This is a rather pathetic rant about an even more pathetic situation. If you choose to continue you've been warned.

The Republican candidate for Vice President is not talking about how her kid was accepted to Harvard, or her future son-in-law had decided to enter the University of Alaska on a scholarship to stay close to home. She's torturing logic and the English language in a sad attempt to excuse some serious failings on the part of her children's parents.

Sara denies the kids have dropped out of high school. They have just stopped attending. They are taking "correspondence" courses. High school "correspondence" courses. Now, graduating from high school is not all that hard for kids from families who value education. NOT graduating from high school is hard. Dropping out and taking "correspondence" courses sounds like dropping out. Not attending, not getting the body to the school is dropping out. It's not even bottle-rocket science, Governor. Just get the body to the school a bit over half of the time. It helps if it's a bit more than half. The parents set the priorities.

(I'm a living example of how an almost total screw-off can graduate from high school. Lucky to have gotten a 2.60 GPA. And was still a National Merit Scholar. It doesn't take much. AS I was notorious for not doing much, the principal of my school called me into his office and said if I didn't write a Senior Theme I would not graduate. The brown sheep of my family, I would have been a much darker brown had I not gotten a scholarship.)

The issue here isn't what those children are doing, or how they are doing it with, or even with whom they are doing it. Or even what they aren't doing. Those are very clear. The issue is the pathetic excuse the Governor is making for her underachieving kid and her boyfriend. Who no longer attend High School, but haven't dropped out. Presumably because they can't get to school. Kids who are taking on the responsibilities of parenthood without the ability to graduate from high school with their classes. Governor, these children aren't helped by your contrived rationalizations.

Family values my fanny. I'm reminded of Bill Bennett and gambling, Ted Haggard and homosexuality, Rush Limbaugh and drug addiction, Larry Craig and hypocrisy, and a number of other Republican role models, people who can't avoid condemning others for the failings they themselves exhibit. It has to be hell to be them.

(I know there are GEDs, and courses for a GED. Those are honorable graduation certificates, a way a person who has dropped out of High School can demonstrate an equivalency.)

As the Governor has demonstrated, you don't need to know much to succeed in Alaska. In a couple of years, after she's wrung for herself what she can out of a new pipeline, just as they did for Ollie North the Rs will run her for the Senate.

What a country!

Arf