Speaking of experience, nobody ever seems to note that Obama is a genuine expert in constitutional law. I kinda think that would be good in a President.

The Republican take seems to be that he went directly from community organizer (read: rabble rouser) to running for president. He was president of the frakking Harvard Law Review. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. He was an attorney, which is about all the experience in the real world most of Congress has.

I will say that makes some of the oddities about her pregnancy that sparked the earlier rumors - not telling anyone, wearing disguising clothes until well along - make a little more sense. I can see where you'd want to avoid the general gushing and constant inquiry if you weren't really prepared to talk about it.

I get what you're saying, bon, but let me be clear about what makes my head explode -- I have no problem with anyone, pro-choice or not, having all kinds of worries in her situation. Or, for that matter, having doubts even about a normal pregnancy. But not sure if she'd be able to embrace the child in her heart goes considerably beyond that, into not accepting the child territory; it's what her flavor of anti-choice rhetoric (at least what I've seen of it, which is way more than I care to) tells women they i have to do just by virtue of having conceived. It's also used in that crowd as a close (and deliberate) parallel to the discourse of taking Jesus into your heart, and so its negative goes to a much larger rejection than just the normal doubts. I don't at all doubt that she had her fears, and that accepting the fact that she was having a kid with disabilities was a very hard thing to face. But my dog-whistle detector says that she's implying something deeper than just "it's hard for me to talk about".

oy. I'm a good friend, yeah? Just checking.

Avoiding Palin talk. Letting her hang herself with her own ridiculousness as a candidate is fine.

I'm CRAZY.

Oh yeah, there are a lot of reasons-- valid ones to not want her anywhere near the Presidency. Like I said-- just struck me as odd.

Hiding family matters from the kids is a grand old tradition.

You know, perhaps this is why it bothered me so much. As the youngest in my family, I was always the last to know anything. Even now, at forty-one, my mother feels the need to not tell me anything until she damn well feels like it or it suits her purposes. Like earlier this summer when she told me, the night before I was to travel to Miami for a visit with my kids, that she'd divorced her husband of nearly eighteen years. Six weeks earlier. Because she's gotten back together with my father. So I had the fun task of telling my kids that the only grandfather they'd known on that side of the family was no longer around and I'm the one who had to hold them while they cried as I tried to explain that they probably wouldn't be seeing him during this visit.

So I'll grant you, perhaps I have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to this type of information withholding.

But not sure if she'd be able to embrace the child in her heart goes considerably beyond that, into not accepting the child territory; it's what her flavor of anti-choice rhetoric (at least what I've seen of it, which is way more than I care to) tells women they i have to do just by virtue of having conceived. It's also used in that crowd as a close (and deliberate) parallel to the discourse of taking Jesus into your heart, and so its negative goes to a much larger rejection than just the normal doubts.

I just don't know what this means -- and I'm not being snotty. I don't understand what's pinging you. It sounds contradictory to draw a connection between being anti-choice and never accepting a Downs child.

I do think there is a bit of cynical posturing in her revealing her doubts, because the implication is that "even if you have doubts, they will be resolved once the baby is born." But I believe her when she says that she felt that way, because I'm sure I would feel as unsure myself, even if I wasn't in her family and professional position.

Vibing for you, ita.

Anyone know where a transcript of the speech she gave is?

What I felt like I heard in the 5 min I had it on was that I am not Patriotic because I'm not Republican, that REAL miltary service is a Republican thing - perhaps it wasn't said, just how I was made to feel.

msbelle, try here: [link]