ArchPundit

Like Dr. Laura:

I am extremely disappointed in the choice of Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican Party.  I will still vote for Senator McCain, because I am very concerned about having a fundamental leftist, especially one who is a marvelous orator, as President.

At first, I thought it amusing that McCain picked a pretty, smart, and tough female to counter the racist/sexist accusations going back and forth between parties.  I remember how Oprah Winfrey got caught in the cross-fire as she stepped up to the political table to support Obama with pride that a black man could rise to such heights in the USA, only to get slammed by feminists who told her it was gender, not race, that she should back.  Understandably, Ms. Winfrey pulled back from it all.

Forget gender and race.  I’m frankly and sadly caught in the dilemma of having to balance policy versus example in touting a candidate for the office of the First Family.  I was ferociously attacked (what’s new?) when I spoke out strongly against Bill Clinton’s dalliances in the Oval Office.  That situation quickly turned into a debate whether “private has anything to do with public.”  Nonsense.  Role models are very important.  Children and young adults look to those who are visible and successful as a road map of what is acceptable behavior and emulate those actions over the morals and values their parents and churches have taught and tried to reinforce.  It’s a tough go these days, when the “bad that men or women do” is used for entertainment purposes without judgment, or is excused because of political or financial considerations.

I’m stunned – couldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain?   I realize his advisors probably didn’t want a “mature” woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age.  But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?

I am haunted by the family pictures of the Palins during political photo-ops, showing the eldest daughter, now pregnant with her own child, cuddling the family’s newborn.  When Mom and Dad both work full-time (no matter how many folks get involved with the children), it becomes a somewhat chaotic situation.  Certainly, if a child becomes ill and is rushed to the hospital, and you’re on the hotline with both Israel and Iran as nuclear tempers are flaring, where’s your attention going to be?  Where should your attention be?  Well, once you put your hand on the Bible and make that oath, your attention has to be with the government of the United States of America.

I am positively moved that neither Sarah nor her daughter were willing to terminate the lives of their unborn children.  This is in sharp contrast to Obama’s statement that “When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include…which should include abstinence education and teaching children…teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual.  But it should also include – it should also include other, you know, information about contraception, because, look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old.  I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.  But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” (March, 2008)

So, one Vice Presidential candidate and her daughter demonstrate, under conditions of great stress, that babies are valued human beings, not punishment.  However, that same VP candidate came forth in April of 2008 with a proclamation for “Family Child Care Week,” in which she wrote: “These professionals are positive role models for the children they care for and the communities they serve.” Clearly, Palin sees the need for

positive role models.  I suggest that they be Mommy and Daddy, and not the hired help.

Child-care facilities are a necessity when mothers and fathers (when they exist at all) are unwilling or incapable of caring for their offspring.  Unfortunately, they have become a mainstay of the feminista mentality that nothing should stand in the way of a woman’s ambition – nothing, including her family.

Any full-time working wife and mother knows that the family takes the short end of the stick.  Marriages and the welfare of children suffer when a stressed-out mother doesn’t have time to be a woman, a wife, and a hands-on Mommy.

Some guy named Todd apparently isn’t important to her.

The irony to me personally is that my wife stayed home with the kids for 5 years and is now looking to return to work part time as the girls have entered kindergarten.  Of course, that was a choice we made not because, first of all and unlike my mother, we could.   Second, it made sense for us with twins compared to the relative cost of child care to Ms. ArchPundit working.  Third, Jennifer wanted to.  It was a choice.