LITTLE ROCK — ST. PAUL, Minn. So Sarah Palin, in addition to being the mother of five, is also the soon-to-be grandmother of one. Welcome to 21st Century America.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, unmarried women gave birth to 1,527,034 children in 2005, the last year for which figures are available. More than one-third of all births in the United States are to unmarried women.
If those figures don't seem shocking, the following should. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that American women had 839,226 legal abortions in 2004. For every 1,000 live births, there were 238 abortions.
Anyone who thinks they can assail Palin because her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and single had better think twice. These are issues that millions of American girls, women and their families deal with every year.
Partisan ridicule of Palin or her daughter is repugnant. Insofar as it's a political issue, it's a loser. Plenty of American parents will recoil at the notion that the errors of their children somehow make them failed parents.
No, Sarah Palin won't be that easy to take down.
It's also worth noting that Senator Joe Biden has vulnerabilities of his own.
There's a video, easily found on YouTube, of Biden being questioned about his academic record during his 1988 campaign for the White House. He began his arrogant response with, "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do." It went downhill from there.
To prove his point to the questioner, Biden misrepresented that he had received a full academic scholarship, misrepresented that he graduated in the top half of his class, misrepresented his receipt of an outstanding student award and misrepresented how many college degrees he received.
Months later, Biden acknowledged his misrepresentations, telling the New York Times, "I exaggerate when I'm angry."
The same intemperate attitude was on display in 1998, when Biden questioned UN arms inspector Scott Ritter. Ritter, who later became a darling of the antianti-Saddam Hussein movement, was then warning that Baathist Iraq was hiding proscribed weapons and that the UN Special Commission needed U.S. support for so-called "challenged inspections."
"The decision of whether or not the country should go to war is slightly above your pay grade," Biden told Ritter. "That's why they"-meaning the president and his advisers-"get paid big bucks. That's why they get their limos and you don't."
Democrats are savoring the October 2 vice presidential debate where Biden presumably will shred Palin. Instead, they ought to be fretting that angry Joe Biden will be angry Joe Biden.
Palin has earned her political spurs going against her own party, rooting out corruption and challenging her state's powerful U.S. senator and representative. A few improvident personal attacks aren't likely to rattle her. To his credit, Barack Obama has reiterated his call to give the candidates' families refuge from the partisan fray. Democrats reacted with glee last week when McCain named Palin as his running mate. But as the thorny issue of her daughter's pregnancy demonstrates, Palin adds a whole new dimension of complexity to the campaign.
McCain's choice may turn out to be less crazy than cunning.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 09/04/2008