Tales of the Heliosphere

This morning Howard Gutman was on Laura Ingraham's show. Gutman's bio on the Huffington Post website, where he occasionally blogs, describes him as "a partner in a Washington D.C. law firm and an original member of the Obama National Finance Committee. He is a frequent commentator on the 2008 Campaign on both television and radio." (Here.)

Gutman was on the show to criticize Sarah Palin for being a bad parent by putting her daughter's crisis pregnancy in the public eye. He criticized Governor Palin for deciding to run for Vice-President rather than putting "family first." He said that Governor Palin should have stayed out of the race in order to keep her daughter's pregnancy a private matter, within her family and with the involvement of only a few friends. He also kept saying that his criticism was not about her being a bad mother but about being a bad parent. According to him, any parent, father or mother, deserves criticism for what Governor Palin chose to do.

First off, it is, of course, absurd to believe that his criticism is not about her being a bad mother. Governor Palin is a woman. Perhaps you've noticed. She's not an androgynous or sexless parent. Gutman might think he can take this issue up one level of abstraction but he can't. No matter what he says, the fact remains, Palin is a woman, and when he criticizes her, he criticizes her choice as a woman.

It is, of course, stunningly hypocritical for a liberal Democrat to make the scurrilous charge he makes. Democrats claim to be all about opening up opportunities for women without regard to stereotypical gender roles. Governor Palin's nomination is instructive because it reveals the sexism that lurks below the surface of liberalism's alleged enlightenment.

Gutman's argument about privacy is nonsensical because it presents a false choice. I know the Democratic line is that Sarah Palin is just a former small-town mayor. Well, here's a reminder: Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska. Yes, even now. What that means is Bristol Palin's pregnancy was never going to be merely a private affair. It might not have gotten the same kind of national attention it's now getting but it would have gotten attention back in Alaska. For Bristol and her family, it never would have been just a private affair.

What Gutman really is arguing is that Alaskan media and Palin's Alaskan political opponents would not have made an issue of Bristol Palin's pregnancy in the same way that the national media and national Democrats are. Gutman is acknowledging that national Democrats and national media are merciless sharks who will stoop to anything. He is also shifting the blame to the victims of this slanderous invasion of privacy.

Which brings me to my final point. The national media and national Democrats have a choice. The pregnancy has been noted and now they can move on, ignore the pregnancy, and give the Palin family its privacy on this matter. They've chosen not to give the Palin family any privacy and they blame Governor Palin for it. They are in the same position as spousal abusers, who with every physical blow, shout, "see, what you're making me do." They are despicable.

-tdr

Labels: America, Elections, Politics