Boztopia.com

Every time I think satire can always improve on real-life events, real life throws a curveball that hits satire right in the cup.

Case in point: If you were paying attention to the whirlwind of news about Sarah Palin this weekend, you probably heard of the weirdness surrounding the birth of her youngest child, Trig. (Weirdness besides his name, that is.) There’s a dedicated strain of the blogosphere that is absolutely convinced that Bristol Palin, Sarah’s then-16-year-old daughter, was the actual mother of Trig, and they’ve got pictorial evidence to prove it.

Now, anything that has the support of both crazed 9.11 truthers and anonymous Dkos cranks (who’re probably GOP operatives anyway) is something that you really want to stay away from. I, personally, thought it was creepy as hell that people fixated on this in the face of the avalanche of evidence proving Sarah Palin is a crazy fundie nutjob and not suitable to be a VP. I remember what Chelsea Clinton endured from the press and the right-wing noise machine during her father’s presidency, and no one has the right to put a 16-year-old through that. Besides, stuff like this happens all the time–a young woman suddenly goes on a long vacation and the mother magically announces she’s with child a few months later. It’s their business and no one else’s.

But speaking of that curveball:

Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her
husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the
child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by
the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Wow. So their defense that their daughter wasn’t preggers at 16 is that she IS preggers at 17. That is some serious Britney Spears kind of shit.

You really have to ask yourself two questions. First, is a family as clearly as messed-up as this one you want to have a heartbeat away from the Presidency? Second, and most importantly, what does it say about John McCain’s ability to govern and make decisions that he not only chose an inexperienced lightweight wingnut over an army of accomplished Republican women, but that he didn’t stop to consider that announcements like this would be catapulting his campaign into the Jerry Springer Zone? The man’s not a maverick, he’s erratic. At best.

As a guy, it’s not really my place to make arguments about choice and women’s rights, but as a brother and a son, it disgusts me to think that someone as virulently anti-choice as Palin is going to be thrust into a position where she could set the policy on abortion for decades to come–and the example she sets was letting her daughter get pregnant at 17 without, apparently, any discussion about sexual education or contraception. The theocrats will eat this up with a ladle, but the rest of us should see it as another example of how the right-wing, and McCain in particular, really view women. Barefoot, pregnant, breeding machines.

Is that who you want running this country?