The XX Factor: What women really think.

Eternal Motherhood

Can we just stop for a moment and consider how amazing it is, in more than one sense of the word, that we have a vice-presidential nominee who has a son going to Iraq  AND a baby? The time span itself leaves me flabbergasted. That is motherhood extended, motherhood practically eternal. It makes me want to know a lot more about Palin, but it also makes her seems awfully different than almost any woman I can think of.

You're right, Melinda, that Palin's demonstration of putting her anti-abortion views into practice will add a twist to the debate. Though I'm not sure I want the personal story of the vice-presidential nominee to overshadow the larger question about policy choices for the rest of us. Actually I am sure--it would be a mistake, and so the Democrats will probably try to tread as lightly as they can here. The more important question has got to be the one Dahlia raises, about whether this will come to seem like the catapulting forward of a woman who can handle the leap up the ladder and then some, or like the shaky choice of a campaign desperate to seem younger and hipper and daring. Since she's been in the national spotlight so little until now, Palin's performance over the next week or two matters a lot more than most VP choices would. She's got to seem like more than the sum or her quirky, unorthodox, bedrock conservative parts.