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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Earth to media: Leave the girl alone
In all the scolding and what-does-this-mean-ing surrounding Sarah Palin’s daughter over Labor Day, something really big got lost.
She’s a kid, for crying out loud. Her whole world flipped upside down a few months ago. Her pregnancy is now being examined like no 17-year-old’s who ever came before her.
Lord knows, there are plenty of issues to discuss about her mom’s candidacy. We can only hope that the TV heads and pundits eventually get around to things like foreign policy, the economy and the price of gasoline.
But for now, it seems we’re far more interested in the impact of her pregnancy on the ticket. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a poll: Does Bristol’s pregnancy help John McCain or not? You decide.
There’s a reason most 17-year-olds still go to school and live at home. They’re kids. They make mistakes. That’s part of what being a kid is about. Growing up the hard way, on occasion. Learning lessons. With luck, it’s in the privacy of your home.
The difference between Bristol and almost every other 17-year-old in the U.S. is that Bristol’s life has been the alternate act to Gustav in cable news’ breathless round-the-clock drama.
How fortunate for television that the news broke on Labor Day, so all the folks at home could tune in, nudge each other knowingly. “Now that you mention it, she did hold her baby brother in front of her when McCain was introducing her mom. Wasn’t that clever.”
Can you imagine the stress on this poor girl? Not enough that she’s having a baby, marrying the father at such an early age and trying to pull her life together. We get a subplot involving her impact on the entire 2008 presidential election. You might make the history books, kid. Good luck with that.
Every time we see a flaw in a candidate’s family life or personal life, it seems, we wring our hands and talk about privacy and wonder if it should really be part of the public record.
Funny how those discussions change nothing the very next chance we get to expose a candidate’s human side.
