Another Palin Pregnancy and James Dobson's Prayers

Sarah Palin announced today that her seventeen year old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant, will be keeping the baby, and marrying Levi, the baby's father. I'm not sure how the Christian right will respond to this, but it seems as if it's okay. The sin of fornication - is trumped by (i) not using birth control; and (ii) the decision to keep the baby. That's 2 to 1 in favor of God. It's unfortunate that the personal life of a teenage girl who desperately needs her privacy right now will be in the media spotlight and a political target, but this is not about judgment of the child, but the inconsistency of the parent, similar to Dick Cheney's support and participation in a blatantly anti-gay rights government despite his daughter's open lesbian relationship. Whether it's made a political issue or not, it will still play significantly in the minds of voters.

Either way, the Obama camp has refrained from attacking either mother or daughter on anything so far, and are focusing on McCain. In the spirit of staying above the fray, Obama has put out the following statement:

"I have said before and I will repeat again: 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 a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. 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 teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."

Second, evangelist James Dobson, chairman of the board of Focus on the Family (who recently let go about his reservations about John McCain and decided to embrace his candidacy after his choice of Sarah Pralin last week), backed Focus on the Family's Stuart Shepard as Shepard asked millions of evangelical Christians to pray for rain "of Biblical proportions" during Barack Obama's historic open air speech at Invesco Field in Denver last week. "I'm talking 'umbrella-ain't-going-to-help-you' rain," the pastor cried, standing in front of Invesco Field himself in a YouTube video.

As Hurricane Gustav continues to devastate the Gulf today, it seems as if God heard Shepard and James Dobson's prayers a few days too late. God seems instead to have gone after the Republican convention instead. Today, on the first day of the Republican National Convention, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal have canceled their appearances and the McCain camp has been forced to make drastic adjustments to the tone and agenda of the convention.

I haven't been able to figure out yet whether this will be good for McCain or not. But it doesn't seem as if God has chosen McCain like he chose George W. Bush.

Why Jim Webb Should Not Be Barack Obama's Vice Presidential Pick

Here it is, the link to the notorious article penned by Virginia Senator (and favored VP candidate) Jim Webb in The Washingtonian in November 1979:

Jim Webb: Women Can't Fight

"Lest I be understood too quickly, I should say that I believe most of what has happened over the past decade in the name of sexual equality has been good. It is good to see women doctors and lawyers and executives. I can visualize a woman President. If I were British, I would have supported Margaret Thatcher. But no benefit to anyone can come from women serving in combat...

...There is a place for women in our military, but not in combat. And their presence at institutions dedicated to the preparation of men for combat command is poisoning that preparation. By attempting to sexually sterilize the Naval Academy environment in the name of equality, this country has sterilized the whole process of combat leadership training, and our military forces are doomed to suffer the consequences."

Okay, here's the case for Webb: he is a decorated war hero. He has won the Navy Cross, a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. He worked as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. He was a Republican until 2006. He is now a Democrat.

The advantage he brings to the Democratic ticket has three parts: (i) he virtually neutralizes John McCain's war hero status; (ii) as a former Republican who worked under Reagan, he can potentially have a lot of crossover and centrist appeal; and (iii) he puts Virginia - a key swing state this year - into play for the Democrats.

And to give him the benefit of the doubt, the article is from 1979. It's clear that his political and personal perspective have changed and evolved dramatically since then, evidenced by his going to the extent of switching parties. Also, the article was written more in the spirit of chivalry than sexism; although they can be virtually synonymous, the line between the two was much more definitive three decades ago, and has blurred significantly since then.

Yes, it was 29 years ago. Yes, he may have changed his mind. Yes, he did offer that half-assed disclaimer up there in the first paragraph of the excerpt. And yes, in almost every other way, he is a near-perfect VP choice.

But this is not the year for him. This has been a historic year for women. Hillary Clinton, in her graciousness when she conceded, became a hero in her own right even as she lost the nomination. Read the transcript of her landmark speech here.

Hillary Clinton got almost as many votes (or more, if you count Michigan where Obama's name wasn't on the ballot) as Barack Obama. She has millions of supporters, many of them women who had years of struggle and a strong personal, political, and emotional investment in her candidacy.

Inviting Jim Webb onto the Democratic ticket this year will potentially alienate this essential component of the party's base. It will not help to heal the schism left from a bitterly fought primary season. Already, many (sometimes too) vocal Clinton supporters have been (rightly) screaming sexism and (wrongly) pointing fingers at Obama - and he risks legitimizing their argument by picking Webb as his running mate.

It's not the smart thing to do politically. But more importantly, it is not the right thing to do, period. It is not conscientious, unless Webb really goes out of his way to reach out to women across the country and rescind his outrageous proposition about women in combat.

For now, though, that article is not going away.