Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin: So What's the Difference?

Drawing from Mememan's excellent article, "The Double Standard of American Politics", I am taking some liberty to present some of the contents here. I have re-formatted and re-arranged some of Mememan's thoughts to focus mainly on the unequal treatment of Michelle Obama in contrast to Sarah Palin.

Michelle Obama: You graduated from Harvard and Princeton. You were married for years before having your first child. The news media call you "Baby Mama".

Sarah Palin: You run away with your high school sweetheart. You got pregnant before you got married. In the media, you are a great example, a model of what an American mom should be.

Michelle Obama's husband: You studied international affairs for several decades, but they still call you inexperienced at foreign affairs.

Sarah Palin: Your state is close to a foreign country. You can see Russia from Alaska. That qualifies as foreign policy experience. You must be ready to take over as President in case something happens to the ailing President McCain.

Michelle Obama's husband: You write your own speech, and you deliver it in a way that brings millions to tears. No big deal. All you do is give good speeches. You are just a good talker. Nothing more.

Sarah Palin: You read from a teleprompter the words of Matthew Scully, speechwriter of President George Bush. You practice and pout the partisan lines of another. You've just become a rock-star politician. That one speech is enough to catapult you to the White House.

Sarah Palin: You are a conservative Republican. You make it on the cover of People magazine. What an achievement by an ordinary American!

Michelle Obama's husband: You are a Democrat. You are on People magazine's cover. Well, you are a celebrity, an elite.

Michelle Obama's people: You are black. Your teenage daughter gets pregnant, and the father does not want a baby. You're just behaving like what we expect of black people.

Sarah Palin's people: You are white. Your pregnant teenage daughter's boyfriend says on his MySpace site, punctuated with four-letter words, that all he really wants is sex, not kids. You'll do great as America's next VP. You were courageous to haul your daughter's boyfriend into the spotlight at your party's convention.

Sarah Palin: You are a white woman who talks tough. You husband is lucky to be married to a strong woman like that. They describe you as an advocate for women, and they can't understand why America's feminists are not lining up behind you, cheering you on.

Michelle Obama: You are a black woman, and you talk tough just like your white counterpart. You are an angry black woman, a bitter black woman. You are domineering and have too much control over your husband. We don't want you anywhere near the White House as America's first lady.

Can we not see that such double standard helps to color our view of the issues that really matter in our national discourse? Don't we realize that as long as we apply this uneven scale, we'll be stuck with personalities rather than focusing on the real issues that should decide our elections and national future?

Sarah Palin's Speech at Republican Convention Nails It. Really?

For a stranger to the national stage of presidential politics in America, Gov. Sarah Palin delivered an excellent speech for the Republicans at their convention. At last, she has lit the flames that the Republican grassroots have waited all these months to warm their partisan hearts and hands. It's kind of unusual that it took the bottom of the Republican ticket to fire up the campaign and the base of the party. But if you are Senator McCain, you get your fire any way you can, whether from the top or bottom of the hearth.

Having heard and seen Gov. Palin put on quite a show before the eyes of a nation curious to discover the newest political star, will Barack Obama finally be kicking himself in the pants for not picking Senator Hillary Clinton as his running mate? That would have been a double history-making ticket, but that's too late now, Senator Obama. Palin has stolen Hillary's show, it seems.

Gov. Palin's speech was historic, not only because she is the first ever female VP candidate on a Republican ticket, but also because she surpassed all expectations both in her demeanor and delivery of the most important speech of her political life thus far. Now, some broad and real-life observations on this ground-breaking speech that has America buzzing...

What Gov. Palin's Goals should have been for this Speech:

• Who I am: She did tell the nation who she is, from family background to personal qualities.
  
• What I have accomplished: She did outline her achievements, with emphasis on tackling corruption head-on in Alaska. She mentioned Alaska's budget surplus. She spoke of her reform in the energy sector, presenting herself as a champion of ending America's dependence on foreign oil, though her energy solution remains dipped and drenched in the expected oil wells of Alaska, for the most part.
  
• What I plan to do as McCain's vice president: She stressed that she will team up with McCain to bring change to Washington in maverick style and fashion. As she has done in Alaska, so McCain-Palin will do in Washington. OK...
  
• Why I'm tough enough to be John McCain's attack dog against Barack Obama: she did a very good job at that, though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabe and former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani already covered the "nail Obama" assignment.
  

Where the Speech Strayed Somewhat

• Palin touted the military record of Senator John McCain for the millionth time. This not gets old but keeps the accent on national security as the winning issue for the McCain campaign. The risk here is that November's election is not likely to be decided by military record or on national security, as America already has a hawk in the White House.
  
• She made her children a central piece of her speech, when we are being told that the family, especially the children of a candidate are off limits. How can the kids be off limit but be center-stage in your speech? Will she continue to walk this fine line and seek to have it both ways?
  

Three Biggest Questions with Regard to Winning the Election on November 4th

1. "Does the speech reveal that Sarah Palin is ready to take over from President McCain as Commander-In-Chief, just in case McCain becomes incapacitated?" Will the majority of Americans answer that question with a unreserved "Yes, she can!"
2. "Will the speech sway the swing voters, who will decide this election, as they usually do?" The speech was "great" for firing up the partisan, hardcore Republican base, but how will the speech go down with independent swing voters? Will that speech attract or repel those swing voters who are fed up with harsh partisan, personal attacks that have little to do with the issues? We shall find out.
   
3. "Does the speech give the impression that Gov. Palin and the Republican Party understand and care about those who are hurt by this recessive economy, those who are losing their homes to widespread foreclosures all across the fruited plain?" Could it be that the speech re-affirms the image of Republicans as callous and indifferent towards "the little guy"? The speech poked fun at at community organizers, when it is those organizers who roll up their sleeves to help victims of company shutdowns?

Does it really Matter Who Wrote the Speech and for Whom?

• Minus the biographical stuff, the speech that Gov. Sarah Palin delivered at the Republican Convention was a partisan, generic speech, written long before Gov. Palin was even chosen as McCain's veep. The speechwriter is Matthew Scully, described by one blogger as "a gifted pen and former speechwriter in the George Bush White House". It seems like Palin had no input into the speech, except for her biography. That shows just how closely and carefully she's being handled by the McCain campaign, who seems to be treating Sarah as McCain's daughter, rather than as his capable teammate. And that level of handling takes away from the image they want America to see of Gov. Palin as an intelligent and independent woman who can carry her on. It may not be unreasonable to say that until Mrs. Palin can use her own words to debate or discuss ideas of her own, until she can face questioning from the news media, without Matthew Scully's script, until she can get through the VP debates, the jury is still out on exactly what Sarah Palin's qualifications are to be next in line to the 72-year-old McCain, who, for health reasons, could by default make this woman the head of state of the world's sole super power and leader of the free world. I'm afraid it will take more than the reading of one good speech to settle that all-important question.
  

Why Bristol Palin's Pre-Marital Pregnancy is Fair Game

Every time news like this comes up, we get lectured about it being a private family matter that should not be dragged into the muddy political arena. Barack Obama is being praised for doing the responsible thing by saying family members are off limit and should not be dragged into this campaign. Good for Mr. Obama, but there is more at stake in Ms. Bristol Palin's pregnancy than a private family affair.

Why should we care that 17-year-old Ms. Palin is 5-month pregnant? For more reasons than one.

The way the news came out is cause for concern. An Internet rumor about the Palin family's last child being the child of Bristol helped to flush news of the pregnancy from the dark room of family secrets into the limelight of national news. It was after that rumor took off online that the family told us of the pre-marital pregnancy. Gov. Palin should have volunteered this information as soon as she hit the campaign trail with Senator John McCain.

The governor could have said something like, "For the most part, our family has tried to uphold the moral standards we believe in and stand up for. But like most people, we too struggle with these standards. Even though I have championed the cause of abstinence education (no sex before marriage), I want you to know that our high-school-age daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. No, we do not approve of pre-marital sex, but we will support our daughter, who has decided to carry the child to term, and to marry the father of the baby. We apologize for this sad situation, but we are counting on the understanding of the American people."

But instead, the governor made it sound like she has no remorse for the daughter's behavior. In fact, she nearly praised her daughter for her heroic decision to keep the baby and marry her sex partner.

This issue matters, because Mrs. Sarah Palin, like an outspoken conservative, has made abstinence a political issue throughout her political career. She has run on that issue and won political office based on her support of 'no sex before marriage'. In short, she condemns sex before marriage. Based on that stance, hiding the news of her own daughter engaging in pre-marital sex amounts to being less than honest. Unless these people want us to think that hypocrisy is now an acceptable behavior in American politics, this is no innocent little snafu.

Some of the most disturbing, if not disgusting responses to the news of Bristol Palin's pre-marriage pregnancy have come from conservative evangelicals, America's watch dogs of moral values, the supposed conscience of society.

In Dr. James Dobson's response, the evangelical gian said in part, "In the 32-year history of Focus on the Family, we have offered prayer, counseling and resource assistance to tens of thousands of parents and children in the same situation the Palins are now facing. We have always encouraged the parents to love and support their children and always advised the girls to see their pregnancies through, even though there will of course be challenges along the way. That is what the Palins are doing, and they should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances."

There is no word in Dr. Dobson's response saying he frowns on the young woman's sexual impropriety. This kind of talk makes a mockery of these evangelical leaders who seem to grade one sin above another, or worse yet, wink at some sins while taking others for the kill. Which Bible are these fellow Christians reading? Dr. Dobson is not totally true to the Holy Scriptures in his views on this matter. The Bible outrightly condems pre-marital sex; it's called fornication, and that's the sin, not the pregnancy. On the other hand, the Bible says nothing directly about abortion, which traditional evangelicals have made the cardinal sin of our time.

From their attitude and words about Bristol's pregnancy, it seems like to Dr. Dobson and the Palin family, as long as you are pro-life (decide to keep the pregnancy), no other sin really matters, short of murder of course. But if you will keep the baby, you get a pass on fornication (pre-marital sex). If you vote pro-life, like Senator McCain, we give you the nod on adultery. But did not one of those precious Ten Commandments did say, "Thou shall not commit adultery"? But, hey, if you are against abortion, it's not that bad. It seems like "pro-life" cures all ills and covers all transgressions. Really?

The other political fallout from Bristol Palin's pre-marital sex and pregnancy is that it will strengthen the argument of those who propose all-out, no-holes-barred sex education for our youngsters. They will say, "Aha, you see, abstinence only is not realistic. As Bristol Palin proved with her pregnancy, teenagers are going to have sex, regardless. We must now divert funds from abstinence education to condom-based safe-sex education to protect our children from unwanted pregnancies and STDs." The Dobsons and the Palins are making the argument for the condom pushers.

Such behavior, when it is accompanied by a total lack of apology from a pro-abstinence candidate, goes a long way to undermine the efforts of those who are still trying to promote sexual purity as a viable option for our youth. If we evangelicals keep going down this road of making excuses for sexual misconduct, while singularly focused on abortion, we will soon lose the high moral ground, if we have not already, and forfeit all credibility to "preach" responsible sexual conduct to our society. Our shameless hypocrisy will be our undoing, because the baggage will become too burdensome to overcome. One casualty of our hypocrisy will be the "True Love Wait" rallies that we promote, where youngsters promise to remain sexually inactive until marriage. At a "True Love Waits" rally, each participating youngster wears a ring to symbolize his/her commitment to virginity until honeymoon night.

Evangelicals are shooting themselves in the foot by excusing fornication and adultery while decrying abortion. The pit we may fall into is call 'moral equivalence', whereby pre-marital sex and adultery within conservative families will cancel out abortion within liberal circles. When that happens, we lose our voice, and we cease to be the effective "light of the world" and "salt of the earth".

We can help the situation by doing a very simple thing: Admit that pre-marital sex is as unacceptable to us as abortion. And when of our children gets pregnant outside of marriage, let's be quick to express our regret for that child's sexual misconduct before we brag about the brave act of keeping the baby or marrying the father.

By the way, how is pre-marital pregnancy any different from cohabitation, shacking up before marriage, something that evangelicals also frown on?

What is the big lesson here? We would do better to take these moral issues out of the political arena; that would include matters like abortion, marriage, etc. That's the only way we can honestly consider these issues private family matters. We contradict ourselves to run on so-called conservative values like abstinence and defense of the traditional family, then turn around and say my unwed daughter's pregnancy is a private family matter, and it's really no big deal, as long as our sweet daughter intends to keep the pregnancy and marry the guy.