Every so often an email chain letter comes my way that is actually interesting. This isn't about saving the Sesame Street characters from NEA funding cuts or wondering whether something I'm sent is an honest virus I should worry about or if Snopes debunks it. But this email I just received was too good to not share.
In the last few weeks we've learned a lot about Sarah Palin and her family, her history and her track record. We've questioned whether she has enough experience and if she's qualified to lead the country if something should happen to John McCain -- if, god forbid, he's elected. The GOP camp has put out numerous ads and tried sending senseless rhetoric to its base in order to make Obama out to be a bad guy. Well, this email really sums things up:
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well-grounded.
If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first Black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
If your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude,' with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.