Be Not Idle

…(H)e is a consciousness objector to his own conscience.

- Jeff Miller, aka The Curt Jester, on Sen. Joe Biden’s convoluted rationale for being Catholic who supports abortion 

Presidential hopeful Sen. Obama took a shot at Republicans by mentioning the huge numbers of lay-offs in Michigan. (The Labor Department just announced that 39,000 auto-related jobs were lost in August.)   According to the Detroit News:

“These numbers are unacceptable and are just one more reminder of what is at stake in this election,” Obama said in a statement issued just before McCain and Palin arrived in the state. He reiterated his support of $50 billion in loan guarantees for domestic automakers to help them “retool their factories to make the next generation in fuel efficient vehicles.”

“Re-tooling” isn’t the same thing as “re-engineering.” Nor is publically acknowledging that automotive workers continue to bear the brunt of industry changes the same thing as acknowledging that political policies, including those of Gov. Granholm (D), have contributed a great deal to our one-state recession. 

I don’t recall ANY politician addressing the question of changing our nation’s infrastructure to support the transportation of the future – although they legislate lower carbon emissions even if they occasionally back down when reality strikes. The truth is that there’s a disconnect between political catch phrases and reality.

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I was reading about Palinsanity – a term coined by Althouse to describe the vicious attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain’s pick for vice-president. The Anchoress (see my blogroll) has a good round-up of stories and opinion.

Personally, I went from flabberghasted to incensed in less than a day. Yesterday I read the sick rumors that Gov. Palin’s youngest child was secretly her grandson (some people need to lay off the romance novels). Now that the Palin family has revealed their oldest daughter is pregnant – and therefore can’t be her brother’s mother - the pundits and opinionated cranks have a whole new bag. The gist of these comments seems to be that 1) because the youngest child has Down’s Syndrome, the Gov. needs to go home and be a mother; and 2) because the 17-year-old is pregnant and preparing to marry the father of the baby, the Gov. needs to go home and be a grandmother.  

Oh, irony!

This weekend I enjoyed visiting with my niece and her husband. They are happy about moving into their first home and are expecting their first child. And they’re 19.  Are they children? No.

Today after school, I ran into a former student who was married this spring. She’s expecting her first child this coming winter. She’s 16 and her husband is 24. Are they children? Heck, no!

The irony is that if Gov. Palin’s daughter had chosen to abort the baby, our society would consider her grown-up enough to make that choice. She needn’t have consulted with her mother, either. A 17-year-old is considered old enough to have sex and deal with the consequences on her own.  Parental consent laws are debated endlessly as a controversial limits on “choice”, aren’t they?

But when it comes to politics, suddenly the lip-service feminists (including the men) have become reactionaries who know that the governor’s ovaries dictate that she must step down.