I do appreciate the time and energy you dedicate to defending Palin, Sheldon. It's very appealing at first blush, this cry to "leave the kids alone", except that........
Palin has leveraged her oldest child's teen pregnancy into some sort of martyrdom and Bristol is now a public figure in her own right. The search phrase "bristol palin magazine interviews" returns about 6,080,000 results on Google. She's a reality tv star and has been on the covers of various magazines. The Palins cannot shove Bristol out into the limelight as a spokesmodel for safe sex (?) or any other high moral principle and then demand that all discussion of hypocrisy on her part will remain unspoken of.
Palin has also leveraged her youngest child as grounds for claiming she has a special claim to extraordinary consideration as a mother that the parents of normal, healthy children do not share. We did discuss this on a thread the Mod Squad has pulled, though I still dunno why. Once again, the hypocrisy thing: if you claim the moral high ground on some biographic basis and your private life reveals you do not adhere to the principles you claim to embody, that is discussion-worthy.
Palin makes so many references to her children and her motherhood, it's hard to keep track of them all. How many times has she said the phrase "Momma Grizzlies" alone? She cannot bang on her reproductive talents and then expect her parenting skills are beyond the pale by those who find fault with her, as a politican. And BTW, this is something Obama (nor any other politican I can think of) has ever done...."vote for me, I'm a great Mom" is unique to the Palin playbook, IMO.
Calling a woman a "****" is not a verbal act that reveals anyone's anti-woman bigotry IMO. You wanna imbue that word with more power than it deserves. Calling a youngster a "f*ggot", on the other hand, does reveal a homophobic bias. You may not like that these two are not the same egregious moral lapses, but that's life, Sheldon.
Relying on the USMB's own TOS for a logical reason why Palin's performance as a parent cannot be discussed is also a fail. Palin is not a USMB member -- she is a public figure. She wants to be POTUS and more'n a few people support her. She's a threat to this country and the very deceitful way she claims to be morally superior whilst deflecting any criticism of her moral lapses is one of the reasons I so despise her -- I find this woman to be canny but not smart, manipulative but not persuasive, jingoistic but not patriotic, etc.
Palin weaves her personal life and back story into her politics, Sheldon. She opposes abortion rights about as vehemently as it is possible to do -- more than most RCC clergy do -- and then waves her baby in the air. She opposes sex education in public schools and then shoves her single mom daughter into the limelight, and sees nothing at all hypocritical about allowing her to do up ads for condoms with a poster child for promiscuity. She attacks Obama as a "politican" and talks endlessly about how much she hates government -- how she'd rather be doing just about anything with her kids. Then she leaves the kids and runs around the country on a million dollar speaking tour, etc.
There's no way to have a full and frank discussion about Palin's suitability to serve as POTUS without drawing on examples of her hypocrisy, because that data is what I think most people are missing...and IMO, Palin is all about concealing her real motives and acts from public view whilst she dazzles the stupid with bullshit.