I just watched the segment with Markos on with Lawrence O'Donnell and while I agree with the majority of the analysis of Sarah Palin's work ethic, I strongly disagree with the sentiment stated about her work ethic when it comes to her kids.
Unfortunately I do not have Tivo to rewind and transcribe exactly what was just said on the segment on Countdown just now that covered the Value Voters summit and the future prospects of Sarah Palin(who did not appear there). However, in a nutshell Markos concluded with the opinion that as a whole, Sarah Palin is a lazy politician. Too lazy to complete her term as governor and too lazy to study to be a competent vice presidential candidate (afterall, we all saw the VP debate winkfest).
However, for some strange reason Markos took it a step further and suggested that Sarah Palin was obviously also a lazy parent based on the situation with her kids. Now I took this to mean Bristol's pregnancy, and hopefully I am incorrect. But if that was in fact what he was alluding to, I must say, having a pregnant teenager is not and should not be an indictment of laziness or neglect on behalf of the parent.
Teenagers do not think with logic first. They do not always think with the values that you have raised them with first. They think with their hormones or based on what friends are doing most of the time. It is a time of experimentation, mistakes, growing and learning. The most responsive, hard-working and dedicated parent can find that they have a teenager who is pregnant or who has fathered a child. I honestly don't know what type of parent Sarah Palin is, but I think making such statements does more harm than good to our cause and just feeds into the whole evil "left wing blog" thing. And really, it makes us no better than the other side.
I think this is important to keep in mind as we look to bring more people around to progressive causes. I found my way to this site over a year and a half ago as a result of Countdown. At the time, I would have NEVER described myself as progressive. But over the course of 18 months, I have read diaries and other viewpoints that have moved me to create a profile, post diaries, comment on and believe in more and more progressive viewpoints. I have given to ActBlue since coming here, written congress, made calls, participated and encouraged others to do the same with boycotts of I don't how many companies and countless other small steps that have had a big impact on my world view.
But as a mother, I can tell you that if I had watched tonight's segment a year and a half ago and heard the founder of this site insulting someone's parenting skills because their kid got pregnant, I would have never bothered checking out the site.
And wouldn't that have also made Pres. Obama's grandparents lazy too? Just sayin'.