oh sara, my sara

oh sara palin, sara palin. i've held my tongue for so long. there have been so many things that i've wanted to talk with you about.

i've wanted to talk to you about making sure that the christ, and the principle's by which he lived - loving your neighbors, not bearing false witness, taking care of the less fortunate - is present in your christianity. and not because i'm a better christian - far from it - but because it's a little disingenuous to tout your christianity from one side of your mouth and espouse things that are very un-christlike from the other side.

i've wanted to talk to you about femininity - about the fact that with every wink when you don't know an answer, every "come hither" hair flip when you're way out of your league serves to destroy the ground work laid by generations of women before you. because the fact is that we can be strong and feminine at the same time - alluring, beautiful, competent women. so give the cute wink and flip your hair, but please BE PREPARED, DO YOUR HOMEWORK, KNOW THE ANSWERS ... (unfortunately, i think that you're going to have to do a lot of the research yourself because the mccain campaign doesn't seem all that interested in helping you; rather i'm afraid that they're just happy to capitalize on the wink, the hair flip, the fancy pageant walkin' ...)

and that - allowing the mccain campaign to write things for your delivery without you doing your due diligence to fact check and make sure that they are actually plausible - brings me to what finally pushed me over the edge ... your first major policy address. yesterday, you chose to talk about educating kids with disabilities - something you care about deeply and the cause to which i've dedicated my life. i have a lot of concerns with your pronouncements. briefly -

1) while parents know their children better than professionals, i do not believe that all parents have the professional knowledge necessary to make all service delivery decisions for their child with a disability. that's why the system is designed the way it is - parents and professionals working together to build a program that makes sense. would you assert that a parent alone is in the best position to make medical decisions for their children? that a parent with no medical training should unilaterally decide the course of treatment for their child with cancer?

2) be clear that full federal funding of special education amounts to 40% of the EXCESS cost of educating a child with a disability.

3) be clear that assigning funding to a child will still not always cover the cost of educating a child with a disability in the school of the parents choice - just like vouchers have fallen way short of allowing recipients to access the most prestigious, and generally most expensive programs.

4) research costs money (something your running mate has not historically supported) and research requires stem cells.

so sara, believe what you will, tout what you want, but know that the special education lobby (parents, researchers, state agencies, advocacy organizations, lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers) is voracious and they will be waiting at your doorstep on day one to hold you accountable. good luck!

(by the way - i'm listening to john mccain right now and education is NOT on his list of federal programs that will escape his spending freeze. might i suggest a bake sale ...)