Les Jones

Did you read in the NY Times this morning that Wonder Woman’s 17 year-old daughter is pregnant? Out of wedlock?

So much for abstinence-only education. So much for Catholic family values. So much for intellectual cachet. Ha! I laugh at the vast, rich hypocrisy of it all.

Do tell what’s hypocritical about it.

Only that the “conservative” party in America, the party that continually preaches about working to maintain “our” traditional values, is constantly the party of corruption and scandal.

Off the top of my head… Vito Fossella, Tom DeLay, Larry Craig, Ted Stevens, Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby, Newt Gingrich, and, sure, GWB.

Always condemning the deviant lifestyles of others, when they themselves are clearly incapable of following what they claim to be their own righteous beliefs.

Now, with regard to the younger Palin: the McCain campaign can frame this as a blessing, as an opportunity for Bristol and her boyfriend to learn how to be adults. But let’s look at the facts:

Palin and her family are evangelical Christians. Sex out of wedlock is a BIG BIG BIG no-no. Surely such a successful public figure and political leader as Sarah Palin should be able to properly educate her own children in these Christian values. But no, here is her 17-year-old, unmarried daughter, pregnant. Is this not evidence that Palin dropped the ball somewhere as a mother and/or as a leader and/or as a Christian?

Here is a Q+A with Palin leading up to her gubernatorial race in 2006:

“Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”

(McCain also supports abstinence-only sex ed, by the way.)

So, surprise of all surprises, telling kids that sex is bad and they should wait until they are married DOESN’T WORK. God forbid this poor girl had been taught about proper birth control. But no, now there will be another unwanted, unplanned child in the world, to be raised by a hapless 17 year-old and her soon-to-be husband. I’m sure these two young lovers would have been headed towards the alter even without the bun in the oven, right?

In short, the hypocrisy lies first and foremostly in the obvious fact that Sarah Palin cannot properly manage her own household, yet she thinks herself qualified to be a breath away from the most powerful position in the world. Secondly, there is great hypocrisy (and irony) in a 17-year-old, unmarried evangelical Christian becoming pregnant. These things can be said without casting judgment; they are the very definition of hypocrisy.

Do you disagree?

“What is justified is worldwide concern over the proven effects of climate change. ”

I’m not entirely thrilled to see that in her op-ed.

I was hoping you’d realize it’s Palin who is in favor of those things, and her daughter who got pregnant, but I guess not.

“Only that the “conservative” party in America, the party that continually preaches about working to maintain “our” traditional values, is constantly the party of corruption and scandal.”

If you believe that you’re badly in the tank for one side. There are hypocrites and corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle. To believe otherwise you have to put on blinders. On the D side in the last 12 months you’ve got John Edwards, Eliott Spitzer, and William Jefferson.

“So, surprise of all surprises, telling kids that sex is bad and they should wait until they are married DOESN’T WORK.”

Actually it works about as well as birth control-based sex education.

So says reports that saw the light of day in The New York Times. Here’s an earlier study.

The spin on those reports is that abstinence-only is is a failure, but the facts show that it has the same effectiveness as birth control-based sex ed. So either they’re both failures or they’re both successes.

If Palin had been in favor of birth control-based sex ed and her 17 year old daughter had gotten pregnant would that have been proof that that approach doesn’t work - or it would have been an example of the fact that kids sometimes make mistakes when it comes to sex?

The kicker is I’m not even in favor of abstinence-only education for my own kids, but I can look at the case and see the flaws in the argument of “my” side.