JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

08/30/08 04:16 PM

Senator Palin supported Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. Any Jewish reader with an internet connection can learn about Buchanan’s beliefs concerning Jews.

You’ll find he praises “Hilter’s courage”...refers to congressman who support Israel as members of the “Amen chorus” and, in an infamous editorial piece, he began by listing the last names of soldiers sent to fight the Gulf War (A war he opposed).

Mr. Buchanan gave the the soldiers easily recognizable ethnic names, in the vein of O’Brian, Smith, Jackson, Lopez...obviously omitting a Jewish sounding surname.

The message that Jews were not fighting a war that, according to Buchanan, was a conflict only Israel and the ‘Amen Chorus wanted, was clear.

And now Jews are lining up behind a Buchanan supporter. Look before you leap--No one will be there to catch you.

08/30/08 04:46 PM

I feel for her children. You can’t convince me that anyone that stays as busy as her and her husband can put enough time and energy into being parents to five kids… one with downs. I am a single parent of a five year old with autism, and it is a full time job. When Sarah is traveling all over the world as VP and the possibility of Pres., who is going to take care of the children?

08/30/08 05:23 PM

McCain made a very bad decision by selecting Palin.  That’s like selecting a mail room clerk who recently was promoted to a department head; and then promote that person to become the Vice President of a large corporation that is engaged in very sophisticated and comprehensive products, legal matters, research, investors, and development by highly intelligent PhD’s.  Can you imagine that mail room clerk sitting in a meeting with these folks making important decisions?

Businesses don’t operate this way.

08/30/08 05:25 PM

I am thinking of the speech that Abraham Lincoln gave about not pleasing all the people all of the time…
I am so glad that we have a pro-life canidate and I am very impressed with her resume.
And what’s up with all this judgmental stuff?
Let’s give it a rest and stop speculating!
Elaine B.

08/30/08 05:36 PM

I have just jumped on the McCain/Palin bandwaggon. One commentater on MSNBC mentioned that what kind of VP Palin would make when she had strongs views on abortion and even chosen to have a child with Down’s Syndrome. I’m deeply hurt, saddened and bewildered. Has the democratic party (of which I used to belong till a moment ago) become so petty, mean and eliticist that you can not understand the love of a woman for her child, including selecting having a children with Down’s Syndrome??? Are children with Down’s Syndrome worthless? Should they be killed??? If this is the hope that Obama promises I want nothing to do with it. I have a child with disabilities and I chose to have him. He has been my blessing, my hope and I completely love him. My life would have been less without him. Take that Obama to your hopeless campaign.

08/30/08 07:47 PM

I’m sorry, but Sarah Palin is NOT pro-life.  Anyone who is in favor of the death penalty is not pro life.  Oh, wait I forgot.  ‘Pro-life’ to people like Sarah Palin doesn’t extend to humans who are already born and are in need of food, shelter, medical care and basic rights.  I respect her *personal* decision to give birth to a baby she knew was going to be born with Down’s syndrome but let’s face it - it’s socially irresponsible to have more than two children...but to have five?

Pro-life?  Not really.

Mrs. Palin, have fun with your skewed construct of ‘family values.’

08/30/08 07:51 PM

Just because a woman carries a baby with Downs Syndrome to life does not make her a saint.  It doesn’t even make her a parent.  It makes her a mother.  Period.

Parents need to be there for their children, especially in their formative years.  How do you expect a woman to focus on her obligation to the country when she should be focusing on the development of her children, especially when one of them is an infant?

Tout Pro-Life all you want.  It’s what happens AFTER the baby is born that makes a world of difference.  Delivering a baby brings it into the WORLD; nurturing that baby and raising the child is delivering it to SOCIETY, and that’s the side of the argument that seems to be cast aside when talking ‘Pro-Life’. To be negligent to that baby’s needs, to not show it the love, patience, and nurturing as a parent is just a reprehensible as terminating it in the womb, in my opinion.  There is absolutely no meaning to ‘sanctity of life in the womb’ if the obligations to that child end at childbirth.

If Sarah Palin had any sense, she would have declined McCain’s offer.  She is busy enough as it is, focusing on her duties in Alaska to both her family and her constituency, but accepting his offer with a special needs child at home makes me think she has no real ‘family values’-- or she is willing to put them aside for the sake of her personal career goals.

08/30/08 09:45 PM

If you were the baby they were fighting for, you would be placing the abortion issue much higher on that list.

08/30/08 10:52 PM

so an “ambitious” man should not have that many children either? 

her husband sure doesn’t look like a pushover, and they have been together for a long time. he’s certainly ok with it, he can handle it, why can’t you?

Or is it really that it just doesn’t seem “"fair"” to some people?

08/31/08 12:59 AM

Pat - she supported Buchanan in 1996 and 2000 and he is an anti-Semite and has publicly made anti-Semitic statements for years.  It is a safe bet that she is also an anti-Semite seeing as how she supported Buchanan.

As for her “experience” she left her town $20 million in debt when she left it.  She’s no reformer.  She’s more of the same - spend what you don’t have on things that you want and who cares about the future - your kids and grandkids can spend their lives paying off your debts while never getting ahead.

That is what this election is about - do we keep spending money we don’t have and then cut taxes so that the debt goes up instead of down. Do we make real changes to get off of our oil dependency? And are we a country that can find the places where we agree and work on making those places better rather than focusing on the places where we don’t.

Palin’s answers to these questions are the same as Bush’s answers - and those answers are what have lead this country off of a cliff.  She’s no reformer and has no experience and has no business being a heartbeat away from the Presidency behind a 72-year-old man who has had serious health issues.