This is not a political blog, it's a theatrical blog... so I'll try to keep this entry as much about theatre as I possibly can.
If someone were to write a play about Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin announcing that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, I wonder if it would be a tragedy or a comedy. Sarah Palin is an advocate of 'abstinence-only' education. For those of you unaware, this means teaching students that abstinence is the only way to avoid pregnancy and not teaching them about other forms of birth control. Our play already has dramatic irony, in that Bristol Palin has proven that teens who are taught to abstain from sex will have sex anyway. And, our play may also have a happy ending, as Sarah Palin has announced that Bristol plans to keep the baby and marry the child's father. This upholds strong family morals (despite one small indiscretion), though given the media attention thrust upon her by her mother's political campaigning, it's rather tragic that Bristol and her boyfriend seem to have no real choice in the matter. But this brings about more irony, as 'choice' was never something that Republicans have been fond of.
I cannot tell the outcome of this play at this date. I suppose we shall have to wait until November to see. But, luckily for those of you who can't wait, there is a musical on Broadway that might satiate your need for closure on this matter. Spring Awakening is a show that deals with a teenage girl who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after the adults in her life refuse to give her the necessary information about the facts of life... but I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it.
Edit: Okay, now it has to get blatantly political. In re-reading this entry, I realize that it can come across as mean-spirited, which was not my intent. I feel for Bristol Palin, especially given the sudden media attention she's getting during what is, no doubt, a trying time for her. This entry was in no way intended to be an attack on her or her privacy. And I most certainly do not wish on her the fate of the character of Wendla from Spring Awakening. In light of recent developments, I wish to state that I agree with Senator Barack Obama that families of the candidates should be off-limits politically. However, I regard this event and how the GOP has spun it as a result of Sarah Palin's politics, and those are under scrutiny at the moment.
Second edit: Now, several months, several SNL sketches and one election after the Palin debacle, we have a new president in office and his VP is not Sarah Palin. This was written very early in the campaign, just after Senator John McCain chose Palin as his running mate, when it seemed that everyone was looking for some way to nail this inexperienced pageant princess. She very quickly proved to us that we did not need to turn to teen pregnancies to find faults in her campaign. She did that all on her own. If this post weren't so darn clever (if I do say so myself) I'd just delete it.
