Sarah Does the GOP

After initially stating that I did not believe I could watch Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech to the RNC, curiosity got the better of me and I turned it on. What is most striking to me today, the day after she spoke, is how many headlines are claiming that she hit it out of the park, how a new star is born at the GOP, that she nailed it. Quite honestly, I was not the least bit impressed with her at all. I watched her with all the interest of watching a soccer mom (or in her case, hockey mom, which is still not really applicable as the hockey player in her family is actually the 18 year old fella who boffed and knocked up her 17 year old daughter - who may or may not have been 16 at the time they rubbed uglies - and now is being forced to marry her....c'mon, you know he is being forced; he stated on his MySpace page - before it was mysteriously removed - that he did not want to have kids) speak at a PTA meeting. Did she get cheers and standing ovations? Of course she did! Look where and to whom she is speaking! Did anyone honestly think she would get anything less? The GOP has no choice now but to stand behind her; to falter would be to show weakness, which then would bring about McCain's campaign imploding. But it is interesting to note that ahead of the speech, there were still doubts surfacing even amongst those supposedly supporting the decision to make her the running mate. And Palin's speech - while assuredly rousing to the staid GOP membership who adore the fact that she is sort of attractive in a very MILFy way while also knowing her way around a hunting rifle - did not have the ring of truth on certain levels. And, sure enough (I love the technology age!), her facts were off on more than one occasion. The first VP debate between her and Biden is scheduled for a month from now and should be highly entertaining. I can smell her blood in the water even now.......

And I personally have a very real problem with a woman who is a mother of FIVE choosing public office as her "calling". Add to all of that that one of those kids is a "special needs" child with Down's Syndrome. While Senator Biden and even Obama himself have stated several times that attacks on Palin's family are expressly "off limits", one cannot ignore the obvious. This is a woman who in her term of public service opposed structured and open sex education in schools, who is anti-choice, and currently is reaping the rewards of that particular stance by having an underage pregnant teen daughter. In a country that currently has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the world and in a time where sexually transmitted diseases are running rampant amongst the teen demographic, am I the only one who finds this a wee bit narrow sighted? And yes, Palin should absolutely take a hit on this. When you accept the offer to potentially become the second most powerful leader in the free world, your life immediately becomes an open book and each and every choice you or your family has ever made or will make is open to scrutiny and critique, ESPECIALLY if you sell yourself as a hard core evangelical conservative. Wake up. With this singular example it is painfully obvious she cannot control her own household and yet the American public is expected to accept she will be able to do so when they move to Washington?

As I said, I was not impressed. A "true/false" guide to her (provided by the San Francisco Chronicle) did nothing to really change my opinion of her either. The best she could really come up with last night in her speech was to take jabs at Obama, not really touching on any specific topic or platform points on any level as to clarify, well, anything.

Make up your own minds, but my prediction is that the closer we see all of this getting to November, the more we will see the GOP sinking, Palin struggling, and McCain's rhetoric and "fire" evaporating. Should be interesting....in a train wreck sort of way. I think I will stand in agreement with Mark Morford in his opinion that God has actually abandoned the GOP....if they were ever allies........