One Angry Father

I recognize this is not necessarily meant to be a political blog but rather a way to keep family and friends updated on the goings on with our family. However, I am finding that it is also a good place to vent my thoughts as they arise. I don't have that many thoughts so the blog only gets updated every other day or so, but today my thoughts veered from my typical family or personal update to a more political one. The ironic twist is, this update is motivated almost entirely by family.

Several years ago, JohnMcCain led what has become known as the "Gang of 14" which was a group of senators that basically undermined a number of George Bush's conservative appointments to the judiciary. This was on the heels of several other things with which I disagreed with John McCain on. The "Gang of 14" was the final straw. I made a personal vow that I would never vote for John McCain in any election ever again. Little did I know...

After a frustrating primary, my feelings for John McCain had not gotten much better. He continued to poke social conservatives like myself in the eye with his rhetoric and seemed unable to support anything that would solve the issue quickly becoming the most important to my family...high (gas, food, energy) prices. I started to convince myself that maybe not voting for President was my only option. The only thing that would change my mind was McCain's VP pick. When he announced his choice of Sarah Palin on Friday, I was on my back to the fold. She holds beliefs that I could wholeheartedly support particularly with regards to abortion.

Then came today. It was always known that Sarah Palin's son has Down's Syndrome. Released yesterday was the news that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. All day today, I have listened to news reporters and people in the public eye make the most asinine arguments about this most personal family matter. I have heard people say they hoped this daughter had a choice for an abortion (implying she did not). Subtle shots about Mrs. Palin's hypocrisy for endorsing abstinence education and opposing birth control in the schools. As if because she holds these beliefs she caused her daughter to make this uneducated about what can happen when you have sex. Not so subtle implications that hypocritical conservatives like myself would throw her overboard immediately for not living up to our perfect standards. But most of all, it angered me that they were even talking about it at all. No one wants their dirty laundry aired in front of the world. However, when you run for political office, that is the choice you make. But what kind of people do we want to have run if we as a society are going to crucify their kids on the alter of "well, this is national politics". Everyone should have had the decency to let this go. They should have said, this is not about the issues and it is all about the emotional psyche of a young 17 year old girl. As a society, we should not be willing to sacrifice our youth the way the blogs, the media and left have been sacrificing her today. This should have been between a young girl who made a choice her parents wish she wouldn't have. They should have been allowed to remain a family matter and left alone.

I have two daughters. I am doing all I can to teach them what I believe to be right. I will teach them that sex should wait until marriage. But wait, shocker coming....they may not make every decision I would want them to. If the situation Bristol Palin finds herself in today were my daughter, I would handle it exactly as the Palins are handling this. They are standing by their daughter. They are not backing down from their beliefs nor are they being bullied into leaving this political fray they have entered. Because there is more than one lesson I would want my daughter to learn. First, choices have consequenses. Sometimes that lesson is a hard one to learn. But second, family is always there for you and third, just because a mistake has been made does not mean you quit or let others define you as a failure because you and your family didn't live up to perfection. Last I checked, only One has done that and He is not running for political office. Despite what the left leaning media would have you believe.

So what is the point of my little diatribe here? It is that I will proudly vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Those in the media, who so quickly underestimate me to be of a mind that Sarah Palin is not worthy of consideration because her daughter made a tough choice, have guaranteed that. I still don't care all that much for several of John McCain's views. I will vote for John McCain because the left's treatment of a 17 year old girl is more than I can stomach and makes me angrier than I have been in a long time. Because someday, my daughters will be 17, and today I vote for them.