September 25th, 2008

Now I've Got It!

I was a little confused about McCain and Palin and Obama and Biden but I think I've got it now.

If you grow up in Hawaii raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic" and "different."

But if you grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you're a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack, you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

But if you name your kids Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig, you're a maverick.

If you graduate from Harvard Law School, you're unstable.

But if you attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well-rounded.

Even if you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a constitutional law professor, spend 8 years as a state Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services Committee, spend 4 years in the Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs Committees, you still don't have any real leadership experience.

But if your total resume is local weather girl, 4 years on the city council, 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, and 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you've been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

But if you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, then you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you're eroding the fiber of society.

But if, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teenaged daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's values.

But if your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," has one DUI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is very admirable and the country can totally relate.

OK, now I've got it. Do you?