Just Back Off

My mother always said, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

The arrogance, ignorance, and intolerance of the Republican party are manifest, revolting, and unworthy of our highest American ideals. As the last eight years have shown, the GOP is patently unfit to govern, tottering into a morally corrupt senescence; and before many more years have passed, it will, millions of us earnestly hope, be replaced by a more honest, ethical, and responsible conservatism than the ugly monstrosity it now is.

Yet having said all that, I have to say I'm getting pretty nauseated by the character assassination going on with Palin and her family. Done by the media and by bloggers and by gleeful, petty-minded posters.

I utterly despise her politics, her self-proclaimed "valley trash" ignorance of basic civics ("I'm waiting for someone to tell me, just what does the vice-president do all day?"), and her smug, smarmy contempt for the rule of law and the cornerstone of a free and democratic society, the human right to a fair trial and due process: "he's worried someone won't read them their rights."

Yeah, Sarah, even a suspected terrorist deserves his day in open court. It's called innocent until proven guilty. Because no government can be trusted to jail all the right people for all the right reasons all the time. Because a government, a regime, that holds itself above the law is an absolute monarchy, a dictatorship. Because a government that treats its enemies highhandedly today will subject its own populace to the same treatment tomorrow. Power tends to corrupt, Lord Acton said, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

There must be no lettres de cachet, no court of Star Chamber in this country; my God--Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, Paine, would all be spinning in their graves at the very thought. Has Sarah ever read the Declaration of Independence? The Founders led a revolution against their king because, among other things,

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. . . .

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government . . . .

But I digress. Sarah doesn't get it, won't get it: Clint Eastwood in drag ("Hang 'Em High").

Nor do the vast majority of Republicans get it either, I'm afraid. The triumph of hysteria over reason.

But now fellow Democrats, it's one thing to put Palin's political views and political ignorance under the microscope, and subject her to the most intense scrutiny; she asked for it by accepting the veep slot, and that's just fine. Like Truman said, you can't stand the heat, get outta the kitchen.

But it's quite another thing to dissect, or rather, vivisect the kids, flay them alive in the public square, roast them alive over hot coals with Inquisitors fanning the flames and salivating at the sight. Makes me want to puke. They're just kids, for God's sake. I'm with Obama:

Let me be as clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits.

This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.

And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off limits.

All this crap about the kids has no relevance to her political abilities. Or lack thereof. It's just the nastiest kind of voyeuristic political porn.

What family in America in 2008--and by definition I include the siblings, the in-laws, the cousins, the young and the old--what family today does not have in its closet a drunk-driving ticket, an unwed teen pregnancy, a wild child with a drug problem?

Let's not be so goddamn self-righteous; liberals play that stupid game just like fundies do. But it's ugly, ugly, ugly. It sucks, big time.

Suppose some hardball reporters sidled up to your friends and acquaintances with a fistful of cash and a tape recorder, hmmm? Just how would you feel, reading the headlines all about you tomorrow morning?

The kids are just as human as you and me, and they didn't ask for this. Let them work out their own lives, and deal with their messes in peace like you did and I did; God knows it's hard enough in private life.

Just back off, everybody. Stick with the real story, Palin's politics; that's more than enough to sink her and her party five fathoms deep, and the sooner the better.