
 |
|
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
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 4, 2008
/ 4 Elul 5768
What standards?
By
Cal Thomas
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
ST. PAUL, MINN. We are such hypocrites. When it was announced that Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant, the media pounced.
Did this damage Palin's preference for abstinence-only policies? Shouldn't she be staying home at this difficult time in her daughter's life? What about Palin's new baby, who has Down syndrome? Shouldn't he be getting much more of her time and attention? How can she be vice president and a good mother? Haven't critics forgotten that Palin has a husband to help?
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children. No one has asked her such questions.
One female journalist said to me it makes a mockery out of the Republican Party's family values platform. No it doesn't.
Speaking with some personal experience on these matters our daughter experienced a premarital pregnancy and I have a brother with Down syndrome I am astounded at the rush to judgment by so many in the media, a media that promotes what it then quickly decries. So who are the real hypocrites?
| FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER |
| Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. |
|
One can't turn on the TV in primetime without being exposed to all sorts of sex (except the marital variety). There is very little "safe sex" on TV. Actresses speak of their sexual exploits as if they were discussing the latest in designer shoes or where to have lunch. Erectile dysfunction commercials abound. The Internet offers free porn with a single "click." My grandmother, who thought it demonstrated poor breeding to say the words "toilet paper" in public, would be scandalized. Entertainment reporters hold up as role models young actresses having sex and babies out of wedlock, as if it is one of many equally valid choices.
Many in the media are now questioning whether Sarah Palin has allowed her career and a "lust for power" to interfere with her family responsibilities. This is laughable. These same people have promoted women who work 12-hour days and dump their preschool children in day care.
When Bill Clinton was exposed for his affairs, defenders said it was "only" sex and that everybody lies about sex and most probably cheat on their spouses. When Jesse Jackson was reported to have a "love child," no one clamored for his ordination papers to be revoked. And when John Edwards was outed by the National Enquirer about his own affair, the cover-up and his own alleged "love child," he suffered some ridicule and rejection, but there was talk in some media quarters that he might "rehabilitate" himself and run for office again.
When news breaks that the daughter of a Republican political figure is pregnant out of wedlock, the media quickly return to our Puritan roots and seek to hold certain people (usually conservatives) to a moral standard that culture has abandoned. Palin should have stayed home to devote more time to her children, they say. She is an unprincipled careerist who will sacrifice family in order to achieve success. And so on.
Rev. Billy Graham once observed that the "new morality," as it was once called, is nothing more than the old immorality with new wrapping. He was right. There is nothing "new" about immorality or morality. Styles may change, but standards don't, otherwise some elected officials would not still be going to jail for violating the law. If you think standards are relative, try this line on the cop who stops you for exceeding the speed limit. "Officer, you may think I was going 75 in a 25-mile zone, but speed is relative."
Abstinence is a standard that works 100 percent of the time for those who practice it. There are consequences for those who do not and Bristol Palin has joined a growing list of young women who have come to realize that too late. As to whether any of this should reflect poorly on Sarah Palin or her husband, I suspect most Americans will empathize with all concerned and say no.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
| BUY THE BOOK |
| Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). |
|
Cal Thomas Archives JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.
© 2006, Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

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
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
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
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
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

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