Palin: The Real American Taliban

This kind of fanaticism, in which the welfare of young children is run roughshod over for the sake of biblical correctness, has been evident and roundly condemned by Americans as practiced in Taliban-run Afghanistan, or Wahabi-run Saudi Arabia, where women don’t get any choices about their futures. We don’t need it coming from the White House.

I say, three cheers for Bristol for standing up to her tyrannical mom and saying no instead of “I do” on command.

Given the domestic drama, it was shameful that the Palins dragged their daughter and Johnston down to the Twin Cities to be paraded in front of the nation for the sake of their self-described pit bull mom’s political career. You knew what the real story was by the embarrassed deer-in-the-headlight looks on the two unsmiling teens’ faces as they were on display. You knew it too by the way Palin, who devoted a considerable portion her acceptance speech to talking up her family life, said not a word about her daughter’s impending marriage—the date for which has been left unstated.

My guess is that the supposed wedding will be conveniently pushed back past Election Day, after which, if those two kids are lucky, or plucky enough, it will be quietly forgotten.

With any luck, Palin’s vice presidential hopes will be history by then too, and with them, the era of “Just Say No” sex education in our nation’s schools.

Teens have enough trouble making their way in this world without having loopy, self-involved, religious fanatic parents mucking their lives up further. And the last thing they, or the rest of us, need is a national “Mom” pushing her Taliban-like moral agenda on the whole nation through laws and like-minded judges.

http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2008/090808Lindorff.shtml