Reply #84: My real problem with the Sarah Palin/Trig issue...

[LeftishBrit]

is that it implies that the finer details of politicians' private lives are key to their right to office; that the media and political opponents should have a right to hound them about this; and that concealing things from such people (not saying that she did or didn't) is equivalent to perjury. It reminds me not so much of the birthers, as of the impeachment of Bill Clinton over a blow-job.

We already know that Palin's daughter had an unwanted teenage pregnancy, despite the 'abstinence-only' views of her mother. I don't see that the current allegation does more to bring these attitudes into question than what is already on record.

Because Palin is such a vile person in so many ways (I now use the term 'Palinism' for any sort of vicious religious-right agenda anywhere), it is difficult to sympathize with her when people go after *her* private life. But what is done to Palin can and will be done to others. What about the time when it was Clinton? What about Joe or Jane Bloggs, who might have been an excellent politician but will never run for office because they don't want to face having everything about their own or their families' personal lives dissected by opponents or sensational journalists? What about the public, whose lives come to depend more and more on leaders chosen for what they do or don't do about sex, rather than for their competence or policies?