Just wanted to tell everyone they should read Bob Herbert’s op-ed in today’s New York Times. I’ve been thinking a lot in the last day or 2 how the Palin nomination really has the potential to lead to some media coverage and debates that will just end up making women look bad. I worry that as stories about her daughter’s pregnancy and her youngest son (or according to rumors, grandson) come out, that people will be too focused on what women and moms should do to pay attention to real issues. In my personal opinion, Palin’s record seems to provide enough reasons to vote for Obama/Biden, so why should we attack her for being a bad mom or a working mom? To me, that just feels a little hypocritical and unhelpful. I feel like I have been right on the verge of getting sucked into all of the scandal about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy and rumors of Palin as a grandmother, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I would like to try not get sucked into all of that madness. This election is too important to be about a catfight or a fight about women’s roles that could set back feminist efforts, so I do hope that Palin’s record, her stances, and her experience, or lack thereof, will be more important than how she does/does not fit the proper role of a woman or mother. Sadly, I am too cynical to believe that will actually happen, but I am glad people like Bob Herbert are out there trying to make us pay attention to what counts.
September 2, 2008...1:31 pm
Let’s Keep our Eyes on the Prize: Check Out Today’s Bob Herbert Column
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September 2, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Herbert nailed it on the head as he usually does. But I disagree with him in shifting the blame from democrats to republicans for our woes to mere “distractions” on the part of republicans. Sure, democrats have great ideas, as outlined in his article. But, we had great ideas in 2000 and 2004, yet we lost . . . inexplicably. One line in his article that I wished he discussed more: “And the inescapable reality is that there are millions of voters who identify with [Palin].” Herbert implies that somehow this identification is unreasonable due to the surrounding circumstances of the economy etc. Is it unreasonable? Or is somehow our perspective on things not being conveyed in the right way? The sad fact is that the republicans have captured the tagline of party to the people. How do we change that apart from saying that “these people” are unreasonable?