Bristol Palin made the following less than thoughtful observation about President Obama's interview describing the many factors which formed his change of heart about same sex marriage:
Suggesting that Obama might have appointed Dora the Explorer Attorney General had his daughters been a few years younger, Palin dismissed the announcement as the presidential equivalent of a teenage flirtation. “Sometimes dads should lead their family in the right ways of thinking. In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee.”Palin has been a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, which has featured gay contestants and a transgender contestant, both of whom are arguably more deserving of being considered stars in any sense of the word than Bristol Palin. Clearly her experiences on Dancing with the Stars supposedly changed her lifestyle - notably being a chance for her to make a lucrative financial deal by making it to the finals, after which she bought a very expensive home in Arizona; but also at the time she noted that the television experience was life changing for her.
Her mother has had a few 'life changing' experiences on television as well, unfortunately they do not seem to have expanded either her knowledge level or her understanding; Sarah Palin is as ditzy and ill-educated as ever. So perhaps it is understandable that her daughter thinks that other people get their in-depth information and inform their ideas from entertainment rather than reading books - or actually writing them themselves. Because clearly Bristol Palin's ideas are as shallow and trivial and just plain silly as her mother's, and as insensitive to an entire group of people with same -sex orientation.
As to the 'leadership' role of fathers, it would seem that Bristol's father has taken a backseat and subordinate role to her mother for a long time. The man is no rocket scientist; his big claim to fame is he rides around on a snow mobile and he does manual labor in the oil fields and goes fishing for a living. I have to wonder what kind of leadership role in shaping Bristol Palin's life he has had, given that the first dude and her mother got married several months AFTER the conception of her oldest brother. It seems that Dad passed on the premarital sex lesson as his leadership contribution.
On the whole, I think President Obama showing a willingness to learn from a variety of serious sources, and his concern that he set an example to his daughters - which is what he was doing in matching actions and words to his thoughtful change of position on this subject - IS leadership.
Perhaps no one in the Palin household when Bristol was growing up set that kind of example, because clearly no one set an example where opinions are formed on facts and critical thinking; this is how the woman thinks, this is how her mother thinks - in shallow, fact-averse and intellectually dishonest terms. No one knows how her father thinks, or if he thinks; he's relegated to the background, holding Sarah Palin's purse, not speaking roles.
Until Bristol Palin's social positions or political savvy or intellectual accomplishments in ANY area can match those of the President, perhaps she would be wiser to just shut up and stop embarrassing herself, or drawing more attention to her parental intellectual deficiencies. It was no accident that while commenting on Obama's cartoon illustration, Sarah Palin was compared unfavorably AS a cartoon in the McCain campaign on a recent Jon Stewart's the Daily Show. It was funny, because it was true; Sarah Palin is an even dimmer bulb than Michele Bachmann.
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