And Of Course, Palin


Stop the presses!  Sarah Palin is a hypocrite.  But you knew that.   What you may not have noticed was the subtle and clever way she recently expressed it.

In her recent Lean Forward ad for MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry stated

We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we've always had kind of a private notion of children ... We haven't had a very collective notion of 'these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that 'kids belong to their parents,' or 'kids belong to their families,' and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

Conservatives, as you would expect, went berserk.  And, as you would expect, most didn't attack Harris-Perry for suggesting that children- as if chattel or slaves- "belong" to anyone.  Then, at least, they would have enjoyed the unusual experience of being right about something.  Instead,   a Newsbusters blogger blared "the notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao."   Rush Limbaugh labeled Harris-Perry's ideas "as old as communist genocide."  An easily scared Director of Media Analysis of the Media Research Center called it "frightening" and "spooky." (Harris-Perry's response to the response, here.)

But the best came from Sarah Palin.   She tweeted "Dear MSNBC, If our kids belong to you, do your kids belong to us too? If so, can we take them hunting after church in our big pickup truck?

Call Palin anything- but don't call her dumb.  In the second of her two sentences, she hit on three- or perhaps even four- of the primary conservative erogenous zones.     Environment be damned, we have a big pickup truck, not one of those little things which liberals want us to drive because they don't use much gas.  We go to church, too, unlike those heathens and Jews who are such sinners they'd fry if they even bothered to pray.  And the Palins remind us they go hunting- PETA can go you know where- so you just have to know they love their right  to bear arms (Father, Son, and the Second Amendment).

But, wait!  Sarah Palin does believe it takes a village to raise a child- when personally convenient, of course.  In September, 2008 The Wall Street Journal reported

The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.

"It's too bad that the city of Wasilla didn't do their homework and secure the land before they began construction," said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. "She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly."

Back when she was mayor, Palin was convinced the youngsters belonged to the community of Wasilla to the tune of a $14.7 million bond issue she gained approval of to build a sports complex.

It's much easier to believe kids belong to the community rather than the family when your son is what the Journal described as "a star hockey player." When you can build an indoor rink, including a track, basketball courts, and soccer field, the community should take care of its own; when it's education, not so much.

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