Month: September 2008

“Moose are, truth be told, Élites. They are big and fast and sort of rule the forest. Sarah took that one down a notch. Who’s Élite now, Bullwinkle?” – George Saunders, New Yorker.

Ross appears disheartened. McCain’s campaign is not about reform, I’m afraid, because he has no proposals for reform of anything. And it’s not about national security, as the Palin pick proves. It’s about power and the lies you need to tell to gain it. That’s why this GOP needs to be burned down before it can be rebuilt.

When you thought the campaign could not get any weirder:

Who could possibly quibble with this:

HOST: "Do you think [Sarah Palin] has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett Packard?"

FIORINA: "No, I don’t. But that’s not what she’s running for."

She’s just running to be the potential next president of the United States. Gulp.

They’ve been bad today. My apologies. We’re on the road and I used the wrong saline and my eyes have been blurry. I’ll try to do better.

According to Mudflats, the anti-Palin crowds that greeted this joke of a nominee in her return home to Alaska out-numbered those who attended the pro-Palin rally. Mudflats is a liberal Democrat, of course. But the Youtube of the protesters is impressive.

A reader writes:

I am a maternal fetal medicine specialist (high risk obstetrics) working in the midwest. Talking to women about why they make their decision to have amniocentesis and continue the pregnancy there are some common reasons put forward:-

1.) Many months of anxiety and concern are avoided by a certain diagnosis now rather than certain diagnosis at delivery. Many women say they could not enjoy any aspect of their remaining pregnancy without knowing the diagnosis.

2.) Family, friends and support mechanisms can be prepared

3.) The woman assumes some control over her situation and knows what she has to deal with

From the medical perspective the pregnancy may be managed differently. For example some Downs babies develop a bowel blockage that is usually not seen until 28 weeks. Many Downs babies have heart defects and abnormalities of growth. Such factors may well lead to delivery in a specialised unit rather than a small town.

On the face of it Sarah Palin’s actions may appear contradictory, in my experience many women who would not dream of terminating a Downs fetus do exactly the same thing. 

I’m grateful for the input. But again: no inherent risk to the life of the mother and an increased risk to the unborn child. And if all of this is designed to prepare for labor in a specialized unit, why did Sarah Palin not seek one? There was one right nearby in Texas where her water broke at 4 am. It’s the Children’s Medical Center:

Children’s is accredited by the Joint Commission, and both U.S.News & World Report and Child magazine have named Children’s as one of the nation’s top pediatric providers.

So if the main reason for amniocentesis is to prepare for a grueling labor, how do you explain the bizarre behavior of Sarah Palin in the 24 hours after her water broke and she felt contractions?

John McCain gets interrupted:

Obama attacks McCain over equal pay for equal work for women. I’ve seen this has been brought up a lot by the Obama peeps:

NRO cries "no fair," while Ezra Klein approves. I’m generally skeptical of government’s efforts to make markets fairer. I don’t like this part of Obama’s liberalism.

Not everyone agrees with John McCain’s campaign manager that this election has nothing to do with the policy choices ahead of us.