Sarah Palin: Homeschooler

I like Palin's social conservatism, too, and she seems to be a woman of genuine character. Let's not go overboard just yet: the "crunchy" is just as important as the "con," is it not? Palin is a global-warming skeptic, favors expanded oil extraction top to bottom (including ANWR, pitting her against McCain), and sued the EPA over its declaration that the polar bear was endangered. Admittedly, there are enormous pressures on Alaskan politicians to favor policies like these for pork-barrel reasons. Still . . .

Homeschool? I don't think so. This is a busy woman unless she hires her own private teacher. I don't care if she does or not but please get a grip. This woman is limited and can not possibly home school, grow her own vegetable, bake bread, make her own clothes and be governor of Alaska. Talk about super woman.

OK, elmo, here's a pinch.

She can't be all those things--although I was pleased to see she brought her infant along for the announcement today. But let's not have her charging up San Juan Hill quite yet, OK?

Whether she homeschools and bakes bread is just not relevant. Being next in line should something happen to McCain, questions that need to be answered are:
How well is she qualified in the area of foreign policy? Domestic economic issues? Commander in chief?
Since she wasn't out there during the primaries, she has a lot of convincing to do that she is ready to move from the capitol of Alaska to the capitol of the United States. Maybe she can, right now I don't know.

I can understand Rod's enthusiasm. It's almost like a committee created a wish list of the perfect candidate for their conservative Christian contingent.

Then they searched far and wide. And in the farthest corner of our great land they found him, er, her.

Be careful what you pray for.

Pinch. Pinch.

Yes, major kudos to her and her husband for bringing their child with Down Syndrome into the circle of their family's love. And homeschooling is fine, too; so is playing on a championship basketball team; so is being nice-looking; so is liking the outdoor life.

But if these are major credentials qualifying a person to be one heartbeat away from the varied and intricate problems, foreign and domestic, presented daily to the President of the United States...gee,
John McC. could just as well have drawn names out of a hat!!!!

Haven't many of this blog's readers been gleefully portraying Obama as simply a celebrity media creation of no real substance? Sarah Palin
could, in fact, be just that.

How well is she qualified in the area of foreign policy? Domestic economic issues? Commander in chief?

But she homeschools!

Anyone else think Rod is going to wake up tomorrow with one massive hangover?

To All Who Criticize Palin:

Obama is just as inexperienced. What's the difference? Why is your energy focused on Palin, when she's just running for Vice-President?

Yeah, she's perfect. We are in the IDEA program too...these schooling programs pay for a parent's educational costs to homeschool (about $2k/kid). Most importantly, hese programs really cut into the schools and are helping to undercut the power of the school's unions.

Funny: this year we started calling her "Aunt Sarah" when she gave away another $1200/person his year...that means the state gave away more than $3200 per person - man, woman, child - in 2008. For my family, that's $26,000 free money in one year. Who knows what next year brings. This is the new conservative way: give government money direct to the people and cut the budget - bypass all the government handouts and watch the unions weep and liberal pols cry (all those government supporters who get their political power from government handouts). All that money given away came out of the fat-cat schools, unions, government corruption.

Also, don't underestimate Palin in debates, unless the big-time-national-level hurts her confidence and style. I once watched her woman-handle two agressive male debaters once...they never knew what hit 'em. It's hard for a man to debate a woman who won't get in the gutter, and knows how to act like a lady; makes you look bad, like a bully. Hillary is offensive to most men's eyes, but Palin makes liking her easy on camera.

The thing is that given how poorly our leadership class has performed these last thirty or so years, you could probably do no worse pulling names from a hat. Like W.F. Buckley said, just pick up the phone book.

The coming meltdown- if it comes- will be the fault of the Democrats, too. They control Congress. They're also beholden to K Street corporate interests. They support the War, NAFTA, etc. They have not stopped (in fact have largely supported) things like Guantanamo Eternal, the Patriot Act, external rendition, torture, and arresting (and torturing) American citizens like Jose Padillo without any form of due process. Note that Jose Padillo could hypothetically be any one of us.

Clinton lobbed bombs indiscriminately, Obama promises us invasions of Iran and Pakistan.

The Banks melt down and their speculative debt is accepted by a Democratic Congress, the deficits (budgetary and trade) blossom, our industrial and agricultural base has been fully eviscerated, and the Democrats from Clinto to Obama all do nothing or support it all with relish.

Our gathering national travesty is not simply a Republican disaster. We're all complicit.

So do not pretend that Obama and Company are somehow existentially separate and superior to the Republicans. It's a matter of rather slight degree (they'll oppose repealing capital gains taxes, yippee kay yay, mo fo!), not kind.

The Political establishment on both sides is largely on the same page. And of the same cloth. Upper class, ivy leauge establishment.

Sarah Palin, and her husband, are of a different breed. His job, their last, and fifth, child put them in another universe than any other of the three major candidates. Salt of the Earth.

And note this: the abortion issue is not minor. Internationally, it is going to be decisive. We're short almost 50 million citizens. The Indians and Chinese have slaughtered over 100 million girls (in favor of boys) in the last ten years. That number will climb, and this deficit will have profound consequences.

Abortion, aside from being one of the greatest slaughters in human history, could very well create the conditions for massive global conflict.

Electing Sarah Palin will do little to nothinbg to stop this dynamic. Nor will it have much effect on Global Warming, which is something the Democrats will not effectively be able to stop, either.

Personally, however, I think symbols matter.. And the radical assertion of human personhood that we pro-lifers stand for is the only coherent position. In spiritual terms, it matters. Which in the end may be the only thing we have left.

Which is why I will very likely vote for her.

Rod...about that hangover...

www.ktva.com/commissionercontroversy/ci_10195264

"She admitted a member of her administration had made calls that could be perceived as pressure. On Wednesday afternoon Governor Palin released a recording of a phone call that she says she was just made aware of.

"I do now have to tell Alaskans that such pressure could have been perceived to exist. Although I have only now became aware of it, the serial nature of the contacts understandably could be perceived as some kind of pressure, presumably at my direction. Because namely, specifically, most disturbing, is a telephone recording apparently made by the troopers and preserved documenting a call that was placed to the Dept. of Public Safety manager by my boards and commissioners director Frank Bailey."

----

Tapes?

Rod is acting like a giddy middle school girl! She home schools, is pro life, and thus she is now qualified to be Vice President of the USA.

I highly suspect we will see the Christian Right come out in full force support now. Which is likely why McCain picked her. I would almost place a bet that his pick of her was a back room deal, likely made with Dobson and Richard Land, to get their support and backing. A Mormon pick was too risky for the Christian right to support, although that Dobson personally would have preferred Romney. Rod is falling head over heals into their agenda. No more crunchy con for Rod- you are turing out to be just another loyal foot soldier for Dobson.Think critically!

To the unborn child, nothing poses a more immediate danger than abortion. Over one million people a year are being murdered by abortion.
Is this not an existential level threat?

Even if I were to accept your premise of abortion = murder (which I do not) then this still would pose no existential threat to the nation. America's population is actually growing... and if not for the population argument, please explain how the continuing existence of our nation is threatened by the practice of abortion?

Existential threats to our nation are not terribly hard to find or fathom at the moment, lets not add imaginary ones.

Most of this discussion seems a tad ridiculous. Homeschooling does nothing for me as a voter, as most families will NEVER have the luxury of opting out of public schools for their kids.

And this governor is supposedly qualified in foriegn affairs because she lives right next door to Canada and Russia? You can't be serious.

She is McCain's Hail Mary pass, and it looks like a fumble to me.

"She IS a Crunchy Con. She embodies every value in the book!"

Well this is the first thing that starts to give me some serious concern. I find your views interesting, but I don't want all of them to be mainstream in conservatism. Some of them are good, but some of are off the charts ludicrous or unrealistic.

Specific to home schooling I'm a bit ambivalent on it. I think it's a good choice for some families and some kids, but I don't think it's ideal. For me it's what you do when the schools stink or your kid is in some way different so needs special attention. Private school I'm for in more wide cases, but I've seen home schooling fail too much to be impressed. Sometimes the parent is an incompetent teacher, but other times they create a child who's overly narrow and sheltered. And sometimes it works wonderfully, but it's not the ideal in my mind.

"This to ultimately denude all of us, not just the fetus, of human rights.

It will lead to bloodshed.

Bloodshed beyond the womb, that is."

Charles Curtis, there's been plenty of bloodshed beyond the womb for millenia now. And personhood has been under from various forms of attack just as long. But it is in the power of individuals to affirm personhood regardless of what the state does, and the United States is relatively benign compared to many other regimes throughout history. People who claim to be pro-life have framed the debate in terms of legalities for far too long. We don't have to wait on laws to change to support mothers. We do have to support mothers.

Wouldn't be the first time I've seen that in this election cycle. Ron Paul, Huckabee, even Romney for a bit.

Romney? Please. Never once was I interested in him. I did like Paul, but yes, I was as giddy as a schoolgirl over Huck.

Look, my Palin crush will subside. If she turns out to be Dan Quayle or Harriet Miers, we'll know real soon. And if not, well, hooray, we have a new star on the Right. I've just been angry and miserable about the Republicans for so long, I've got to have a day to feel good. This too shall pass, no doubt. I am Derbyshirian, as you know.

I know we're voting for the president, not vice president. If I vote for McCain, it will be holding my nose, and because I want Sarah Palin to become important to national politics. She's the kind of Republican I like. I don't think either Obama or McCain comes close to offering the kind of change the nation needs. Four years of Sarah Palin in the vice president's office, and she'd be something else. And if not, hell, Palin-Jindal 2012.

Ok, I'll say that Palin makes my hair stand on end and for the first time I'm actually thinking of voting for Obama! (It will pass, such things always do.)

But even if they get elected, she'll just be the screeching VP that will end up as joke fodder like Dan Quayle simply because that is what happens to vice presidents. She will have no impact on legislation for at least two years because Congress won't care what she says and the Senate is going to be so pro-choice that no pro-life justice is even going to get a hearing, much less be confirmed.

And let us be honest, the last Vice President that took over had lots of experience in government, Lyndon Johnson and look at the disaster he turned out to be so lack of experience really does not matter very much.

"Obama has been a community organizer, an Illinois State Senator for seven years, and the junior United States Senator since January of 2005. How is he more prepared to be president than Palin is to be vice president?" by Erin Manning

TR: The Senate is a national office, I'll give him that. As a Presidential candidate I really don't think Palin is quite prepared.

And oddly this is what the argument has been in a way. The assumption is he's going to die or go into dementia very soon, as early as 2009 going by even some critical conservative sites. Therefore she is the Republican choice for President of the United States. If this were the situation I think concerns would not be unreasonable. I just don't think this is the situation. In our era wealthy men who live to 72 have a good shot of being healthy at 76. Even average men do. Still it's what they're going on.

The other I'm seeing is that Illinois is a big state. It's got more people. It's more civilized, urbane, and just better than podunk Alaska. It's like electing that conservative red-haired teacher from "Northern Exposure" to the Vice Presidency, it looks crazy to them.

To those who keep bringing up "troopergate" please, please, please keep talking about this. Wiser heads within the DNC are already backing off, and Olbermann candidly admitted last night it was a "nonstarter." Why, because of the boomerang effect I've already noted. The more you talk about it, the more Americans will like her. The scumbag brother-in-law was tasering his son, making death threats, etc. He was a scumbag. He needed to be fired, and the commissioner wouldn't do it. Average voters aren't going to groove into the details of this; they'll just come away with a top-of-mind impression that she stood up for her sister and sister's kids against an abusing scumbag bully. And that's what you'll look like, too, if you keep bringing it up. So please keep talking it up.

Who issues the Dem's talking points and how do you receive them? I must say they have a fine distribution system. No foreign policy experience, she hates polar bears, she tried to get her corrupt scumbag tasering brother in law dismissed because he wasn't fit to serve as a state trooper, after she kills all the polar bears she's going to drill for oil in their polar bear dens, oh, and did I mention that she doesn't have foreign policy experience? Either way, I hope DonF's kids never get out of line, because evidently he thinks the taser is an appropriate tool of discipline.

In an effort to play the wedge politics they say they abhor I have also been seeing increased discussion of machine guns. BO mentioned the other evening his concern about AKs in the hands of the criminal class who turn to guns out of desperation that the federal government has not yet made their kids smart and beautiful and anger that the entrepreneurial class only pays federal income taxes at a 35% marginal rate. Similarly spider notes above that inner-city gang members are buying machine guns, presumably to defend polar bears and scumbag tasering brother in laws from Gov. Palin.

Has the law changed recently? Can I now buy a tommy gun at Wal-Mart? That would be sweet to defend myself from the coming Chinese drones, but somehow I don't think it's the case.

mdavid-The new conservative way is to tax oil companies and give the money to the people? Really? Oops, lots of that money comes from me to you also. Alaska receives twice as much federal tax money as it pays in. How exactly are conservatives going to implement this plan for the rest of the country?

Steve

TR: "The other I'm seeing is that Illinois is a big state. It's got more people. It's more civilized, urbane, and just better than podunk Alaska. It's like electing that conservative red-haired teacher from "Northern Exposure" to the Vice Presidency, it looks crazy to them."

I'd love to have a chat with whomever thinks this. I'm from Illinois originally, and still have extended family in the area. Illinois isn't exactly urbane, and Chicago as a city is hardly an enlightened beacon on a hill. In fact, if there was more attention paid to the reality that a Chicago "community organizer" is generally following in the Saul Alinsky pattern of community shake-down-ism with a strong Marxist/revolutionary philosophical backdrop, I doubt Obama would keep mentioning it as a point in his favor.

steve, Alaska receives twice as much federal tax money as it pays in. How exactly are conservatives going to implement this plan for the rest of the country?

Alaska gets so much federal money to manage land owned by the Feds. We don't personally get the money, federal agencies do. The feds decide how they want to spend their money, not the state. This was part of the deal with the Feds stealing all the land from the state back when we entered the union (things like ANWR). We would gladly take back our land and let you keep your money.

The federal money that comes into AK goes to public institutions - you know, the ones liberals support. Personally, I say cut it all - the state would do just fine if we got the feds out. Well, a lot of money comes from the military, and that's fine.

State money is what Palin plays with. She tries to keep greedy liberal hands off the pot (goverment spenders who hold political power by giving money to teacher's unions, state agencies, and the like)...giving it away directly to the citizens (this is revenue that comes directly from resources...resources that belong to the people...not taxes). It's great policy - conservative, cuts out the middleman and lets the citizens spend their money directly. Libs, otoh, want to take the state's resource money and use it for their political power.

Experienced Governor? "No Wright no Farrakahn" how about no racism? As a Christian, stay at home mom of 3 and registered nurse (when I was paid to work) I'm insulted by this choice. She's a great female example BUT not this year, maybe in the future when she's more experienced. McCain thought he could get Hillary supporters and working class by this choice because if you look at his past choices he is not for family values-he didn't value his first wife and family.

In my circle of friends, there's a group of women who homeschool their kids, and they're not impressed by Palin. In fact, they find her kind of insulting to the life they've chosen.

For one thing, my friends think childrearing is a worthwhile job all on its own, without having to "prove" themselves by killing a moose, frying it up in a pan, and maintaining beauty pageant good looks--as well as becoming Vice President of the United States.

AHHHHHHH....It's all becoming very clear WHY she "homeschools."

Amidst all the furor over the maternity of Sarah Palin's youngest child, it's become easy to put 2 and 2 together, so to speak.

She went in to sign up for Distance Education because her eldest daughter had "mono," keeping her out of school for five months of the school year.

Hmmmmmmmmmm......

I love that they’re trying to bury the story that her 17-year old daughter is pregnant under all the news about Hurricane Gustav.

Maybe if Palin and the Christian Conservatives who run the Republican party would support the teaching of sex education in schools rather than preaching head-in-the-sand abstinence programs, they wouldn’t be in this situation!

Few things make me happier when news comes out that religious zealots have to face public scrutiny when they find out:
1) Their teen-age kid is knocked up
2) Their kid is a drug addict / drug-dealer
3) Their kid is gay (not that this has anything to do with their parenting – but how do they explain their child being damned to hell for such sinful perversion?!)

First of all... that videospider video looked like it was some actor, not Todd Palin.

Then... I'm a homeschooling Mom of 3. But... just because I feel that I'm doing what God has called me to do for myself and my family doesn't mean that Sarah Palin hasn't been called to something different. Being called to politics does not mean she is not a woman of faith. A woman does not HAVE to stay home to be a good Christian and a woman of faith. The Bible is full of women who were called to be leaders and do more than just stay home... just look at Proverbs 31 and Judges.

I take back my statements above. I DO NOT think she is a good example for women, she obviously is very power-hungry if she chose to run for VP knowing her teen daughter is pregnant and the press would be all over her. What kind of mother is that? And don't pull the feminist (you wouldn't say that to a man thing-I'm a feminist!) thing-since when does that party care about women's rights? There are pictures of her now-pregnant daughter drinking/pics with friends and alcohol all over the internet. This woman has famiy values???? She's an insult to all competent, organized, SUCCESSFUL working mothers. Call me judgemental (but she's the one saying no to sex education in the schools) but you know you are low class when you're child and grandchild are the same age!!!!!!!!!!!

One of my dearest friends is the eldest of 12 children. Her youngest brother is a month or so older than her son...She and her mother were pregnant at the same time (of course, my friend was married too, unlike palin's daughter)

Are we to attack Sarah Palin just because her daughter made a major mistake? Praise God that she is keeping the baby! Praise God for choosing life!

SAHM of 3: You're mean. Don't teach your kids to call people low class. That might make people think all stay at home moms are snits.

Another stay at home mom of 3 (but a nice one who doesn't call people low class)

Homeschooling????? My fat butt.... just trying to keep her very sexually active Willow and Bristol out of the public eye. Better to accept all the hype.

I'd call her a Pitbull in lipstick - - - but pitbulls take far better CARE of their pups...

Travesty to have this 'MOTHER' set as the paragon of the Republican Party.