
 |
|
June 19, 2013
June 12, 2013
Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect
Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden
June 10, 2013
The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust
June 5, 2013
John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less
Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison
June 3, 2013
Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself
May 29, 2013
Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die
May 24, 2013
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 2, 2008
/ 2 Elul 5768
The humiliation of a young girl
By
Wesley Pruden
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
ST. PAUL How mean, how low can a partisan stoop? Mean enough to humiliate a 17-year-old girl at the time she needs sympathy and understanding. Low enough to bruise the broken heart of a girl's mother and to mock a father's affection.
Within minutes after John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate, the blog sites on the sleaziest margins of the Democratic left went to work on the deconstruction of the lady of the far north - fair enough, if kept within the bounds of minimum dignity and modest decency.
Politics, after all, is a contact sport. The governor was too young, too inexperienced and, most unbearable of all, she was the woman who might be vice president and she wasn't Hillary.
But resentment boiled into rage when the left learned that not only did Mrs. Palin oppose abortion as a matter of conscience, but she had chosen to spurn abortion herself to give life to a child with Down syndrome. Doesn't she know that abortion is a civil right of passage for every woman, to be cherished like her first diamond or her first string of pearls?
Arianna Huffington, the Cruella von Venom of the Web, unleashed her bloggers. One bemoaned Mrs. Palin's lost opportunity to rid herself of the inconvenience of an afflicted child; another, the former director of Washington's dear little Institute for Policy Studies, the sheltered workshop of the last seven Marxists in America, declaimed that Cruella and her friends owe it to the world to rescue survivors of the conservative crackup and re-create the Republican Party in their image.
But this was only Internet static. The subject deserved something more than the tedious blather and buncombe of bloggers. CNN's John Roberts, not heretofore known as the successor to Dr. Spock, suggested that Mrs. Palin's duties as vice president would prevent her tendering proper care to a child with Down syndrome. Alan Colmes, soft in the head from the relentless pummeling he has taken from Sean Hannity since he apparently gave up a medical practice to join Fox News, suggested that Mrs. Palin damaged her child with cut-rate prenatal care. (One physician chimed in that if Alan thinks that, he must have cut a few of his classes at La La Land School of Medicine.)
Then, over the weekend, Daily Kos, which had faded from notice after the collapse of the Dennis Kucinich candidacy, came up with the remarkably unlikely story that Mrs. Palin was not actually the mother of the baby, now four months old. Her 17-year-old daughter was; Mrs. Palin was not a new mother, but a new grandmother. The only evidence offered was a photograph of the daughter with a little "bump" in her midriff.
"Sarah Palin is NOT the mother," the Kos blog screamed. "Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxon Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better."
The blogger did not identify himself, nor explain how he acquired the knowledge of the most intimate secrets of the Palin boudoir. He appended a photograph of the young woman, her family and "the bump," together with the commentary of a particularly dirty old man.
The photograph, it turns out, was real enough, published in the Anchorage Daily News two years ago. Baby Trig was born in April of this year. Mrs. Palin, forced to correct the garbled gossip, announced Monday that her daughter is, coincidentally, indeed pregnant now, and will marry the father.
This episode enrages the conscience of decent men and women. In a more robust time and place, the father of Baby Trig would have waited on Mr. Kos with a horsewhip, to teach him that the public humiliation of innocent young women is not tolerated by decent men. (Arianna might deserve a spanking, too, but finding someone to do it could be difficult.) Barack Obama late Monday put the outrage in polite language.
"I have said it before, and I will repeat again," he said, "People's families are off-limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know, my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be a topic of our politics."
The rest of us can only mourn for who we once were, and grieve for how we came to this.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Wesley Pruden Archives
© 2007 Wesley Pruden
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Peter Funt
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
John Kass
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Michael Reagan
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Cathy Young
Mort Zuckerman

Eric Allie
Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Nate Beeler
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
Daryl Cagle
Patrick Chappatte
John Cole
Paul Combs
J. D. Crowe
John Darkow
Bill Day
John Deering
Sean Delonas
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Randall Enos
Mallard Fillmore
David Fitzsimmons
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Mike Keefe
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Gary McCoy
Rick McKee
Jack Ohman
Jeff Parker
Milt Priggee
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Steve Sack
Bill Schorr
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
David Ray Skinner
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Christopher Weyant
Larry Wright
Dan Wasserman
Adam Zyglis

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|