09/02/2008
Congressman Barney Frank: Sarah Palin Family Life Fair Game
Congressman Barney Frank told the AP today that Sarah Palin's family life is fair game, reports the Boston Herald: "[Republicans are] the ones that made an issue of her family...Apparently she’s a great favorite with the conservative social movement. They have said that it’s liberalism and liberals who have undermined families — same-sex marriage has been a problem, they don’t want gay people to adopt ... This helps undercut those arguments."
The Herald continues, "Revelations about Palin’s 17-year-old daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy and other family troubles reflect the stresses and strains of modern everyday life more than anything else, said Frank. 'Well, hers is a family in great turmoil,' added Frank. 'She fired the state police commissioner because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband. She has a daughter who became pregnant. That’s not her fault.' The Alaska governor faces accusations of firing public safety commissioner Walt Monegan because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper, in what amounts to a messy Palin family drama dating to her pre-gubernatorial days."
For our interview with Barney Frank at the Democratic National Convention, click here.
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Posted 8:27 PM EST by Andy Towle in Barney Frank, Democratic Party, John McCain, News, Sarah Palin | Permalink
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I'm glad that someone is willing to call out the hypocrisy at work here. not much gets me upset, but when right wing fanatics demand that everyone lives up to THEIR standards they set themselves up for failure. it is interesting that when their family members are gay, having premarital sex, or pregnant before being married, its 'ok' and they will be there to 'support' their family -- but this same situation is not ok with those outside of their sphere of influence. hypocrisy at its worst.
Posted by: Eric | Sep 2, 2008 8:58:57 PM
As usual, Barney is absolutely correct! The Republicans make a big deal over Palin being a mom with 5 kids, and consider it a part of her overall experience that supposedly qualifies her for VP (or President if something happens to McCain). Palin is a supporter of Abstinence-Only sex education in schools. The fact that her daughter unwed 17 year old daughter is pregnant is an indictment of her political views, and therefore fair game for discussion as a campaign issue!
Posted by: Rob | Sep 2, 2008 9:00:15 PM
I may be out on a limb on this, but....why isn't it her "fault" or at least the responsibility of the parents to actively prevent their minor daughter from getting pregnant?
If the kid rejected the teachings of absitence etc..etc..,why isn't it the parents moral responsibility to ensure that their sexualy active, minor daughter does not get pregnant.
I don't know these people, and I certainly don't know the circumstances around how Bristol came to be pregnant - but then neither do a lot of people, so let's not be so quick to say its not their "fault".
Posted by: ben | Sep 2, 2008 9:36:53 PM
Families are NOT "fair game"! As a gay man, repub aside, I have respected Frank's support for LGBT rights. However, HE COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG THIS TIME!
Should I be running for ANY political postion and you come after any of my three minor children I would shred you! My kids are not responsible for me being gay, marrying their mother NOR my actions! They are my children, I love them and until they are adults they are off limits! I love them, mentor them and support them but they are NOT responsible for MY actions!
WRONG, bull shit wrong. This "kid" is 17, pregnant and NOW in the national spot light! Give me a break.
It is not as if Palen's daughter is 50 years old, cheating on his dying wife while running for president, voting for impeaching Clinton for his trist with Monica calling him immoral and having a oops....a child! She is A MINOR AND SHOULD BE OFF LIMITS but I am sure that the far left will only smell blood and shred this kid! WRONG, WRONG WRONG!
Posted by: RB | Sep 2, 2008 9:47:48 PM
And I may note, Obama was the child of an unmarried 18 year old an apparently everyone here thinks he has grown a beard and walks on water and you talk of hypocrisy!
Posted by: RB | Sep 2, 2008 9:50:52 PM
Ben, do you have kids? I would venture a guess not! Be careful how you throw around "responsibility" of the parents comments!
Posted by: RB | Sep 2, 2008 9:53:16 PM
Sarah Palin knew that the press would learn about her pregnant 17-year-old daughter. What kind of person would purposely focus that sort of attention on their child? I guess her ambition means more than her family.
Posted by: homer | Sep 2, 2008 10:04:27 PM
Barney Frank is not perfect, but he is one of the best advocates gay people have on the national scene. If he were running for president I'd vote for him.
Regarding Palin, I'm just worried its going to turn into a Harriet Mieer thing and Palin will quit. If she does it soon enough, McCain may be able to take the hit (it was bad judgment to select her, I think).
McCain/Romney might have a better chance, but I was looking at the polls today. It doesn't seem the Republicans do have a chance. Even Montana seems to be prettily solidly Obama. No wonder no one's going to the convention and they pulled a stunt on the VP nomination.
I guess the news media has to have something to do for the next few months, so we'll be reading all about it.
Posted by: John | Sep 2, 2008 10:10:39 PM
Sarah Palin is the one who revealed her daughter was pregnant. What did she think would happen? But I agree with RB (gasp!) and Obama that family should be "off limits." Besides, there is PLENTY of issued-based stuff to focus on before even getting to the redneckish/hypocritical family life of Palin.
Posted by: Jason | Sep 2, 2008 10:11:21 PM
As others around the web have noted imagine if this was Obama's 17-year old daughter? All hell would break loose. I can only imagine the vitriol directed towards not only him, but then bleeding over into a "portrait" of blacks in general. If you say it wouldn't happen you're a liar.
Posted by: Nick | Sep 2, 2008 10:14:33 PM
My father is in politics...granted local, not national but whats the saying, all politics is local. Anyway, I came out (while married with a kid) during a re-election campaign. People attemptd to drag me into the fight but common sense took over and recognized that the choices of family members who are OF AGE to make decisions do not matter. Mr. Frank is wrong on this one. We (LGBT) say all the time that what happens in our private lives is private. So...lets be the bigger people and allow this family to handle this on their own.
Posted by: BC | Sep 2, 2008 10:15:38 PM
RB
Your example = Edwards, doesn't hold water because he didn't win the dem primary. If he had then by all means more power to you in attacking him.
If I remember correctly, you have a family.
Forgive me for not remembering, was it 1 or 2 kids
Palin does not support your right to have a family.
She was born Roman Catholic and we all know how they feel about us. She converted to Assemblies of God which does not support gay marriage or gay adoption at all. In fact the Assemblies of God denomination totaly supports "Love Wins Out" an ex-gay ministry that uses intimidation, psychological torture, and extreme measures to damage gays into being straight. She has since then started attending a Baptist church and they also do not support your right to have children. They claim you are an unfit person to raise children. That your raising a child and or children damages the child and or children
She directly attacks your ability as a parent. She makes it very personal against you.
You should stand up for yourself and your family and question her ability as a parent for having an unwed pregnant teen that has also been busted (perez hilton has the pics up today) for underage drinking .
You should question her qualification to have her soap box to denegrate you and your family. Her soap box to lord over you and your family her hypocritical self righteousness.
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Sep 2, 2008 10:25:54 PM
Barney Frank disgusts me. I'm ashamed he's a fellow gay man. Kids are NOT fair game. Crawl back into your whole, idiot.
Posted by: Dave | Sep 2, 2008 10:28:02 PM
Thank you, Barney Frank. Republicans have always made private family matters their public domain...especially when it comes to LGBT people. And, when any such double-standard is revealed, we're supposed to NOT say anything when they say leave our families alone? Sorry, folks. They can't have it both ways. We have every right to push back whether it's Mary Cheney and her partner's child, Larry Craig, Newt's sister or a home-schooled, abstinence-only trained, unwed pregnant teen. This is no time to play the nice liberal. These are people working hard to ensure we remain second-class citizens under the law. How many LGBT teens have suffered under their "family-friendly" beliefs and policies? We have the power to end the hypocrisy if we hold them responsible for their words and actions.
Posted by: Jamie | Sep 2, 2008 10:43:49 PM
I also want to add that "mc-bad vetter" thinks it ok to attack family as evidenced by his cracking a tasteless joke about Chelsea Clinton.
There was no hue and cry then from repubs.
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Sep 2, 2008 10:44:03 PM
RB, you're missing part of the point. Obama's mother was a selfless, charitable liberal. She didn't go around denouncing people or demand that they live according to her standards. And a 17-year-old is damn close to 18.
My friends and I (male and female) were as mentally cognizant and sexually responsible at 15 as we were at 18. Any child raised with the "traditional values" espoused by Palin should be held to the same standards.
I also wonder who's planning to raise Palin's kids. She's admitted to smoking pot, her husband has a drunk driving conviction, she's no anti-corruption maverick---the list goes on and on. Nothing is less admirable in any politician than hypocrisy and lies, so having her on the ticket is just more of the same. And it's only going to get worse, which is why I'm tickled pink that McCain was dumb enough to choose her, clearly without sufficient vetting.
And any of you who think she might drop out are delusional. It'd be an instant loss.
Posted by: Paul R | Sep 2, 2008 11:11:11 PM
If you could see the kind of vicious lies the right spews about Obama (try the wingnutdaily), you'd have no qualms about pointing out their hypocrisy on this issue.
Can I point out that the daddy doesn't want kids? There are NO unwanted kids in gay families. Gay men and lesbians have to WORK for their kids, they don't come along by accident. And yet Sarah Palin and McCain think we shouldn't have them!
The gloves are off. Fuck being nice. We saw how that worked with Kerry.
A while back I was advocating inventing stories (McCain's developing a taste for roasted puppies while a POW), but Palin has solved that problem. She's a cornucopia of sordid stories. Just get the truth out!
Posted by: Kevinvt | Sep 2, 2008 11:16:05 PM
Kids and families are not fair game. Neither are they legitimate examples of one's leadership qualifications or administrative skills. For any politician to present their family as an example of their understanding the "condition of the typical American family" is a charade from start to finish.
Posted by: Robert | Sep 2, 2008 11:36:46 PM
Paul R
Yeah. Eagleton dropped off of Mcgovern's ticket and the dems lost horribly that year.
Add in that mccain is extremely prideful, arrogant, and never admits a mistake + repubs never admit mistakes = Palin is on till the bitter end and we will watch this slow trainwreck for the next 8 weeks with the repub party devastated for generations.
Dropping her equals massive lose for the repubs. Keeping her offers the smallest miscroscopic bit of futile hope
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Sep 2, 2008 11:38:26 PM
"Kids and families are not fair game."
Normally - no, they are not fair game. But Palin started the whole thing.
"We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents."
Palin turned her decision to keep her Down-Syndrom-child and her daughter's decision to keep her child - into a political game - she is waving a huge pro-life flag "Look at us, we are pro-life and raised our daughter to be pro-life too"
If she is using her family to underline her positions - then, IMO, her enemies can use Palin's family to underline their positions.
Posted by: Jeanne | Sep 2, 2008 11:53:08 PM
This is foolish. Of course abstinence-only, no-birth-control sex ed is not a good idea -- there's no need to publicly humiliate a pregnant minor in order to make that point.
But obviously, the insults to Palin's family aren't about social policy, they're about politics -- and they're BAD politics, naturally drawing sympathy to Palin and contempt to those attacking her in these below-the-belt terms.
It doesn't matter in the least what smears "the other side" may have used against Obama -- what matters is the effect that using these cheap attacks has on his campaign. And the effect is -- they hurt his campaign by alienating swing voters.
In this case, the high road is also the smart road. Barney Frank is, not for the first time this year, making a foolish political mistake in the name of supposed expedience.
Posted by: Distingué Traces | Sep 3, 2008 12:01:47 AM
yes, kids are off-limits. but the candidate herself is not. she did not need to issue a statement about her daughter's pregnancy. who forced her to? if it's a private matter, keep it that way. don't mention it. i'm pretty sure sarah palin got caught in a tough predicament when she found out this past sunday after church about her daughter's pregnancy. and the mccain campaign decided the best spin was to release the info (they probably considered for a hot minute whether they could get away with nobody noticing for the next 60 odd days) to say they knew all along. they have got to be lying. no chance mccain would have chosen to pick a running mate with an unwed teenage daughter if he had known. the narrative about the alaskan governor was replete with details of her family -- as it would be for any nominee -- instantly in the new york times. if there is no shame in the pregnancy today, as they claim ("it's even an asset," spin the republicans desperately), why was there any 48 hours prior? you can't have it both ways.
so which is it? did you know before or did you find out later? tell the truth. oh... it's too late.
Posted by: sam | Sep 3, 2008 12:04:46 AM
GO BARNEY GO!!!!!!!
Familes are NOT off-limits. Republicans attack us 247, and we have families. Better than hers. And so is her whore of a daughter.
Notice how she clutches little "trig"? She's the Babymomma alright.
The bitch is fair game.
Both of them.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Sep 3, 2008 12:13:58 AM
No one forced Palin to accept the offer to be VP. It was her choice and she will live with the consequences. Unfortunately, so will her five children. I think it is unconscionable (sp?) for the parents in this family to have accepted this role given all that they already have on their plate. Their primary responsibility is to their family and they will soon have two infants, one with special needs, plus four others! It's simply nuts to be going for a national office with these other responsibilities.
Family values? I think not.
Posted by: David R. | Sep 3, 2008 12:39:20 AM
David, you'll do yourself harm with this affected coarseness.
Posted by: Distingué Traces | Sep 3, 2008 1:00:32 AM