US News
Oscar-winner Voight chokes up over Palin's pregnant daughter
By Frank Fuhrig Sep 2, 2008, 2:57 GMT
St Paul, Minnesota - Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight, mingling at the Republican National Convention Monday night, became visibly emotional when talking about the newly revealed pregnancy of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's teenaged daughter.
The star of such acclaimed movies as Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance and Coming Home, has had a difficult relationship with his own daughter, paparazzi favourite Angelina Jolie.
Voight quickly attracted a swarm of reporters on the red-carpeted floor of the Xcel Centre, minutes after party delegates had ended the day's severely shortened proceedings.
A public supporter of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Voight was airing his political views when asked about Palin, who was named Friday as McCain's surprise choice for vice presidential running mate.
He called the 44-year-old governor a 'breath of fresh air,' before himself bringing up Monday's revelation by the Palin family that 17- year-old daughter Bristol is five months pregnant.
'Like all families, they have their dramas,' Voight said.
Suddenly, Voight's voice choked, his face stiffened, and he stopped speaking for several seconds. After a moment, he composed himself and continued, alluding to the parents' concern and fear for their daughter and her future.
Asked if his emotion was because of similarities to situations with his own estranged daughter, Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie, Voight said that all people and families have difficulties to overcome.
Bristol Palin plans to get married, will have her baby, and the family will move forward. 'She'll get through this,' Voight said.
In a statement earlier Monday, Palin and husband Todd said: 'Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. ... We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.'
The Palins said that Bristol and 'the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family.'
Palin, a mother of five, is an outspoken opponent of abortion.
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Monday that the revelation had 'no relevance' to politics. 'I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits,' he said on the campaign trail.
Voight brushed off repeated questions about whether he was a registered Republican, which would make him a relative rarity in the overwhelmingly Democratic Hollywood.
Before endorsing McCain, he supported one-time Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, who is scheduled to speak Tuesday night at the convention. Voight, though publicly critical of Obama, was reported as saying earlier this year that the Illinois senator was likely to win the election.
The twice-divorced Jolie gave birth in July to twins, her second and third children by movie heartthrob Brad Pitt, in addition to their three adopted children from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam.
The tabloid press breezily refers to the unmarried couple as Brangelina.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama
By Gerard Baker (abridged)
Democrats, between sniggers of derision and snorts of disgust, contend that Sarah Palin, John McCain's vice-presidential pick is ridiculously unqualified to be president.
It's a reasonable objection on its face except for this small objection: it surely needs to be weighed against the Democrats' claim that their own candidate for president is self-evidently ready to assume the role of most powerful person on the planet.
At first blush, here's what we know about the relative experience of the two candidates. Both are in their mid-forties and have held statewide elective office for less than four years. Both have admitted to taking illegal drugs in their youth.
So much for the similarities. How about the differences?
Political experience
Obama: Worked his way to the top by cultivating, pandering to and stroking the most powerful interest groups in the all-pervasive Chicago political machine, ensuring his views were aligned with the power brokers there.
Palin: Worked her way to the top by challenging, attacking and actively undermining the Republican party establishment in her native Alaska. She ran against incumbent Republicans as a candidate willing and able to clean the Augean Stables of her state's government.
Political Biography
Obama: A classic, if unusually talented, greasy-pole climber. Held a succession of jobs that constitute the standard route to the top in his party's internal politics: 'community organizer', law professor, state senator.
Palin:A woman with a wide range of interests in a well-variegated life. Held a succession of jobs - sports journalist, commercial fisherwoman, state oil and gas commissioner, before entering local politics. A resume that suggests something other than burning political ambition from the cradle but rather the sort of experience that enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans..
Political history
Obama: Elected to statewide office only after a disastrous first run for a congressional seat and after his Republican opponent was exposed in a sexual scandal. Won seat eventually in contest against a candidate who didn't even live in the state.
Palin: Elected to statewide office by challenging a long-serving Republican incumbent governor despite intense opposition from the party.[...]
Executive experience
Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists
Palin:Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of 500,000 people in her state, and that impact crucial issues of national economic interest such as the supply and cost of energy to the United States.
Religious influences
Obama: Regards people who 'cling' to religion and guns as 'bitter' . Spent 20 years being mentored and led spiritually by a man who proclaimed 'God damn America' from his pulpit. Mysteriously, this mentor completely disappeared from public sight about four months ago.
Palin: Head of her high school Fellowship of Christian Athletes and for many years a member of the Assemblies of God congregation whose preachers have never been known to accuse the United States of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus. They remain in full public sight and can be seen every Sunday in churches across Alaska. A proud gun owner who has been known to cling only to the carcasses of dead caribou felled by her own aim.
Record of bipartisan achievement
Obama: Speaks movingly of the bipartisanship needed to end the destructive politics of 'Red America' and 'Blue America', but votes in the Senate as a down-the-line Democrat, with one of the most liberal voting records in congress.
Palin: Ridiculed by liberals such as John Kerry as a crazed, barely human, Dick Cheney-type conservative but worked wit Democrats in the state legislature to secure landmark anti-corruption legislation.
Former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz - a Democrat - said. 'Gov. Palin has made her name fighting corruption within her own party, and I was honored when she stepped across party lines and asked me to co-author her ethics white paper.'[...]
Fortunately, it will be up to the American people and not their self-appointed leaders in Hollywood and New York to determine who really has the better experience to be president.
www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/sarah_palin_vs_barack_obama. html
What a pity for the republican internet task force that they have so few trumps up their sleeve that they have to wage a presidential campaign on such trivial facts as above two posters .As if the choice between republicans and democrats was all about personalities only .Probably they concentrate on these issues because there is no political program worth mentioning .How about issues such as education and health care then ?Just look at the past eight years ,enough said already.Time for change ,unless your are CEO of EXXON or lockheed ,Westinghouse or a major bank.
Experience is nice,the GOP have a lot of experience serving corporate tycoons,I just didn't think they would use it as an argument in the elections .Amazing.
the republicans will win the presidental race .
the country will slip into depression .
but that doesn't matter as long as mccain /palin get in.
then the american people can piss and moan for 4 years and blame everyone else for the boo boo .
Some ancient old hag ex-beauty Queen from Alaska ! How the hell can Alaska have a Beauty Queen ? All they have are Moose, seals, polar bears and grubby oil rig workers. The women there look like Russian shot-putters.
AND her 17 year old daughter who is so decadent and immoral that she cares nothing about respecting her Mother as Governor of the largest state in the US, but is more interested in behaving like a human wishbone in the back of a Volkswagen.
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ELECTING A PRESIDENT, not paying attention to little sluts behaving badly and disgracing a decent families reputation.
Keep your eye on the target and forget the human trash of society.
...having a baby is decadent????
How so?
And yet again a neo-con, posting an article by a neo-con that by the way has nothing to do with the article at all. Your bias is showing again, credibility already lower than whale sh*t. Keep up the good work, you fit in with all the other right wing nut-jobs.
The real thing Mr. Voight is upset about is he has ran his own daughter off by being a right wing nut-job, plus he cannot find that very large pile of cocaine he lost in the 70's. Like anyone cares he is upset about yet another lie by his party. He should be used to this by now.
..but if my daughter was Angelina Jolie, I'd be packing my nose as fast as I could...
is the only thing that comes to mind about Voight and SP!
Imagine it would go the other way around if YOU were her father,SP!
'And yet again a neo-con, posting an article by a neo-con that by the way has nothing to do with the article at all.'
So you don't have a rebuttal.. Got it.
'Your bias is showing again,'
I don't think we should elect a dangerous incompetent like Barack Obama. I think I have made my 'bias' clear.
'The real thing Mr. Voight is upset about is he has ran his own daughter off by being a right wing nut-job,'
LOL No, some daddy's have standards that they hold their bratty, narcissistic, spoiled, crazy daughters to. Maybe if your father had some balls you wouldn't have turned out so screwed up.
..is that Voight isn't really a republican, something the article passes over...
just another confused old guy. Maybe he relates better to McCain!
What are you trying to tell us, old pal, with your words of wisdom?
That McCain is a just a rino who enjoys the company of other 'mavericks' like the 'democrat turned independent for reasons of self interest' Lieberman, and this has been Hollywood ex-star Voight, who has a chip on his shoulder against the rest of the world? Bring on the looney tunes because these rinos need some good comedians to tell some more jokes.
...what I TOLD you was that Voight has no real history backing republicans and must have personal reasons for backing McCain i.e. he's a friend, or a hot-button issue or something...I believe he was also a Perot supporter at one time, but I'd have to check again.
Another fact that rarely comes up is the fact that McCain is a western poltician, something that means a lot to certain westerners, who feel like we are treated as a separate nation, when it comes to the federal government and the way it treats us out here. We think we'd benefit from a western president and vice-president as opposed to an 'internationalist' who even has trouble dealing with the glaring issues of his home state, like E. St. Louis for instance.
Voight chocked up over this - you gotta be kidding, right?
Whatever blows your skirt up.
By Andrea Tantaros
The moment the McCain camp confirmed it had chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as its choice for VP, conservatives, females and many mothers across the country rejoiced. She brought so many positives that I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take the left to dig for the negatives.
Shortly after the announcement a friend asked me “when do you think the weird, rural farmer’s daughter rumors will start?
Apparently, not long after.
The Daily Kos (or as I like to call it, The Daily Gross) has stooped to a new low by repackaging a plot line from last season’s “Desperate Housewives” and publishing it as a disgusting hit piece alleging Palin’s special needs son is really her grandson. — And that she pretended to be with child to cover up her teen daughter’s underage pregnancy. Now, we’ve just learned Palin’s teen daughter Bristol is pregnant, debunking this awful rumor, yet still igniting the attacks of angry liberal bloggers.
This could only mean there must be something about Sarah Palin that is deeply threatening to the left, a constituency that has long believed they have cornered the working mother market. Five kids? She should be at home begging Democrats for a handout. A husband in a union? He should be on the picket lines.
Liberals like to pretend they are tolerant and accepting of those who are different but when it comes to anyone not ensconced in their progressive, elitist dogma they mock and attack their lifestyle to inspire hate. But because governor Palin is endearing, authentic–and with this latest revelation–easy to identify with, she invokes panic in the left. Why else would they assail a very popular, promising lady and her children?
The key question here is: what is the extreme left trying to prove? How does this make Sarah Palin unfit to serve? And how exactly will this story look bad to voters? A mother stands behind her child. I can think of worse stories than “Palins Come Together to Support Teen Daughter.” This is America. This is life. And this is private.
Ridiculing McCain’s VP pick for her commitment to family, poking fun at her hobbies and pushing smear about her kids will only bite back. Remember there’s a reason the naked protesters who ran up and down Eighth Avenue in New York City during the 2004 convention helped Republicans: they made liberals look cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
Perpetuating laughable legend and assailing the American family is akin to the in the buff boycotting. –It makes the lefties look desperate, unstable, paranoid and downright mean. And it will hurt the Democratic brand if it continues.
The back story here has nothing to do with Palin and her family but more to do with the extreme left. All Americans should take note: if liberals aren’t going to show Governor Palin or her family any respect, voters shouldn’t expect their policies to either.
What`s this big lump in ma tummy ? Ah look like a pear an it ain`t wind, I`ve tried that.
Ah ain`t done nuttin bahd, ah promise ya Mom, we were only playin leapfrog.
we presume?
..to be specific.
The 'Hey Mom!' snippet sounded like an SP play.
...not nearly good enough....
It'd go like this
'mom'
'yes dear?'
'I'm late...'
'yes dear...'
'Mom'
'yes dear...'
'I'm pregnant...'
'Yes dear...'
'I'm not sure how it happened...'
'I'm positive I do dear....'
I liked the other one better........
'So you don't have a rebuttal. Got it.'
No need to have a rebuttal when one is only commenting on the bias of an article. A neo-con writer spouting right wing talking points is nothing but bias. I just wanted to point out how worthless your work is.
'I don't think we should elect a dangerous incompetent like Barack Obama. I think I have made my 'bias' clear. '
No you want to elect the old that is way past his time and the young that has no idea what time it is. Wait on the Palin situation---more to come.
'LOL No, some daddy's have standards that they hold their bratty, narcissistic, spoiled, crazy daughters to. Maybe if your father had some balls you wouldn't have turned out so screwed up.'
And your parents (if you had two and really knew who your father was) had not idea what they were releasing on the poor people of this country. If they had they would have surely flushed you down the toilet.
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Rudy sezSep 2nd, 2008 - 04:52:20
Sarah Palin got more votes as a mayor in Alaska than Joe Biden did for President
Rudy Giuliani said Palin is way more qualified than presidential candidate Barack Obama, 'You know why? She had to make decisions,' as a two-term mayor and the governor of Alaska. 'I mean, [Obama]'s never run a city, he's never run a state, he's never run a business, he's never administered a payroll, he's never led people in crisis.'
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