Valley Girls

Sarah Palin gives a whole new meaning to the term Valley Girl. Apparently, Palin's hometown, Wasilla, is known in Alaska as "The Valley." Also, as Alaska blogger Mudflats explains, there is a local regional slur, which refers to "the under-educated redneck, rural population of the Mat-Su Valley where Sarah Palin is from, “Valley Trash”. See Palin is McCain’s Bridge to Nowhere. Thanks, But No Thanks..

Before now, Valley Girls always referred to rich middle-class young girls from the San Fernando Valley. According to Wikipedia, a Valley Girl can be described as materialistic, self-conscious, self-centered and sexually promiscuous. And I will refrain from making any comparisons to the Valley Girls of San Fernando and Wasilla.

However, I must confess that I did read (and did indulge in a few snickers) about the various and sundry "problems" that have been disclosed about McCain's soul mate, Sarah Palin. See, e.g., AmericaBlog. And yes, I did read a number of the stories about the rumors about the birth of Palin's 5th child. According to a blogger at Daily Kos, Palin didn't disclose her pregnancy until her 7th month (even to her staff), and then delivered the baby a month prematurely. It's the facts surrounding that birth that feed the rumors. That is, after her water broke, she still managed to deliver a speech in Texas, take an 11 hour flight back to Alaska, bypass 2 hospitals in Anchorage and drive 45 minutes to a hospital in Wasilla. And, a mere 3 days after giving birth, she's back to work! These strange circumstances, coupled with the fact that her daughter was out of school for somewhere around 5 months because of a case of "mono," and a few pictures showing signs of pregancy (or not) contributed to the rumors. See Sarah Palin hit by internet rumours over fifth child. The puzzling situation does make one wonder, so the questions are natural.

Honestly, I didn't even want to mention such outrageous stories, except for the fact that it doesn't say much about Palin's family values for her to act in such a manner, even assuming she was in fact the pregnant parent. She doesn't go directly to a hospital once her water breaks? She returns to work 3 days after her child is born? Not exactly mother of the year material.

Now, as a way of quelling those rumors, Sarah Palin releases the news that her daughter is pregnant and plans to marry the father of her child. Sarah Palin's teen-age daughter pregnant.

OMG! WTF??

The country is falling apart -- let me count the ways -- and the McCain campaign gives us this? I suppose it's one way (albeit extreme) to avoid dealing with the difficult issues that face us, with no answers, and instead sidestep them during the Republican National Convention, if the hurricanes coming up the coast don't wash it out.

Besides the morbid humor of it all, truly, this whole episode provides information I really don't want (or need to know) about the Palin family. This has to be a horrible situation for them under any circumstance -- and to have to play it out on the national stage is unimaginable to me. I have an 18 year old daughter, so I only imagine how difficult that would be.

The focus should be on Palin and what kind of VP she would be -- and McCain and what this says about him. What McCain Didn't Know About Sarah Palin.

Regarding Palin, she reminds me of a female Rick Santorum -- sanctimonious and shallow. The Republican dream – especially for women. Similarly, a friend forwarded me an email from a friend who lives in Alaska and is appalled at the pick. As she says:

The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life time member of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow indiscriminate hunting of wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and bears. She has spent millions of Alaska state dollars on aerial hunting of these predators from helicopters and airplanes, dollars that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska's failing school system.We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the country.

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She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet the McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has "green" policies. The only thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She has consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy its environment.

What does this tell us about the upcoming election and the choices we face? As the friend from Alaska put it:

When you line Palin up with Biden, the comparison would be laughable if it weren't so serious. Sarah Palin knows nothing of economics (admittedly a weak area for McCain), or of international affairs, knows nothing of national government, Social Security, unemployment, health care systems - you name it. The idea of her meeting with heads of foreign governments around the world truly frightens me. In an increasingly dangerous world, with the economy in shambles in the US, Sarah Palin is uniquely UNqualified to be vice president. John McCain is not a young man. Should something happen to him such that the vice president had to step in, it would destroy our country and possibly the world to have someone as inexperienced and inappropriate as Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin is a cheap shot by McCain to try to get Hillary supporters to vote for him. when McCain introduced her today, Palin had the nerve to compare herself with Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro. Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton. To those of you who, like me, supported Hillary and were upset that she did not get the nomination, please don't think that Sarah Palin is a worthy substitute. If you supported Hillary, regardless of what you think the media and the Democratic party may have done to undermine her campaign, the person to support now is Obama, not Sarah Palin. To those of you who are independent or undecided, don't let the choice of Palin sway you in favor of McCain. Choosing her shows how unqualified McCain is to be president. To those of you who are conservative, I guess you have no choice for president.

Forget about the baby stuff, whatever it turns out to be. That's a misery only they have to deal with (and as a mother, I wouldn't wish that on anyone). It the other matters that matter.