I Have Opinions on Things Outside Momhood

So clearly I think Obama hit it out of the ballpark last night. There's never been a doubt in my mind that I would vote for him. I love the man ALMOST as much as Lulu does. My plan for the day was to read the blogs about his speech. (In between work tasks, of course! And besides, reading that kind of stuff is my job too.) But that plan was derailed when by 10 am the only topic for discussion in the progressive blogosphere was McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as running mate.

I think she was choice made out of desperation. She doesn't have the experience. And she is so ideologically to the right that it makes me kind of queasy. She's under investigation for abusing her power. I could go on. And so could many other progressives.

So why did the topics on blogs like Daily Kos move pretty quickly to her looks, the fact that she's a mom, jokes about McCain thinking she's hot, and her son with Down Syndrome? In other words, things that would be off the table if she were a man. These are self proclaimed liberals!

On the other hand mainstream media has also told me that she was an beauty pageant contestant and a high school basketball star. Um...relevant how???And of course she rides a snowmobile and eats Moose...she lives in ALASKA for christ's sake! Not any more interesting than a woman in the North Country who eats Michigans and, well, rides a snowmobile. We don't all do it, but it's not newsworthy when one of us does.

And finally. I think people need to separate her opinions on choice from her own family composition. Mentioning her son with Down Syndrome and her 5 other kids in the same breath as her opinions on abortion implies that any pro-choice woman would have terminated the pregnancy...or would not choose to have five kids. Her decisions on these fronts are, I am sure, related to her politics, but they have nothing to do with mine.

But at any rate. She stinks. And no one should vote her and McCain. Who also stinks. 'Mkay? her being a woman is irrelevant to her stinkiness. Thought it is relevant to the world today. Know what I mean?