Ralston and Woodham on Palin

Bill Ralston is not a fan of Sarah Palin. However he may be judging her off incorrect media reports:

She’s an aggressively pro-war, gun-loving fundamentalist Christian, a creationist who is strongly anti-abortion and so vigorously opposed to contraception that she preaches abstinence to teenagers like her pregnant 17-year-old daughter.

I’ve never seen her use the term fundamentalist to describe herself. She has stated she is not opposed to contraception. From Anchorage Daily News:

Palin said last month that no woman should have to choose between her career, education and her child. She is pro-contraception and said she’s a member of a pro-woman but anti-abortion group called Feminists for Life.

Also her comments on creationism are often quoted out of context. From WIkipedia:

While running for Governor of Alaska and asked about the teaching of creationism along with evolution in public school science classes, Palin answered: “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both”; she further clarified that open debate between the two ideas should not be prohibited if it came up in discussion, but that creationism did not specifically need to be part of the curriculum.

So she specifically said she was not pushing for creationism to be part of the curriculum, just that you should allow discussion on the issue if students bring it up.

This woman is Dick Cheney in drag, although rumours of extra-marital sexual adventures in the hitherto surprisingly accurate tabloid National Inquirer might make her a cross-dressing Bill Clinton.

Rumours that appear to be false yet made mainstream media within hours. While the true rumours about John Edwards were not covered by mainstreammedia for months and months. Someone quipped that the best way Palin could have kept her daughter’s pregnancy out of the media, was to have John Edwards as the father!

Kerre Wodham is more favourably inclined:

Whatever you feel about Republican vee-pee nominee Sarah Palin and her politics, surely you can’t help but feel some sympathy for her as the bloggers and rumourmongers pick through her life and the life of anyone who’s been remotely associated with her, looking for dirt.

She’s had some experience of the muckraking associated with the job, having taken on the Alaskan old boy network when heading the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. …

But if she’s a pin-up girl for conservative Americans then surely her husband, the First Dude, is the prototype for the 21st-century man.

Not only is he an alpha male who hunts, shoots, fishes and is the four time champion of the Iron Dog, the world’s longest snowmobile race, but he’s a stay-at-home dad and man enough to be happy about his wife’s lofty political ambitions.

Every girl needs a First Dude. Todd Palin could prove a trump card for the Republicans. Only in the US could an illegitimate child of mixed race parentage be considered elitist and a moose-hunting, snowmobile-racing oil worker in Alaska the ultimate sensitive new age guy.

Almost everyone I know is saying the US election is far more interesting than the NZ one!