The newest — so far as I know — Obama ad hits McCain in the pocketbook. Well, in the economic sector, anyway. And it hits him with that cruelest of all weapons: a pit bull.
Tell me. Is there something wrong with me (wait, wait for the whole question) that I’m not much attracted to Sarah Palin? Clearly enough, the folksy bullshit is, well, it’s bullshit. And her wisdom — a composite measure of intelligence, experience, and compassion — falls neatly into one of the Palin features nominated by Tina Fey: high-school bitchy.
But allegedly grown men — according to reports in various media — find her more than attractive. She’s a full-blown, heart-breaking, soul-wrenching, crotch-rattling sex pot. Or so they’d have us believe.
I remember one of the pictures of Palin with McCain at the GOP convention, after her speech. He was looking at her with what one of my sons and I decided was either barely-disguised lust, or the fuddlement of the absent-minded Lothario who can’t recall whether or not he’d already had her.
But then, it isn’t just old men, so maybe it isn’t just sex. Consider reports from “the real America.” You know, places like central Pennsylvania.
Die-hard supporters flock to Palin
Wearing a white “clean coal” hat, Richard Bord sat with his 3-year-old granddaughter Mary, waiting for Sarah Palin to speak at Rec Hall Tuesday night.
“I cut them,” Mary said, pointing to her brown bangs hanging halfway down her forehead. “Because I wanted to be like Sarah Palin.”
Bord smiled and said, “We had to take her to the hairdresser to try to fix it.”Mary wasn’t the only one in the crowd admiring the Republican vice presidential candidate. Rows away, State College residents Deb and Simon Tack sat with their 12-year-old daughter. Deb Tack waived a sign that read, “Mothers of 5 for Palin.”
“I have five children, 12 to 2 (years old),” she said. “It’s exciting that she has a large family and she has worked up a career. When I heard her story, I was excited.”
The Tacks, like many others in the crowd, said Palin’s family values were a big part of why they support her.
“Well, we are very pro-family and pro-life, and we hold traditional values very dear, and she shares those values,” said Breanne Pettigraw, who came with her husband, Jonathan, and their six-month-old daughter from Pleasant Gap.
All right. I guess there may be a region where the sex-pot circle overlaps the family values circle. And it apparently is big enough to hold Sarah. Alternatively, the evangelicals may be fudging the overlap just a bit to accommodate the pregnancy of Palin’s unmarried 17 year old daughter. I don’t want to elaborate on anyone’s private life; Palin’s daughter should be left alone to lead her own. Still, the issue is out there. So the question comes up. Are we looking at a version of hypocrisy from Palin’s supposed core supporters?
Apparently not, according to an article in The New Yorker. Pregnancy among evangelical teens is not unusual at all. The whole article is interesting and illuminating, especially for me in a quote from the author of a recently-published study of sex and religion among teen-agers.
…religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical.
THE SANE ASYLUM 