ARE the national media really running around asking whether John McCain’s running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, is a bad mother? No, they respond: They are only fulfilling their duty, in assessing whether Palin’s maternal instincts are sufficient to meet the threshold of maternal excellence long associated with the office of the vice presidency.
Okay, sarcasm off. But it’s hard not to be sarcastic when the press offers such a fat target. Even before Palin had made her first appearance as McCain’s running mate, CNN’s John Roberts asked a female correspondent: “Children with Down syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of vice president, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?” (It was left to correspondent Dana Bash to raise the issue of whether a male running mate would be asked the same question.)
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