From TIME:
Bristol Palin — Sarah Palin’s 19-year-old-daughter and unwed mother of 4-month-old Tripp — has been blog-blistered this week for her debut as an Abstinence Ambassador for the Candies Foundation. She made the rounds of the morning shows, appeared at a town hall meeting for National Teen Pregnancy Awareness Day and declared herself committed to discouraging behavior that would leave other girls in the same predicament she finds herself in. “Regardless of what I did personally,” she told Chris Cuomo on Good Morning America, “abstinence is the only … 100% foolproof way you can prevent pregnancy.”
(Note: Time needs to do better fact-checking. Bristol won’t be 19 until October.)
Original DVD cover.
(And, yeah, the Candies Foundation really does have shirts like that! I think they go very well with their family values advertising.)
Charges of hypocrisy ignited immediately: it was all just “a clear bid to help Mama rise higher in the Republican Party,” said Fox News contributor Ellen Ratner. “It doesn’t look good for a future presidential hopeful to have a daughter who had a child and did not marry the dad. They had to re-brand Bristol Palin so that she fits into the conservative base.” It was a mixed message, others charged: “Don’t have sex as a teenager, but if you do, you might end up a happy celebrity with this beautiful baby.” Still others disqualified her from preaching abstinence having clearly not practiced it herself, even though this is entirely in keeping with America’s standard Redemption Narrative.
…snip…
But you could argue that the true hypocrisy is what came before, at that very political pageant, the Republican National Convention, in which the Palin family, including alleged fiancé Levi Johnston, was presented as a somewhat sprawling Norman Rockwell portrait.
…snip…
Except that life is much messier and all the odds were against them, and in a real sense it diminishes Bristol’s challenge, and her clear determination to meet it, to pretend otherwise. Only 4 in 10 teenage mothers finish high school; less than 2% of girls who have babies under 18 will finish college by the time they are 30; just waiting until 20 or 21 increases the odds fourfold. Two thirds of families of young unwed mothers are poor. When pregnant teens do marry, they are 50% more likely to get divorced than those who marry without being pregnant.
…snip…
As for abstinence, Bristol has been right all along. She was right back in February when she said it was “not realistic,” she is right now when she says practicing it is hard, and she’s right that it is much better and safer for kids to postpone having sex. She also advocates that kids who have sex should use contraception. This has always been the embedded irony of the fight over sex education. The increased emphasis on abstinence in the past 15 years has been one factor in pushing back the age at which kids have their first sexual encounters, reducing the number of partners they have and lowering both the teen abortion rates and pregnancy rates (though this year has seen a small uptick). The problem with Abstinence Only education was not the Abstinence, it was the Only. The most effective message, as evidenced in every other industrial country with teen pregnancy rates far lower than ours, is to advocate postponement of sexual activity while providing full and complete information on contraception, decision-making and disease prevention. Which is why the President’s just released budget ends funding for programs that restrict the discussion to abstinence alone.
Not everyone is impressed…
From The Hollywood Gossip:
Their parents were paired together on the Republican ticket in the 2008 election. Now Meghan McCain and Bristol Palin are both speaking up on premarital sex.
Bristol, a teen mom and the daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is now a “teen ambassador” for the Candie’s Foundation, and an advocate for abstinence.
You cannot make this stuff up.
Meghan McCain doesn’t see eye-to-eye with her counterpart, though.
Senator John McCain’s daughter, 24, says that Bristol Palin has a right to her opinion and she respects it, but there’s a lot more to consider on the topic of sex.
“Daughters of Republican politicians aren’t expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it – as if there were some chastity belt automatically attached to us female offspring,” she writes in her column for The Daily Beast.
“God forbid that anyone talk realistically about life experiences and natural, sexual instincts. Nope, the answer is always abstinence.”
…snip…
And she’s not taking it easy on her dad’s party either.
“Unfortunately, Republicans typically don’t like to discuss or deal with things they think are wrong or immoral. And that’s a huge mistake,” she writes in her column, appropriately called “The GOP Doesn’t Understand Sex.”
“If we can’t discuss birth control in addition to abstinence, in a non-judgmental way, kids will make bad choices for lack of access to informed, safe options.”
From Gail Collins at The New York Times (Op-Ed):
“Just because you’re wearing high-heeled sexy shoes doesn’t mean you should have a baby,” said Neil Cole.
…snip…
Cole is the head of Iconix, a company that makes the Candie’s line of teen fashions. A couple of years ago, under fire from critics who accused him of dressing high schoolers like tarts, he established the Candie’s Foundation, which fights teen pregnancy. And there he was on Wednesday introducing the foundation’s new teen ambassador, Bristol Palin.
Palin is not in any way to be confused with the new Candie’s brand spokesperson, Britney Spears. Bristol is the one endorsing abstinence; Britney is the one promoting “hot bottoms.”
…snip…
[W]hen it comes to combating teen pregnancy, the Palin family has done enough damage already. What worse message could you send to teenage girls than the one they delivered at the Republican convention: If your handsome but somewhat thuglike boyfriend gets you with child, he will clean up nicely, propose marriage, and show up at an important family event wearing a suit and holding your hand. At which point you will get a standing ovation.
Now a single mom on the outs with the father of her baby, Bristol wants a new kind of happy ending.
“I just want to go out there and promote abstinence and say this is the safest choice,” she said on “Good Morning America.”
“It’s not going to work,” said her ex-boyfriend, Levi Johnston, in a dueling early-morning interview.
If you have ever watched Levi Johnston on TV for two minutes you will appreciate how terrifying it is when he has the most reasonable analysis of a social issue.
…snip…
[Bristol’s] mom has said in the past that she opposes “explicit” sex education, which kind of sounds like … sex education. And while encouraging kids to wait is obviously fine, the evidence is pretty clear that abstinence education is worse than useless. Texas, where virtually all the schools teach abstinence and abstinence alone, is a teen pregnancy disaster zone. “It’s had one of the highest rates for as long as I can remember,” said David Wiley, a professor of health education at Texas State University.
HYSTERICAL RAISINS 
zomg nonnie, those maroons! did the candie folks really think bristol would help their cause, or just get themselves in the press, and get more money for mr. fashion designer?
you so funnay! again! as usual!
jenn,
can you believe their hypocrisy? their ads are filled with provocative images, they are hawking low cut shirts for teenage girls, and then they tell people that they are all about abstinence. they don’t give a damn about teenage girls. it’s all about marketing.
Oh Jeez! The abstinence only program created a rise in teen pregnancy over the past few years for the first time in many years (yet another GW Bush fuck up).
Sarah Winky Palin was too busy pursuing her political gains & too evangelized to think her baby girl was doing it. I think the Alaska guvnah’s mansion has 10 bedrooms?
Teens don’t just need access to information, they need access to birth control/ protection as well.
They don’t even discuss the possibility of deadly STD’s (AIDS/HIV)… just that you might have a baby, and then “ya can’t go hang out with your friends”. It was all too Pollyanna for me. Plus she’s not struggling as in living on her own, trying to make ends meet- she is living in the guvnah’s mansion, or her folks house. She really has no clue about the full spectrum of single parenting hardships.
I look at Levi (the dad) & he is still a baby faced kid! Bristol is too, but you can tell Momma is calling the shots. The whole thing is such a soap opera of the white trash variety.
It is strange they are messing with Levi’s ability to have access to his baby…. but I don’t know the whole story.
It seems the Palins are trying to put lipstick on this pig…. but as President Obama once said– it’s still a pig.
I’m guessing Levi voted for Obama!
i doubt levi voted at all. i don’t think he’s what you call a civic-minded citizen. maybe someone shoved him in a voting booth for a photo-op, but he probably just picked his nose or something when he was in there.
i honestly don’t think that princess sarah gives a damn about her kids. they are nothing but props to be used to her own advantage. it’s not saying much, but i think todd is the better parent. he’s dumb as a stump, but in videos of the family, there are traces of real affection on his face when he looks at his kids, but never on princess sarah’s. she gets her phony beauty contestant face on.
making bristol the spokesperson for this campaign is just stupid. as you say, she might complain about how much work the baby is and she might regret having him so young, but she won’t face the same obstacles that other girls will in the same situation. they won’t have the fancy house to live in or rich parents and a corporation to support her financially. she (and their other pick, jamie lynn spears) will only make teenage motherhood look glamorous.
Candies has always used sex to sell. Always. But they aren’t doing it well. I mean using an effed up teen mother conflicted about sex as a spokesperson has about as much sex appeal as Jenny McCarthy on the can.
hey wcp! 😀
i think their ads are ridiculous. while they might get some media buzz for a while, i don’t think they really sell any more shoes than a picture of just the shoes themselves would. i think celebrity endorsements in general are stupid. would anyone really base a purchase on what a genius like jessica simpson might buy? 🙄
Jessica Simpson who really thought Chicken of the Sea was really chicken–and then wanted to pose to be the mermaid?
What a joke!
Does anyone remember “CFM” shoes? It was the nickname for Candies back in the late 70’s, early 80’s. (Maybe the name still holds true?)
“Come F*ck Me”
HA!
i hate when corporations try to make believe that they give a damn about their customers or anyone else. they want to sell you crap at the highest price they can get. period. we all know that it’s that simple, and it doesn’t matter how many foundations they set up.
Yuch. Where to start with these Wasillbillies and this hideous company pimping girls ? Bristol peaching abstinence goes right along with the Republican notion of do as I say not as I do. And Candies is as gross and disingenuous as the nasty cheerleader Grandma Sarah trying to pass herself off as Everymom. George Carlin gets credit for pointing out that considering how dumb the average American is, half the people you know are even dumber than that. I think Candies and Palins are banking heavily on it.
rastamick,
the wasilla hillbillies don’t really want to work for a living, so doing crap like this is right up their alley. bristol will be just like her mom–using her baby as a prop. i think she might have real affection for her child, unlike her mother, but it still seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. underachieve, and then wait for something lucky to happen to get you out of the mess you’ve made.
I predict that in 20-30 years, Bristol writes a “Mommie Dearest” about Sarah.
that depends, jeb. she’ll write the book if she’s not the mayor of wasilla or the head of her own evangelical movement.
About the only hope I see for the GOPasaurs is that Meghan McCain is still in the party. Let’s see how long that lasts.
i don’t see how she helps them. all she does is point out that they are a bunch of old farts with old ideas that don’t work anymore. she says she’s a rethug, but i don’t see evidence of that. the only things she says makes her a conservative are the things that she knows very little about.
As I wrote, “see how long that lasts.”
maybe mommy will buy her her own splinter party. 🙂
sometimes your threads are as good as your artwork
as for Bristol —– you just have to laugh, but i kinda feel sorry for her — imagine that as your mother and role model
if she was smart she would bail like her older brother has
dcAp,
i learn and laugh from the commenters here. they are the best!
i feel sorry for both bristol and levi. they were used and abused by her mother and by the capt underpants campaign. i would bet that her mother pressured her into taking this ambassadorship, both because it keeps princess’s name in the news and she probably thinks it’s the only future her daughter has.
there is plenty of talk on the internets about how track might have enlisted, not out of any kind of patriotism, but because he was part of a gang that vandalized a bunch of school buses up in wasilla. he spent most of his senior year in michigan. the official story is that he played hockey there and then went back to wasilla for graduation. something fishy there. anyway, the rumor is that he enlisted to avoid jail time. juvie records are sealed, so we will probably never know.
I love that pic of Bristol. Her hair looks like it was done by a polygamist Mormon beautician.
😆 everytime i see her with her hair like that, i think of big love and those polygamists in texas who had their kids taken away. maybe levi isn’t really the father of the baby. maybe one of mittsie’s boys had his way with bristol.
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