On Tuesday, I did a "half-butt" post about the current Vice Presidential candidate for the American Republican Party, Sarah Palin.

I pointed out what I thought was a bit of a failing in the fact that she preaches abstinence for "sex education" and tells her constituents that this is the best plan... and then had to announce that her seventeen year-old daughter was pregnant out of wedlock... and we must assume this was an "unplanned" pregnancy.

My feelings on this were that we teach our kiddollo not to play with matches... but still teach her the importance of what to do if she is burned, why we keep the battery in the smoke alarm in her bedroom and the one in our hallway fresh, and how and what to do if she needs to escape our home.

We also do believe that she should look both ways before crossing a street, but teach her to only walk at intersections and cross-walks.

Effectively, it would be great if all the kids in the world did what we want them to... but it's not reality... and we need to protect them and ensure that they are "good" no matter what the situation.

Apparently, teaching "abstinence only" was not effective for her daughter... and yeah, when someone preaches to others how to behave, and neglects to tend to their own back yard, I see a failing.

That said, I pointed out that "Troopergate" was worse... the story is that she fired a public safety commissioner in her home state of Alaska when he would not not fire her (in the process of becoming her "ex",) brother-in-law. Basically, she says it was over performance issues... but there is an investigation ongoing... and it doesn't look good. She has a lawyer helping with the case... he's on the government's payroll to do so.

I could now cite things like her also using the same "forcefulness" to try and dismiss a local librarian from the town where she was mayor. The reason? Apparently, the librarian did not give "full support to her mayor"... why? The mayor wanted to ban books that had "foul" language.

Then there is her minister at her church... who warned that critics of President Bush might be banished to Hell and that people who voted for John Kerry might not gain entry to Heaven... The same church where a guest speaker described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. When compared to the howling about Obama Barrack's former pastor, one has to scratch their head a touch.

Of course, there's the "Bridge to Nowhere" issue... where Governor Palin axed what looked like a bad bit of business where a congressional initiative ponied up $233 million of the taxpayers money... yes, Palin was instrumental in killing this project, but did not return the taxpayers' money. In fact, while mayor she hired a Washington lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks, which was about $1,000 per resident. This is exactly what McCain has fought against for years. It didn't stop when she took over the governor's desk. In February, she sent Republican Senator Ted Stevens a 700-page memo outlining nearly $200 million in new funding requests for her state. The money? Well, it's "eventually" going to go toward Alaskan roads... which is worthy, but didn't save the taxpayers a red cent.

Then, to return to the top of this, she slashed the funding of Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent... which included Passage House which is a place to help teenage mothers become self-sustaining parents.

Sources for this?
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html?imw=Y
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/by_juliet_eilperin_when_alaska.html
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/palins_past_pastor_bushfoes_he.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13098.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/champblog/2008/09/paying_a_high_price_for_palin.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html

Now, with all this in mind, I had to do a "big no-no" in the blogsphere... and delete a comment.

Why?

Well, on my post on Tuesday, I was accused of being a misogynist.

Now, that alone would NOT have made me censor something... although as a son, brother, step-father, and husband, I had to laugh a little... and it's the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I've been accused of this.

No, I deleted the comment because the poster needed a thesaurus rather badly... basically, the diatribe was laced with invectives, foul language, and was generally pointless other than to tell me how evil and awful a person I am for picking on this woman and her daughter... as well as more than a couple of lines tossed in about what kind of parent I am for being so mean to women.

I find it funny that bloggers who go out of their way to post Barrack Obama's middle name (Hussein) in "All Caps"... who proudly placed images of him dressed as a terrorist on their blogs... who went after Hillary Clinton "tooth and nail"... have suddenly become the moral compass we all desperately need to listen to.

I am and have not mocked Bristol Palin for her situation... far from it, I have nothing but genuine concern and feeling for someone in her position... doubly-so for the fact that her's is so in the public... and, at this rate, might be blamed for turning a page in history.

That said, if a man was as "guilty" of the things her mother is, I would be just as appalled and horrified that they had managed to get as close to what is arguably the highest position of power on the planet.

Sorry to say, genitalia has little to do with what I see as a concern... character has everything to do with it.

If you need to CONTINUE to label me, so be it... but it won't change the facts... and it won't change how I feel...

Realistically, telling me about the "banning of books" would have been enough on it's own... but add the rest...!

I still wonder why the McCain folks thought this rolling train wreck of a politician would be a good choice for Veep? I can't imagine it was for her speech making abilities alone... or was it?

Addendum: (From 07:07 EST)...

Indeed.

Hat Tip to The Raw Story...