Barack Obama answers a question about the Bristol Palin pregnancy story:
Jake Tapper: Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying that their 17 year old daughter Bristol who is unmarried is 5 months pregnant. Do you have a comment?
BO: I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics, it has no relevance to governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits.
And that, I would hope, would be the end of that.
September 1st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Yes, yes. Thank you.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:06 pm
If you want to have a private life, then stay a private person.
If you want your family safe from politics, then stay out of politics yourself.
Either be a humble hockey mom, and soon a humble hockey gandma, or run for vice president. But don’t get indignant about the inability to be both at the same time.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
KipEsquire,
On this one I’ve got to respectfully disagree.
Even someone who becomes involved in politics is, or at least should be, entitled to a personal life of some kind.
Call me naive if you wish, but I don’t think that the fact that your Mom runs for Vice-President is a reason to drag a 17 year old girl into the mud that is the modern American media.
September 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 am
There will always exist a disparity between the expectations a politician has regarding the publicity surrounding their personal life, and the reality of that publicity.
KipEsquire, I agree with you in that no public figure should naively entertain thoughts of affording the same privacy as the average citizen. When a public figure becomes so voluntarily (as do politicians), they assume a certain amount of responsibility for the invasion of privacy that comes with the job.
However, I agree with Doug Mataconis’ feelings that such invasion of privacy is nonetheless wrongly intrusive (and irrelevant), regardless of the “part of the package” mentality that might try to support such acts. As such, responsibility for politicians’ privacy is split between them, the press and the public, whether or not each party acknowledges this responsibility.
Of course, it is easy to find trivial entertainment in creating opinions regarding a politician’s personal affairs - but where is the relevance? And if you agree with me that the connection between a politician’s personal life and their governmental capacity can certainly be vague, wouldn’t you also agree that the opinions you create about them speak more to your character as a voter than they do about the leadership of the politician you criticize?
That said, we should focus less on how much negative press a politician deserves, and instead give some attention to what kind of press we should be generating and digesting. Thanks, Mr. Obama, for the reminder!