Three ancient tales of unwed pregnancies

The New Neo Posted on by

I grew up in an era in which abortion was both difficult to obtain and physically dangerous. Today’s commonplace alternative of raising the child as an unwed single mother was socially unacceptable in the extreme. Effective birth control was nowhere near as easy to find as it is now, either. But the lure of sex was just as great (last time I checked, that hasn’t changed).

My enormous public New York high school had a mostly working class demographic. But the two girls in my acquaintance who became visibly pregnant were from the “better” families. Although it sounds like the script of a movie, one was the captain of the cheerleading squad and one the head of the baton twirlers.

They were not my friends, and so I was not taken into their confidence about their lives. Continue reading →

Democrats: beware the backlash to Palinsanity

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been doing some reading on the blog TalkLeft, which seems to have a large percentage of liberal Democrat commenters (mostly female?) who supported Clinton for the Democratic nomination. At this point they’re not overly enchanted with Obama, but most plan to hold their noses and vote for him anyway because he’s advocating the policies they favor.

How are they reacting to the media frenzy and blogswarm that Ann Althouse has cleverly dubbed Palinsanity? Continue reading →

Vetting Palin

The New Neo Posted on by

The WaPo takes on the rumor that Palin was insufficiently vetted, and appears to demolish it.

My perception is that McCain was impressed from the first by Palin and was especially taken with her maverick, reformer quality, which he sensed right away. I’ve also think the McCain campaign’s ability to keep this a secret until the announcement of her candidacy shows a capacity to be tight and well-organized, which bodes well for a possible McCain Presidency.

[ADDENDUM: More on the vetting issue.]

And here’s the latest in pretzel-like contortions on the subject…

The New Neo Posted on by

Found in the comments section of Michele Catalano’s PJ article on the Palin baby brouhaha (links don’t seem to work, but the time stamp is 1:06 PM and it was written by “4Heavenssake”):

The first baby was probably a C-section scheduled at a level 3 hospital @ about 6-1/2 to 7 months into the kid’s pregnancy. What do you want to bet that Bristol’s pregnancy with her 2nd child will be one of those really, really long ones? As in she’s not as far along in her pregnancy as her mother is saying?

And here’s the video for the occasion:

The Palin fake-pregnancy rumors: the latest in a long line of campaign garbage

The New Neo Posted on by

I think Palin’s nomination has caused much of the Left to flip its collective wig, or what’s left of it (puns intended).

The rumors about Palin’s baby—that it really was conceived by her 16-year-old daughter and that Palin faked her own recent pregnancy—make National Enquirer stories look like well-researched doctoral theses.

And now the Left should be proud—and pleased as punch—that the vitriol of many of its members has managed to out a 17-year-old’s unwed pregnancy and imminent marriage, the news of which should have been allowed to emerge in its own sweet time and way. Good work, Kos Kids (and congrats to Andrew Sullivan—to whom I will not link but who actually was once an actual bona fide journalist, although that was long ago and far away). Continue reading →

Palin: a less-wordy Obama for the Right?

The New Neo Posted on by

The blogs and airwaves are alive with Democrats looking down on Sarah Palin.

She’s inexperienced. She’s just a pretty face. She was chosen merely for her gender and her “Movie of the Week” life story.

Sound familiar? Just change the pronouns “she” and “her” to “he” and “his,” the word “pretty” to “handsome” and “gender” to “race,” and you’ve got our Democratic nominee for President: Barack Obama.

One huge difference, of course, is he’s running for President and she for Vice-President. Continue reading →

The campaign chess game

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve thought about this question myself: does Palin’s VP candidacy change Hillary’s calculus for 2012?

I think it does. As Ms. Althouse says, it presents her with a conundrum: whose election would be best for Hillary? The way this campain is shaping up—Obama’s Biden move and McCain’s Palin countermove, and all those ads and answering ads—makes me think of it as a particularly knotty game of chess.

And there are more than two players in this game. There are at least three, and Hillary is most definitely one of them.

Palin: playing the inexperience card is a loser for the Democrats

The New Neo Posted on by

It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. The Democrats and the Obama campaign are accusing Sarah Palin of being too inexperienced to be Vice-President.

This would be an excellent plan of attack—after all, she is relatively inexperienced for that high office— if it weren’t the case that Obama is clearly even less experienced, and he’s running for an office far higher. Continue reading →

Dissing Palin’s small-town mayoral experience…

The New Neo Posted on by

…doesn’t strike me as the smartest move on the part of the Obama campaign.

First of all, that’s more executive experience than Obama has ever had. Second of all, it’s been superceded by the fact that she also has some experience as Governor—an executive office of even greater magnitude—and has done rather well. In fact, her tenure as Governor is longer than Obama’s time as Senator before he left the job to begin campaining.

I begin to wonder just how smart Obama’s advisors are (actually, that’s a lie; in fact, I’ve been wondering for quite some time). Continue reading →