Before I get into the nitty-gritty of all of this, I do want to say that I feel for Bristol Palin. To be shoved into the national spotlight as the young daughter of a Vice Presidential candidate is rough enough, but to be known as the unmarried pregnant daughter of the Vice Presidential candidate is even tougher. To make things worse (and really one of the only reasons that I am going into this at all) is the fact that Sarah Palin has, in the past, backed abstinence-only education. At this point it is almost common knowledge that sexual education that incorporates contraceptives education begets lower pregnancy rates among teens.
So where does this leave Palin? Her and her husband put out a statement saying that Bristol will marry the father of her child, saying that Bristol "has our unconditional love and support." While this is the best thing a person can do when they find themselves pregnant and in a "family values" family such as Bristol is, I sincerely hope that this is what Bristol wanted to do and not what her parents wanted her to do. While I do not think that Mrs. Palin is the type of person who would do this (simply because I do not know her), the worst thing to do in this situation is to force one's daughter to do something that she does not want to do to save political face. Hopefully Bristol and her boyfriend are in love and want to marry each other and they are simply not doing it because everyone around them is pressuring them to.
An important thing to remember here is that Sarah Palin is not 10
As for the revelation that Todd Palin was arrested for DUI when he was twenty-two: this is not a huge deal in my mind. People do stupid things when they are young, and I cannot imagine that rural Alaska rarely sees these types of things. It's not like he's George W. Bush and did it at the age of 30 when he should have known better or he's Dick Cheney and did not learn from one DUI charge and got two in eight months. If he were running for something, that would be one thing, but he is simply the husband of someone running for something.
But all of this be
Photos - Sarah Palin (www.en.wikipedia.org), McCain and Palin (www.news.bbc.co.uk), Sarah and Todd Palin (www.bostonherald.com)
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