My thoughts on yesterday's political landscape

We interrupt the craziness of the last day of preparation for the Unstoppable Conference for this briefing from it's founder, Deanna Shrodes, on insights from the last 24 hours of what has suddenly become, a most interesting presidential race.

Major kudos to how the Obama/Biden camp is dealing with the situation with Bristol Palin. I was very impressed the first day the news broke when Obama said the kids shouldn't be in the media spotlight. Then yesterday he announced that if he heard that anything about Bristol had come from anyone working in his campaign, the person doing it would be fired immediately. I was impressed that he was that committed to handling it that way. Great decision. Then I turned on Fox News when I woke up to see Biden say the following in a news interview:

“With regard to the stuff that you’re talking about, I have a simple proposition: children are off limits. Children are off limits,” he said to applause.“We’ve all been through things with our children, and it’s about common decency. Just treat people with common decency. That’s all I know that I can say.”

Awesome. I'm glad to see the mature way the Obama campaign has handled this.

Now, on this thing about Todd Palin's DWI that happened 22 years ago...

* sigh *

Who doesn't have something 22 years ago that they aren't proud of? Um, only somebody who's...22. LOL

Who out there doesn't have ANY skeleton in their closet, that is truly past and has nothing to do with their life TODAY? I would venture to say probably none of us. I mean, seriously if this is the criteria, I don't know many of my friends who are pastors who could run for office. I know, I know what you're thinking...they probably don't belong in the pastorate either? Well then none of us do! We should all step down in that case.

I guess if by some miracle my husband ran for VP, we would be all over the news because we broke Bible College rules and drove to Atlantic City, and stayed out all night the night of the spring banquet! (Nothing happened, but still...it didn't look good to roll back on campus at 7 am in the same clothes we left in. All we did was walk on the beach, and eat grapes. And, yeah, some kissing here and there...but nothing major.) Still, we had to go before the (gasp!) student council! Yikes! Yep, my friends, that was 22 years ago, and if anybody found out...well, maybe they wouldn't consider us suitable candidates for a church. It's a miracle we're pastoring, ladies and gentlemen. The fact that we got written up for "lap sitting" like...um, 10 times? (Note, I said lap sitting, not lap dancing. ha ha!) Believe it or not, at that time sitting on another's lap was expressly against school policies. Seriously. Yep, broke that rule too. Thank God nobody dredged up that old bible college record before we candidated for a church.

Seriously there are unfortunately worse lapses in judgment that we've both made in our youth much greater than that, and haven't most people? Blows my mind that they are bringing up this one DWI twenty two years ago when the other night on the Saddleback Civic forum, Obama admitted to doing drugs when he was younger, but nobody has seemed to bring that up or compare it. Let's see...having a few too many beers and getting a DWI...doing cocaine...yep, I'd say that's pretty much at least equal, wouldn't you say?

I'm just amazed. Personally I don't think anybody should bring up Obama or Palin's dirt from when they were punks in college and twenty somethings doing the same idiotic things that a lot of people that age do. I guess my point is, what have they done in these many years since, as adults, in public service? What has their track record been now, long term?

I really hope tomorrow we don't see CNN reporting that Obama stole a cookie out of the cookie jar at grandma's house when he was six years old, and Palin got in a fight and clocked a kid on the playground in kindergarten. This is getting to be a bit too much, folks.

I also think it's amazing that after Tara and I did our posts on the issues of how Palin is being treated on this motherhood issue, and her fitness to run for VP, it's suddenly become the hot topic on radio, TV and everywhere you turn! All the talk is about how liberals, particularly women, are absolutely circling like phiranas to try to eat this woman alive. For some reason, her running for such a powerful position while raising kids is really threatening them. I just can't believe women are doing this to each other. Well, yes I can, but I still can't understand it for the life of me.

I've heard some great newscasters and commentators talking about how crazy it is that women are attacking "their own". I dunno, I think Tara and I started this whole revolution and got people talking about it. LOL!!! Just kidding, but the truth is, when we both saw what was happening, before we even saw it reported on the news, both of us had the same strong reaction because of our sensitivity to women's issues and our beliefs. I'm just fascinated at the response to this especially by extremely liberal women. You know there's something really peculiar going on in America when bra-burning-abortion-advocating-same-sex-marriage-supporting-liberal-chicks are coming against this woman's candidacy but John Piper is FOR it! Hello, bizzarro world! (I read today on a blog that although it is well known that John Piper is against women in leadership, he has come out in support of Palin because biblically he believes the abortion issue trumps the woman issue. Interesting way of looking at it...) I just stand in awe of people's way of looking at the issues, but to each his own. This is the land of the free, home of the brave. And let's hope whoever we elect is committed to keep it that way.

By the way, also in yesterday's news in my circle of friends, Leanne had some great posts yesterday on women's issues. Loved it.