Two people especially were in the news last week. One is a middle-class mother of five, including a soldier in Iraq and a special-needs baby. She’s been married to the same man for over 20 years, and has had a pretty remarkable public career while simultaneously helping raise her family. She was in the news because she announced she would resign from her job after a year of the most hateful, subhuman attacks on her family you could imagine.
The other was a singer. He made the best-selling album in history over 25 years ago. Since then he had engaged in a long, slow, public free-fall. He had 2 brief marriages. He was quite possibly a child molester, and certainly known for all sorts of bizarre and personally destructive behavior. He was in the news because he died of a heart attack, apparently brought on by an overdose of a powerful drug his doctor illegally obtained for him.
The difference in the media’s and the public’s treatment of these two people is a great illustration of how royally screwed up our country is.
Wiser Time 
Note: the purpose of this post is NOT to argue that Palin is flawless or that Michael wasn’t awesome.
This is a good perspective on our treatment of famous people. I’m a little disappointed that Palin would quit, especially seeing that she could have been the VP right now and would most likely be under even more pressure if that had been the case. However, I understand the pain her family must be going through with continual “jokes” about her children among countless other things. I don’t think this will help her political career, but maybe it will strengthen her family (something far more important in the long run, to me anyway).
Couldn’t agree more…
Just yesterday on the Today Show…(why do I even still watch that show)…the Jackson family was described as a “wonderful family” (wonderful, really? a father’s physical abuse of his children is wonderful?) and Palin was someone that “babbled”.
HAHAHA!!! This is a GREAT post! Maybe I shouldn’t be laughing…but I am. I couldn’t agree more.
And, while I’m at it, I’d like to say that I love that you freely post very political statements on your blog. I may not ever do it myself b/c the backlash from supporters on using the work “crap” is enough (yes, it’s true), but I very much appreciate other WHM missys raising support who openly share their views (and descriptive words and expletives). Of course, I never blog anymore so I’m in no danger of upsetting anyone that way at this point. :)