Monika Bauerlein is, of course, correct that it would be grossly sexist to bring up Sarah Palin's youngest child or his disability with any implication that this makes her running for vice president inappropriate. To state the obvious, nobody would bring such things up about a male vice presidential candidate, just as when people bring up family issues to explain the gross underrepresentation of women clerking for the Supreme Court they never seem to question how Antonin Scalia has had a long career as an appellate judge with nine kids.
Men are also capable of being caregivers, and the assumption that Palin should have the primary responsibility for caring for her children is just sexism, full stop. There are very good reasons to oppose her -- most notably such rather more important things as her very reactionary political views and her lack of knowledge about most important domestic and foreign policy issues -- but the fact that she has become a state leader while being a mother of five is emphatically not one of them.
And while I'm not suggesting that it's on the same level, somebody also needs to have a long talk with Joe Biden.
--Scott Lemieux
