JOE McGINNISS

Johnny Cash was and is one of my few heroes.  My admiration for him is based not only on my appreciation of his unique talent as singer, songwriter and performer, but on the courage he showed as a Nashville heavy hitter who stood up for Bob Dylan way back when Bob was considered a commie jew anti-war hippie by the country music establishment, and for Johnny’s overcoming substance abuse problems to create a whole new oeuvre in his later years, and for his being a man who never tried to shove his Christianity down anyone’s throat, and who, throughout his life, opposed needless war, imperialism, racism and insensitivity to the less fortunate among us.

It was my admiration for him that first led me to the marvelous music and equally fine writings of his multi-talented daughter, Rosanne.

In October, 2008, she wrote a brilliant commentary in The Nation, called “Why I’d Be a Better VP than Sarah Palin.

Contained therein is her straight from the shoulder shot about Sarah being pregnant with Trig in Dallas and taking the wild ride to Wasilla:

Finally, there is one subject in which I find I am even more conservative than the Governor, and that is in the area of neo-natal responsibility. The Governor was eight months pregnant and in Texas to give a speech, when her water broke. She reportedly made her speech and then traveled eleven hours, dripping amniotic fluid, bypassing Seattle and Anchorage (major cities with world-class hospitals) to travel to a small hospital in Wasilla that had no neo-natal intensive care unit, and gave birth there. Call me a wimp, call me insecure, but you had better also call me a maverick, because I would have said “Damn the schedule! Damn the speech and the airline ticket!” If this had been me, as soon as my water broke, I’d be at the closest hospital and that baby would have been born in Texas!

This is from a mother of five whose career has taken her to far more places around the world than Sarah’s has.

It’s a question of priorities.

What matters more:  the life and well-being of your Down Syndrome baby, about to be born prematurely, or your image?

The estimable Ms. Cash makes clear the choice she would have made.

Which is the choice any sane and caring woman in that circumstance would have made.  And the choice her husband–if he were caring–would have insisted on!

This leaves us with only two options:

a) Sarah is/was either not sane, or was so uncaring that she was more concerned about her image than about the life she was carrying inside her.

or

b) She wasn’t pregnant.

I just don’t see a third alternative.