Palin: Wrong for Alaska, Wrong for America, 5

In my analyses so far I have tried to assess Palin’s judgment or, as I see it, her lack of good judgment. For example, I believe that she raised taxes on petroleum production to such a high level (the marginal rate under ACES has reached 90% before crude oil prices recently declined) that it threatens jobs and future production, and I also believe her polices regarding a gas pipeline will ultimately prove to be counterproductive. But these are complex issues and others will certainly have different views. Also, because of my ties to “Big Oil” I could be perceived as being biased.

To counter this and provide what I think is one of the clearest examples of Palin’s lack of judgment, I ask you to consider the following:


Imagine that you know a woman who is about eight months pregnant and engages in the following behavior:

A month before her due date she boards an airplane to attend a conference in a major city 3,000 miles away. While at the conference her water breaks and she begins having contractions that feel unusual. Shortly afterwards she calls her hometown doctor to report her condition. Despite the fact that the city where the conference is being held has some of the best medical facilities in the world, she elects to attend the conference rather than seek an on site medical evaluation. Also, knowing that she has tickets to fly home later that day, she doesn’t ask if it would be medically acceptable to fly during the call to her doctor.

After attending the conference she boards a plane for a six-hour flight bound for a mid-size city which is en-route to her home, but he elects not to alert the airline of her pregnancy nor the fact that her water had broken.

Her plane arrives in the mid-side city nearly a full day after her water broke. The city where she lands has three major hospitals that can be reached in about 15 minutes. But, instead of going to any of these, she and her husband drive nearly an hour in the darkness of a northern winter night, along a road with unlighted stretches that regularly ice over and the woman and her husband drive directly to a hospital in her small hometown, where she gives birth several hours later.


Regardless of the outcome, rational people understand that from the moment this woman boarded the flight to attend the conference she put her unborn child at risk. Moreover, her reckless judgment continued to put her unborn child at unnecessary risk with every subsequent decision she made.

These mirror the facts during the 30 hours before Sarah Palin delivered her youngest son. This story was reported in the Anchorage Daily News on April 22, 2008 and you can read the original report at http://www.adn.com/626/story/382864.html.

Like many other events in Palin’s life, this was spun into a virtuous story. Alaskans, many of whom despise Texas, praised Palin for making sure her son wasn’t born in that state. And Alaskans applauded the fact that Palin returned to work just days later – what a tough lady. But they conveniently neglected to scrutinize the risks to which she subjected her special needs child.

Where was her judgment? Where was her motherly instinct? It’s no wonder that Palin can exploit her 7-year-old daughter Piper just to lessen the negative reaction she knew would come and expose Piper to the “boos” of the crowd at a hockey game where Gov. Palin recently dropped the puck for the face-off. This shouldn’t be surprising when you consider Palin is the same mother who put her Downs-Syndrome child’s life at risk with her decisions just before his birth.

Sound judgment under challenging circumstances is one of the most critical qualities America needs in its national leaders. Given McCain’s age and known health issues, we cannot afford to take chances on Palin’s poor judgment.

David A. Chacon