The Hypocrisy of Sarah Palin

My mom arrived yesterday and we've been having a great time chasing my son around ever since. The election came up and I asked her about it, she told me that many people she knows back in Indiana really like Sarah Palin. I was appalled by this. Considering how much I hear about personal freedoms from folks back home I'm astounded that anyone could think her Vice Presidency would be a good idea.

The hypocrisy of the Republican party after her candidacy was announced has been particularly deplorable. While Hillary was making her run all we heard from Republicans was how Dems were trying to play the "sexist" card and how nobody was sexist they just didn't like Hillary. Then after Palin steps up Republicans are crying "sexism!" left and right particularly in regards to Obama's now famous comment "you can put lipstick on pig, but its still a pig" Where's the hypocrisy? McCain made the exact same comment about Hillary. No outrage there though! Wow.

Then is the obvious question of experience. McCain supporters have long criticized Obama for not having enough political experience to lead, but now these same folks are defending Palin's lack of experience (I think its saying a lot when The Office has been on longer than your national political career) and going so far as to say she has more experience than Obama! The new excuse from the Right is that Palin has more Executive experience than Obama. Huh?! What does that have to do with anything? Next time you hear this dressed-up spin of hypocrisy remind the person that Andrew Jackson, Abe Lincoln, John F Kennedy, and *gulp* George H.W. Bush all had political careers in the Legislature and no Executive experience before taking office either.

Then there's the question of pork barrels. Pork barrels are kind of hard to explain and this article does a better job than I could:

WASILLA, ALASKA -- For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has been throwing darts at the special spending system known as earmarking, through which powerful members of Congress can deliver federal cash for pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. He's even gone so far as to publish "pork lists" detailing these financial favors.

Where's the hypocrisy? Here:

Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin.

In 2001, McCain's list of spending that had been approved without the normal budget scrutiny included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla. The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion.

McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure as mayor and cleared Congress soon after she left office in 2002.

The entire article is fascinating, you should read it. So Palin earmarked federal funds for her town, the kind of politics that McCain has been fighting his entire political career.

But I guess the thing that disturbs me the most about Sarah Palin is the hypocrisy of her daughter's pregnancy. (That's right, I'm going there. And hopefully Obama will too). Palin asks for respect and privacy for her daughter's decision during this political campaign. Yet, if any other young, unwed woman gets pregnant, if she is raped, or if she is faced with the prospect of carrying and delivering a horribly diseased or disfigured child with a short life expectancy, Sarah Palin would have our government legislate to her what course of action to take. She only wants respect and privacy if the decision made is the one she agrees with. In fact, there is nothing respectful or private about our government telling women what decision to make about their pregnancies.

And if recent allegations about her allowing the Wasilla Police Department to charge rape victims for the forensic work (i.e. rape kits) done on their case turns out to be true, she moves from the realm of hypocrite to monster.

Orwell was wrong, we don't have to worry about Big Brother. If McCain succeeds, Big Sister will only be a heartbeat away.