Excerpt
I am aware that I am responding to carefully crafted political images. I actually know very little about Sarah Palin’s ideology, and what I do know I don’t like: the extreme anti-abortion stand, her belief that creationism should be taught in schools alongside evolution. In the next eight weeks any number of things could emerge that will turn me off completely.
Excerpt
But if I’m really honest with myself, I’m mostly just happy that there’s another woman on the national political stage. I think it’s good for my 8-year-old daughter, who has called Hillary Clinton her idol. She doesn’t love Hillary because of her health-care policy or pro-choice stance: she loves Hillary because she thinks girls rule. The more powerful women there are on the national stage, the better it is for all women, because this is a game of numbers. When John Edwards destroys his political career by cheating on his wife, I don’t believe people wring their hands about what it’s going to mean for white guys. And when there are enough women in our political life, maybe we will be able to judge them as individuals, rather than representatives of all things uterine. Either way, I think we’re going to have to get used to Sarah Palin. Because she might be the one to crash through that “highest, hardest glass ceiling,” and not just because she has a gun.
Palin said during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign that if she were elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum, or look for creationism advocates when she appointed board members.
Palin’s children attend public schools and Palin has made no push to have creationism taught in them.
Neither have Palin’s socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska’s chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.
SHE IS THE REAL DEAL!!! A REAL hard working person...with REAL personal beliefs...with REAL conviction that she lives in and serves the greatest country in the world. Sarah is undeniably Sarah.
Thou almost persuadest me.