Reading The Pictures: Poster Mom

Nancy Iannone, a Democrat and mother of Gabrielle, 3, who has Down syndrome, said that she was so thrilled to see Trig on stage that she had to remind herself: "I am a liberal. I am a liberal. I am a liberal." Ms. Palin, she said, "has a child with a disability, but that doesn't mean her party is disability friendly." -- from NYT article on Palin and special needs. 7/7/08.

In presupposing what kind of advocate a Vice President Palin would be for the mentally disabled, Newsweek helps visually fortify the GOP's blatant exploitation of family and motherhood.

In making the leap, Newsweek undermines the process of the moment, which is to actually get beneath the ideological spin to flesh out an understanding of Sarah Palin and her record. Under the guise of a "Special Education" feature, all Newsweek accomplishes with this home page promo is to dish up an almost irresistible, heart-warming but 2-D empathy generator transforming Sarah Palin into poster Mom for Down Syndrome.

And from "Sandy on Signal" at 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera (by way of one of my readers):

Palin told families of special needs kids she would be our advocate in the White House. Since Palin became Governor of Alaska 18 months ago, she cut special education funding by 62%!!!! Wow. Who needs this kind of friend?

Another thing, Alaska has no residential care like an Orange Grove Center for the severely autistic. Can you believe this? This means the disabled have to go live in the lower 48 which means they are cut off from their true families. All that oil money in Alaska, and nothing for the "least among us."

Remember, Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a Governor.

For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.

(image: Susan Walsh/AP)

Read more analysis from HuffPost bloggers on John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin

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Comments

[Culturemaven]

Why does it take having a DS baby to make Palin realize the value of helping kids with special needs? I wish Republicans would support policies as if one of their own close family members would be affected by them. The mayor of San Diego changed his mind on gay marriage because, lo and behold, his daughter turned out to be gay!

[DM]

... or not change their minds. Cheney still appears to support anti-gay policies (as long as they don't get in the way him amassing a huge stash of cash) even though his daughter is gay.

[dutchess2]

careful careful...

Did you hear anyting about one dime offered by McCain or Palin for any program to change anything?

No, McCain said he would be beside us while we fight... like we're fighting now, all the red tape and beauracy that does nothing for people and bails out big business every day.

She didn't offer a program.. she said she would be a friend...

Big deal... she can be a friend from Alaska...won't make any difference.

[realtalk]

John McCain is using his POW status, and story to manipulate voters, and Sarah Palin is using her children to manipulate voters. BOTH these people have shown themselves to be manipulative people, WHY WOULD ANYONE VOTE FOR THEM? WHY???

[sanang]

Palin can do what she wants in regard to her kids but don't force me to believe as she does. Palin is against abortion in cases of rape and incest! Can you imagine what it would be like for a woman to carry a baby as a result of these offences for NINE months and everyday thinking about how all this came about? Unbelievable!

[surferbuoy]

When did she say that yhou need to believe as she does? To each their own...we don't need to believe as you do either.

[justobserve]

Someone put on the post "Palin forced women to have her rapist's baby". Yes, this is the truth that those women had to not only carry the baby for 9 months but loving the baby for the rest of their life! How heart-wrenching!

[bernusdellus]

I frequently wonder why the Republicans, both neo- and not-so-neo-con, want to drown the world in unwanted babies. But this morning I had a bit of an epiphany.

Bums on seats [butts if you're American].

All elites need a large number of pliable human tools. Soldiers, consumers, labourers, etc. The more nebbishes on the planet, the greater the feeling of power in the elite.

I don't for a moment believe there is even the slightest sliver of religious motivation. I've known a few fundamentalist conservative millionaires and every one of them simply used the religion 'thing' as a way of getting and controlling followers. Hypocrites to a man/woman.

A certain german leader some 70 years ago instituted a program called 'Mutterliebe', Mother Love. It glorified mothers and motherhood, encouraged large families and rewarded good producers. Its purpose...? More soldiers and munitions workers.

To a member of the elite, a few more million footsoldiers can mean the difference between being the biggest elite on the planet or, unacceptably, merely the second biggest.

So we go about our daily concerns, living in a fantasy world where governments actually have our interests in mind and want to help us all, while in reality, we're being farmed. Just like a sheep farmer enlarges and nurtures his herd, our governments enlarge and nourish us. Just like the sheep however, if we stray too often, look to sickly or just plain cause trouble... Lamb chops.

Baaaaahh!

[jalyn]

An unemployed person who is applying for a job is not going to have the priviledge of attaining it just because his or her child is autistic, has Down's Syndrome, or any disability. They will be hired entirely by their skills and experience.

[Roses]

Excuse me.....Sarah Palin was the most "experienced" one for the job? With the most political "skill"???
Oh......I almost forgot. Political triangulation had NOTHING to do with it.
And George Bush had the most "experience" and the most "skill"???
Oh.....I almost forget. The Supreme Court had NOTHING to do with it.
Give me a break.

Obama/Biden '08

[anelder]

Cannot adjust to having a four month old carted around at adult functions. I recall keeping mine away from crowds of people in general and certainly with regular bed times. Okay, each to his own. But it shows how different all our perceptions are. Me, I see this as a ploy and exposure of family.

[mairs]

DS babies are more susceptible to infections. They are more fragile than normal babies. Nice to see a four month old DS baby carted around in a stadium with thousands of people around him, kept up till all hours, flown from city to city.

[Godiva]

I am really offended that they are carting all the children including the pregnant daughter like little campaign props. I have the utmost respect for the disabled, but republicans do not support social services. They consider them hand outs. Social workers are leaving their careers because they can barely make ends, and many are being laid off due to lack of funding for such programs.

[Beninn]

Trust me, if Mc and Palin win, you won't be seeing this baby, except on the VP's Christmas card and the Easter egg roll.

Palin is wielding this baby like a prop. She had a nanny back in Wasilla with the other kids, but as Governor, with this kid, she has her eldest daughter cart the baby around while her house husband, the First Dude, sits in on her meetings at her office and gets cc'ed government email. What does that tell you?

[amoment]

I don't see ordinary people taking their infants, and especially special need infants, to large gatherings that end at 11 pm.

[springsm]

Well of course, this is to glorify "family values"...and isnt that a joke. Strut your baby around, expose and strut your daughter around, make the daughter's bf dress up and come down to also be strutted around...etc. Palin is a shill and her smile never reaches her eyes. She is ambitious and calculating.

[letsgetrealpeople]

As a mother of an autistic teen, I can see through her like crystal.

[MsLiz]

Now you have me wondering what you mean. What do you see?

[eladora]

Biggest advocates for disability ever ever ever --the Kennedys. She cannot take credit for that.

[romanrose]

As someone who has paid very close attention to the hypocricy of both parties over the years, I have to say that I used to love when the Republicans talked of "family values". Where is all this talk now, I can't help but wonder?

I'm not one who wishes to sidetrack the race off the really important issues at hand such as the economy and public education and the growing numbers of Americans in poverty and without homes, but let's look at the "issues" as they are presented to us by this gun-toting crowd of bigots.

If "family values" were really important to this very charming but wacko woman, wouldn't she have said to McCain's flunkies, "Look, I've got a four-month-old with Down, I'm in my mid-40s, AND my teenage daughter is five-months pregnant. As a dedicated and devoted Mom who strongly believes in the family values espoused by our beloved party, I'm going to have to decline the invitation to join our party's ticket for this race so that I can direct my attention and energies to my family. Isn't that, after all, what we're all about?"

But no. She didn't say that at all. Rather, she's jumped before every podium put in front of her to spew her fanaticism and rage.

Am I nuts or are these people so hypocritical so as to not be believed?????????

[MelDel7365]

How can Sara Palin say - with a straight face - that she will be an advocate for special needs children? Most Republicans, including John McCain voted AGAINST reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Sara Palin is to the extreme right of the Republican party. Though all of her positions are not yet widely known, it is fair to say that the ticket on which she is running OPPOSES a health insurance plan that has provided assistance to low-income families with very ill and special needs children.

Judging from the McCain/Palin opposition to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Palin can no more credibly claim that she will be an "advocate for children with special needs" simply by virtue of having a special needs child than she can claim to be an advocate for women's rights simply by virtue of being a woman.

[pithy]

I had to question Palin's parenting when I saw that baby being paraded around at 11pm at night in a stadium full of roaring adults. What was the decibel level in there? How could an infant make an sense out of that chaos?

And not just one night - two nights. Aren't 5-month old babies supposed to be home in bed at that time of night?

One final thing - I am a feminist, one of the old, original bra burners - but I have to question how this family is hanging together. He's not a stay-at-home dad - he works in the oil fields and has time to be a championship snow machine rider. She's the governor. WHO does take care of these kids?

[nunzia]

Aren't Newsweek and ABC owned by the same corp?

[eladora]

they are owned by mccain as the rest of the press is

[jean1]

let's see if we can get charles gibson to ask sarah about HOW she's going to be a friend of people with special needs children 'if' she gets to washington?

with specifics...

i'm assuming HE would not ask her about precise pts already given re: cuts she's made for special ed and for pregnant girls and their babies who don't have the support her daughter does.

[cheerleaderBush]

The republicans felt that appointing GW Bush as their Presidential candidate eight years ago bought them a free pass on doing anything more for the mentally challenged for the next 10 years - and when they found out that Americans were stupid enought to actually elect him TWICE, that absolved them for another 20 years.

Plus, in light of the fact that 59 million Americans voted for GW Bush in 2004, we'd bankrupt the US Treasury trying to offer any type of financial assistance to those 59 million mentally challenged Americans.

[cobblepot]

For days, i have been holding back my tears. I am a feminist. I am fifty-seven years old. My husband and i have raised and adopted two wonderful multi-ethnic foster children; they have completed our lives. We were not "noble to have adopted them." They were not props in our lives; they were magical, wonderful beings who could use some parents who could help them, whose birth parents loved them, but could not adequately parent them. Ihave been worried about who would "mother"/"father" this beautiful dear babby they chose to carry to term since it looks like the papa may be too busy being the enforcer for his wife's politics to be there, the eldest daughter has trials of her own, and i am indeed sobbing right now trying to post this. It is not fair for this dear babby to be used so cavalierly. I held my emotions in check while babby was handed from person to person at the rnc; and even when palin turned him toward the cameras at the end of her time on stage. But your close-up of the little guy's face has completely undone me. I have learned that prayers should mainly be in thanksgiving and perhaps pleas for personal growth. But please, i beg all of you: those of you who say prayers to a higher power: please, pray and have good thoughts for this dear babby. Forgive my typing, my eyes aren't seeing that well.