Bad Parenting // Current

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10 minutes ago

Video game timer knows when to quit

Can't seem to get your kids to stop playing games? A 79-year-old Minnesota man is banking on it. John Morrisey's... more

anglcazn
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Gran's meth lab, chemicals - found in grandkid's room

Police in Louisiana have found a grandmother running a meth lab. The woman, along with her daughter had a house chock full of... more

FreshPlastic
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YouTube's Worst Parents

Bad parenting used to mean tons of therapy bills, but nowadays it just means tons of views. Brett takes a look at some of... more

Brett_Erlich
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Mother Left Child In Car To Play Video Games

"A Fort Pierce mother is being charged with child neglect after she left her special needs son in a car while she went into... more

DeliaTheArtist
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The case against Casey Anthony: Do the pieces add up?

This is a sad case

DailyMenendez
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Carrie Oakey and Hazel Nutt make list of "most unfortunate names."

Researchers from TheBabyWebsite.com have been digging through phone books and online records to compile a list of the most... more

emmahill
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Good parenting strikes again

Trenton O'Neal, 15, of Chesapeake stands at the intersection of Ahoy Drive and Airline Boulevard in Chesapeake with a poster... more

diode
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Caring for Parents

If your father lives with you and his mental health is deteriorating, should you get a power of attorney to manage his affairs?... more

latestnews
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Denver Family Strategies Examiner: Lies about infants and responding

People that believe that you can "spoil" ur infant are wrong!!

SamLocke
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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Bessie Hudgins of 3 sides to every story, and Ron Smith of children need both parents are the Original organizers, of the DC... more

TheLeePASFoundation
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High School Cheerleaders suspended for texting nude photos

Two Seattle high school cheerleaders have been suspended from their squad after inappropriate pictures of the girls were... more

Scott_Bromley
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Palin releases medical records on election eve

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin released a summary of her medical history late on Monday... more

bedeboop
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Texas mom throws daughter into traffic

Aurelia Gallardo, 24, has been charged with child endangerment after throwing her 4-year old daughter into the path of oncoming... more

nazbags
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Obama Running Against Bush, Not McCain: Sarah Palin

Republican VP candidate says Obama is running as though his opponent is President Bush and its a strategy that's... more

tanveerdogar
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Bristol Palin's baby-daddy sets the record straight

He seems to have some understanding of politics: '"For starters, he said his much-maligned MySpace page was a joke... more

smice
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Palin Heightens Rhetoric on Abortion

Knowing that anti-abortion rhetoric turns off women and independent voters, Sarah Palin was out on the stump again today trying to... more

eleanorayoulateagain
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Sarah Palin's debate performance should signal the beginning of the end of her fad. But for the moment it is worth looking at the meaning of her nomination, without the protective varnish of what conservatives usually dismiss as political correctness.

Why should we pretend not to notice when Gov. Palin's ideas make no sense? Having said last week that "it doesn't matter" whether human activity is the cause of climate change, she said in debate that she "doesn't want to argue" about the causes. It doesn't occur to her that we have to know the causes in order to address the problem. (She was very fortunate that moderator Gwen Ifill didn't ask her whether she truly believes that human beings and dinosaurs inhabited this planet simultaneously only 6,000 years ago.)

Why should we ignore her inability to string together a series of coherent thoughts? As a foe of Wall Street greed and a late convert to the gospel of government regulation, along with John McCain, Palin promised to clean up and reform business. But when her programmed talking points about "getting government out of the way" and protecting "freedom" conflicted with that promise, she didn't notice.

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Why should we give her a pass on the most important issues of the day? Supposedly sharing the fears and concerns of the average families who face the burdens of mortgages, healthcare and economic insecurity, Palin simply refused to discuss changes in bankruptcy law and proved that she didn't know the provisions of McCain's healthcare plan.

All the glaring defects so blatantly on display in her debate with Joe Biden -- and that make her candidacy so darkly comical -- would be the same if she were a hockey dad instead of a "hockey mom." In fact, the cynical attempt to foist Palin on the nation as a symbol of feminist progress is an insult to all women regardless of their political orientation.

There was a time when conservatives lamented the dumbing down of American culture. Preservation of basic standards in schools and workplaces compelled them -- or so they said -- to resist affirmative action for women and minorities. Qualifications mattered; merit mattered; and demagogic appeals for leveling were to be left to the Democrats.

Not anymore.

Actually, the Palin phenomenon is the culmination of a trend that can be traced back to Dan Quayle, the undistinguished Indiana senator whose elevation onto the Republican ticket in 1988 had nothing to do with intellect or experience and everything to do with the youthful appeal of a handsome blond frat boy. (That was how Republican strategists thought they would attract female voters back then, which must be why they believe Palin represents progress.) Quayle too was unable to articulate, let alone defend, the policy positions for which he was supposed to be campaigning. He too had to undergo the surgical stuffing of stock phrases into his head as a minimal substitute for knowledge and thought. And in the same sad way, he too benefited from the drastically reduced expectations applied to anyone whose inadequacy is so obvious.

Quayle deserved more pity than scorn, however, because he seemed to know that he was fighting far above his weight class. Palin evokes no such sympathy, with her jut-jawed, moose-gutting confidence in her own overrated "common sense" and her bullying insistence that only "elitists" would question her expertise.

As Biden showed quite convincingly when he spoke about his modest background and his continuing connection with Main Street, perceptive, intelligent discourse is in no way identical with elitism. Palin's phony populism is as insulting to working- and middle-class Americans as it is to American women. Why are basic diction and intellectual coherence presumed to be out of reach for "real people"? Sarah Palin's debate performance should signal the beginning of the end of her fad. But for the moment it is worth looking at... more

MeganMcKenzie
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28 responses

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9 months ago

Lost in translation? LA Times article 'The politics of spunk'

Slight nuance in the use of the word between us and our US cousins by the look of things. d

derider
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26 responses

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9 months ago

Palin's Attack On Obama's Patriotism Raise Questions About Palins' Association With Secessionist

Sarah Palin attacked Obama's patriotism today over his association with former Weatherman Bill Ayers -- a move that makes it... more

BuddyP
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21 responses

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9 months ago

How Sarah Palin blew it

Friday October 3, 2008 10:03 EDT
How Sarah Palin blew it

Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas Thursday night. Actually, that's unfair to Joe Biden; he was trying to talk to everyone. I can say for certain, though, that Sarah Palin was talking to -- and winking at -- her own private Idaho, and for long stretches of the debate, it was an unnerving experience.

We could be in for a few days of pro-Palin commentary, since her subjects and verbs corresponded. For at least the first hour, she held her own; she was funny sometimes, occasionally charming. Still, the Obama-Biden ticket will survive it. Biden was stronger on every single substantive point, and that's the impression that will last.

But the pit bull in lipstick was back. After her disarming "Hey, can I call you Joe?" Palin was vicious, with a winning smile. After a passionate Biden plea to "walk with me in my neighborhood," in Delaware and Scranton, where "the middle class has gotten the short end," she ridiculed him: "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again! Pointing backwards again!"

There were two key moments for me when Sarah Palin blew it badly. One was substantive, one was symbolic. The substantive was her bizarre statement about being happy that Dick Cheney had expanded the powers of the vice-presidency, and wanting to expand the powers more. I think that's what she said, it was one of many moments I didn't entirely understand her point, but I got her overall meaning. Biden came back with a decisive: "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president in American history," and he defended the existing limits on vice-presidential power. Point: Biden. Big time.

The symbolic moment Palin flubbed was subjective, of course. But I instant-messaged a friend that she lost the debate when Biden choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured -- and she went straight back into "John McCain is a maverick." I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that's just me.

She made other mistakes that others have already caught: She called the top commander in Afghanistan "General McClellan"; his name is David McKiernan. She said the troop levels in Iraq are down to pre-surge levels; they're not. She simply didn't answer a lot of the questions. Moderator Gwen Ifill tried to pull her back, but Palin is stubborn; she had her talking points, and she stuck to them.

I thought Biden and Palin tied for the first third of the debate, that Palin actually won the second third on moxie and charisma, not policy (Biden looked visibly angry at a few points, and that's never good), but Biden cleaned her clock in the last third. He quoted his dad telling him, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up!" -- and he listened to his father. Biden got up, and he won the debate.

We'll see how it plays out in the days to comFriday October 3, 2008 10:03 EDT How Sarah Palin blew it Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas... more