Personal Effects

I don’t think that the personal life of a candidate should really matter all that much in a presidential election, especially when it comes to the actions of candidates’ family members. God knows I have a family with a real shitty past. I’m fairly certain that I’m the only member of my family who hasn’t needed a ride home from a police station.

And as a big Bill Clinton supporter for me to judge someone else’s personal life as a reason they can’t govern, well that would be mighty hypocritical …kind of like stressing family values and an abstinence-only lifestyle of waiting for marriage before having sex and then having your unwed daughter get knocked up at 17.

Sarah Palin’s daughter being pregnant, doesn’t make me think anymore or less of her then I do Bill Clinton, John Edwards, John Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, or any of the people who’ve cheated on their wives while serving the public (though I am kind of impressed by FDR, I mean the guy was in a wheel chair).

But what I can’t stand is the bullshit spin that they have to put on it.
“We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.”

The news of hearing that your daughter, who is not even old enough to vote in the very election she’s fucking up, is unmarried and pregnant, actually makes you proud? You’re happy about it?

Wow, well I guess I wouldn’t know. Alas, I’m a man, and men don’t understand the complexities of mother hood. Sadly, all I can do is imagine the joy that comes from this type of news. Maybe it’s like the pride you’d feel if your husband got fired for being drunk at work? Is it like the happiness that would overtake you if you saw your son robbing a liquor store on the local news? Ooh I know! Maybe it’s like the joy you receive when your father tells the whole family that next year he’s going to Malaysia and when he comes back, you can start calling him “Mom.” That kind of pride?

“Why I can still remember buying her her first training bra three years ago and thinking to myself, ‘Wow, when is she going to get me some grandchildren already. What’s the hold up. Urghh! Come on already, start that baby-maker!’”

Yeah I’m sure the father was even prouder. You work hard, you teach them to color in the lines, and you buy them building blocks. You try so hard, and you hope one day that if you do everything right, they’ll spread their wings, fly away and then have unprotected sex with a with a redneck in the back of an El Camino for less than 30 seconds.

Yeah, you were proud and happy and the reason they carry pregnancy tests at the 24 convenience store is for happy expecting couples who just want to confirm the good news.

But it’s ok folks. The good news is that the young couple will be getting married, so apparently it’s ok by God. Yes marriage, as the conservatives have told us over and over, is a sacred institution, that should be taken seriously and never entered into lightly; you know unless it’s going to fuck up your mother’s election campaign, in which case, bring on the Vegas Elvis impersonators and the shot gun wedding.

But I can see one bright spot for Palin. As a 44 year-old politician, she’s an ok MILF…but I challenge you to find a hotter GILF.