Overstreet Nails It
If you’re looking for some good reading this morning, check out Sarah Overstreet’s column today regarding media treatment of Bristol Palin. I agree completely with Sarah’s opinion and hope that the far left wing who is trying to drive this “story” moves on to something else of actual value for political discussion.
An excerpt from the story: “Parents of teens, we interrupt this column to bring you a breaking story: “Teens don’t always do what their parents teach them!”"
Shocking. You mean that all children don’t always do everything that their parents tell them? Really? They never made a choice on their own and make a mistake? I overheard someone at Wal*Mart this weekend talking about this issue and said “well, if we could spank kids without being arrested for it things like this wouldn’t happen.”
Interesting thought…but if kids don’t make mistakes why is there a need to spank them? 
Anyway, check out Sarah’s column. It should be one both sides of the aisle can agree upon.
Actaully, this is old news the bloggers have moved on from this. I guess the news cycle in hte local press could not get Sarah’s article into print until today.
fromspahnranch
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 9:07
I can’t imagine that Ann Coulter on the right would not attack Obama’s girls if they were older and became pregenent under similar circumstances….
fromspahnranch
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 9:11
Personally, I think families of politico’s should be off limits. And that means I don’t even want to see them or even know that they exist. Which means stop parading them on stage and then decrying when they get a rock tossed at them. And I mean this for both sides.
fromspahnranch
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 9:13
It was a good column indeed, Jason. But it brings up even more questions.
Why should Sarah Overstreet earn praise for writing a column on the young woman in question, and others not? Because she is not a perceived member of the far left? I stand by my original statement that the young woman and her situation should be completely off limits in our political discourse. Leave the Palin family alone. Period.
But what are we to make of it when Governor Palin flew the unwed father of her future grandson to the Republican National Convention and introduced him on stage? Governor Palin, and the Republican Party, cannot have it both ways. If she wants to send a strong “family” and “pro-life” message to her supporters and potential supporters, fine. But by so doing she forfeits any right to complain about the alleged mean treatment she is receiving from the allegedly left-wing media and the alleged meanies in the avowedly left-wing blogosphere.
Nobody forced Governor Palin to accept the Vice-Presidential nomination. I presume she was sufficiently intelligent to understand the scrutiny she would receive, if not from the McCain campaign, from the media and the voting public. Again, I wish that everybody would just shut up about the Palin family and focus on Governor Palin’s qualifications to be Vice-President (or, in my opinion, the total lack thereof). But if Governor Palin is looking for someone to blame, she ought to start by looking in the mirror. And if she wants to be taken seriously as a Vice-Presidential candidate, she needs to come before the American people and explain in her own words why she should be.
Bright Yellow Gun
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 9:27
“Why should Sarah Overstreet earn praise for writing a column on the young woman in question, and others not? Because she is not a perceived member of the far left?”
No, she just happened to have it in today’s paper.
If you had made a post at BYG that said the same thing I would have given you props too. 
Jason
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 12:31
Hey Jason,
Even though I’ve moved to Louisiana, just thought I’d drop a line and let you know that I still read your blog to keep up with the pulse of the Ozarks — a much more effective measure than going to the News-Leader website.
I will say I’m a little disappointed that you’ve fallen so hard for Mayor Palin, though I get it, the way I get Avril Lavigne’s popularity back in 2003 or so. She’s punk, but she’s cute and “safe” — in other words, she looks great in those glasses and she really takes the edges off the ugly, hate-mongering political Trojan horse she rode in on.
I think her family, and specifically, her daughter, should be off-limits… just as soon as she takes my family, and my future sons or daughter, and the rest of the country’s future sons or daughters off-limits by legislating a “private family matter”.
I call BS on all the pats on the back this woman is getting from the Pro-Life crowd: You can’t praise the woman for handling a private family matter so well and her daughter making such a good decision, when you don’t believe (like Palin) the decision is theirs to be made. You can’t say, “Aww shucks, things happen” while actively promoting a Christian, abstinance only program in school. And you can’t praise this woman’s family values just for crapping out 5 kids and then deciding to be a mother, a hockey-mom, and next-in-line to the leader of the free world. For years, paragons of the right like Dr. Laura and James Dobson have been telling women to stay at home with their children… now, after 8 years of having this country ruined by a retard who wouldn’t read the papers, we’re fine with having a mother of five decide to make decisions on Darfur, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.
Jason, it’s a feel good story worthy of those who think “Everybody Loves Raymond” is quality art, but it’s beneath you, and I beg that you allow yourself a little bit of objectivity.
Flame on.
Josh Capps
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 17:16
Dr Laura by the way is a critic of Palin in her own way….
fromspahnranch
Sunday 7 September 2008 at 18:51
Mr. Capps,
Your comment, like those in the media, only show that you do not understand the prolife movement (and Christianity) beyond what left leaning media outlets push.
It also shows your ignorance of Governor Palin as well.
The only thing I would add is that while serving as governor, Palin never advocated abstenence only (no bills were ever sent through the legislature) just as other smears where pushed against her.
You want the truth? Go read news from Alaska news outlets – not blogs who write about the Obamessiah one minute and rip Palin the next.
And Jason, yes, Overstreet gets it.
People want to talk about policy, fine, lets talk policy. Just dont go down the path which some quadrants of the media are all too happy to skip down and join the kook fringe left.
Let me add that this is not just a national phenomenon. There are local journalist who suffer from the same PDS which national level media do.
Paul Seale
Monday 8 September 2008 at 0:56
From an Eagle Forum questionairre during the 2006 Alaska gubnertorial race:
“Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?”
“Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.”
Now, she might’ve changed her mind in the past two years, but that’s plenty of time for a child who didn’t receive all the facts at home to get knocked-up.
What exactly don’t I understand about the Pro-Life movement (and Christianity)? I simply find it hypocritical for Palin to say her daughter’s pregnancy is a personal, family matter when she wouldn’t say the same thing about my hypothetical daughter’s pregnancy, even if my daughter had been raped. Bristol’s is not a personal, family decision, according to Palin’s views — it’s a matter that the courts should decide, no?
Josh
Monday 8 September 2008 at 9:38
Josh,
I dont get what are are trying to say.
The truth is Josh that Bristol recieved similar “sex ed” that we did. No laws were passed through the Democrat lead state legistlature and implemented to change a thing.
The same thing is true across this country.
The truth is, teen pregnancy is a real problem and teaching kids how to put a condom on a banna aint cutting it either.
Nice try at trying to establish a strawman, but that fails as well.
Bristol’s pregnancy should be a private matter.
Truthfully, I hope the issue comes back to bite the media and Democrats in the rump, hard.
Paul Seale
Monday 8 September 2008 at 10:00
I believe *every* pregnancy should be a completely private matter. No exceptions.
Bright Yellow Gun
Monday 8 September 2008 at 17:15
children when raised properly will follow the values of their parents, the problem we have today is the parents drop kids off at school for 6 plus hours to our government kid sitting service, then if the kids are lucky they might get a couple of hours a day with their parents.
teenage pregnancy has evolved out of lack of parenting not the availability of “spanking” our kids. the percentage of teenage pregnancies are on the way down, however still much more per population base of the 40’s and 50’s when parents spent serious time with their kids.
but what do I know I just have a 20 and 18 Y.O. who are both celibate and remain so because they want to get ahead in their life first instead of starting out with a family.
tom
Monday 8 September 2008 at 18:53
I believe *every* pregnancy should be a completely private matter. No exceptions.
I agree with you one hundred and ten percent.
To Tom, I think you have a few good points there to a degree. I do think discipline is part of the formula, but so is time with the children.
Paul Seale
Monday 8 September 2008 at 22:58