The National Enquirer has recently published a story saying that they have numerous sources claiming that Track Palin is addicted to Oxcycontin, has used drugs intravenously and has been involved in other illegal activities, and joined the military to get away from these problems. Bristol Palin supposedly is also a drug user and promsicuous, being involved with numerous other people during her relationship with Levi Johnston.
If this is true, how relevant is it to the election? Normally, I would say it isn’t that relevant at all, but my wife said this morning that Sarah Palin has made her family life a campaign issue by repeatedly making a point of the fact she is raising a family and governing a state. My wife says that if her teenage daughter was pregnant by a guy who has facebook pictures of himself stoned with a bag of weed hanging out of his mouth, she would be asking herself where she failed as a mother and not claiming to be a good one. She said this before we heard about these new stories.
If Sarah Palin does have a messed up family with serious drug and sex problems, does that reflect on her competency as a government official?
IMO it is only an issue if Gov. Palin has in fact pointed to her success as a mother or if there is evidence of her trashing others whose kids use drugs or mess around.
Beyond that, on the whole, she has a pile of teenagers and such behavior is hardly uncommon. My parents were good parents and stand-up people and I did drugs in high school and would get laid any chance I got (which as it happened was not much at all but not for lack of wanting to).
I turned out ok in the end ultimately because my parents were good parents.
I’ve said it before - there are countless members of this board who would happily vote for Al Gore again - and this despite numerous problems his son has had.
What is more, this is a perfectly reasonable view to hold.
Pretend it’s true for a moment. How would it impact Palin’s image if she was found out to be human? If it was discovered that the same problems plaguing a lot of those wacko’s we call ‘parents’? If her kids not only HAD SEX but DID DRUGS!!!
Wow. I think this is definitely the killer issue. You guys should certainly run with this one! No one who isn’t a ‘fundy racist’ could EVER relate to someone having problems like these! Hell, it proves she is not fit to govern, and it’s only a matter keeping up the pressure until the people realize what an out of touch ‘bitch’ she really is…
I would gladly vote for Al Gore again, and I agree completely with Mr. Moto. I would vote for Palin to leave the island and nothing else. But if this were true, I would have some sympathy for her and her troubled children and wish all of them good luck sorting it all out.
They have been fairly credible as of late. They stopped doing those “I was the bride of Bigfoot” type stories way back in the '80s and have been a typical celebrity gossip mag with some good investigative reporters for years. Nobody believed them about Edwards either.
Well, it might make it harder for her kids to deal with things, if Mum is tied up being VP all the time.
I don’t think it reflects so badly on her that she shouldn’t be VP on that account. She shouldn’t be VP on ANY count, so this is neither here nor there.
It may not be relevant politically, but it could hurt her campaign. It seems a lot of people are switching tickets simply because they see her as a good person who is like themselves, and a lot of those people are the type to judge a person’s character based on the behavior of their children. I’m sure a lot of the gossipy middle-class soccer moms will be put off by this if it turns out to be true.
Sorry, but the National Enquirer IS a credible source. I can guarantee you that the National Enquirer didn’t publish anything in that article that will get them in trouble in court. So when they print something like:
, that doesn’t neccesarily mean that Track snorted cocaine. But it sure does mean that they really do have a source that made the above allegation.
I think that, if true, it sucks for them, and Gov. Palin probably made mistakes when they were younger that helped lead to this – but there’s no guarantee I won’t make the same mistakes.
A candidate’s family should not be part of a campaign, because quite frankly there’s only so much you can do to turn your children from the paths they choose. You don’t deserve all the credit for the good things they do or the blame for the bad.
I can see how, if you are a person who would be positively influenced by somebody who says “I’m a politician and a mother of five at the same time!”, you might also be the sort of person who might be disturbed by the fact that she isn’t a perfect mother with scrubbed obedient poster-children.
Since I think that being a president is something that is done at the expense of the family, both in time spent with them and in how you’re forcing them into the public eye, I tend to frown when a politician tries to paint having a family as being a good thing. (It’s not a bad thing thing to have family in and of itself, but I know they’re not putting their family first, so they’re not going to earn bonus points for it.) However I also don’t think her children’s liberal tendencies reflect badly on her, so that much at least doesn’t work against her.
I’m not going to vote for McCain/Palin under any conceivable and likely set of circumstances. Were I going to vote for them, however, this would be a non-issue for me.
I mean, come on; really? It’d make for an interesting punch line on the Daily Show, but it doesn’t change her positions on policy. We’re voting for individuals to fill positions within the executive branch of the government; we’re not voting for Mom of the Year.
That being said, if Sarah Palin said something along the lines of, “I am an excellent mother, and my children are an example of that,” and then the BS in the story turned out to be true, that could be indicitive of a certain lack of awareness or, in the worst case, mendacity, in which case it could become an issue. But, on my list of things that’re voting issues. . .that’s way, way down there. Being a parent and being vice-president utilize entirely different skill sets. It’s not terribly relevant.
Isn’t there something about a reckless disregard for the truth applicable in slander/libel?
Put another way are you suggesting if I call the Enquirer and say I have seen Palin torturing puppies they can print that because someone told them so?
No one is less impressed with this woman than I am, but for the love of all things holy, are there not enought really good, really relevant reasons she shouldn’t be Vice President?
No, they won’t print it just because you said it…unless they can prove in court that you were an associate of the Palins. In which case YOU might be in legal trouble, but they wouldn’t be.
So the “source” is someone who is a proveable former associate of the Palins, who may or may not be a big fat liar, but who is in fact making the allegations as reported.
There are loads of good, relevant reasons. Problem is, there’s a not insignificant segment of people who really enjoy a good unhealthy backbiting. I don’t know what we can do about it except ignore it.