moral Majority when it suits him is pretty good though. Now THAT is some hypocrisy!

[Sheilbh]

McCain had a granddaughter that was pretty prominent, and certainly Obamas family was paraded in front of the cameras at every opportunity. I don't think there is a choice here - if you are a politician, your family is going to be on camera whether you like it or not. If you are ancient, and don't have young children, your fam will get something of a break, I guess.

But really. The bush daughters, Clintons kid, the Obamas, they are all going to be seen.

This is one of the biggest differences between UK and US politics.  I can think of maybe 5 photos of Blair or Brown with their children in the press and only 1-2 for Cameron.  Here the rule is if you keep you family private then the press'll generally respect that (unless they get caught drunk and disorderly like Euan Blair) and if you take them public you'll get slammed for using them.

Then, in this country, when a politician brings out the children it's almost certain he's asking the press to 'respect his privacy' after he's been caught having an affair.

[Berkut]

I certainly do not recall her daughter claiming to be an "abstinence advocate"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5288179/Bristol-Palin-campaigns-for-teenage-abstinence.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-06-palin-teen-sex_N.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7510385&page=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/bristol-palin-says-abstin_n_197597.html

I could easily come up with more links for this.

Ahh, so the fact that she said abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy, and she wishes she had waited to have sex is the reason you have morally decided she is a "retarded whore" whose mother "sells her"?

Gotcha.

[DisturbedPervert]

I don't know about that. I don't remember McCain's daughter being given a lot of limelight - in fact, the first time I heard about her at all, was when she came out in support of gay marriage after the elections.

McCain's daughter was actively campaigning for him.  Just no one was interested in her.  They were all interested in Palin's whore daughter and tard baby conspiracies.  Hell, at times on Languish there would be a dozen Palin threads on the front page.