This shotgun wedding is a sacrifice at altar of power
Two frightened teenagers sacrificed to ambition. That's what I see when I look at Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol with her boyfriend.
Damage limitation. That's what the Republican Party sees -- a couple of kids won't be allowed to rain on their parade in the run-up to election day. They'll just have to clean up their mess by getting married.
The photograph of Bristol and her boyfriend Levi Johnston meeting John McCain at the party's convention in Minnesota earlier this week is a sobering one.
McCain has his hand on 18-year-old Levi's arm, showing his support for the young couple. Twice he hugged Bristol, five months pregnant and just 17. It is behaviour choreographed to signal concern for a young couple dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.
But he must know in his heart that railroading them into marriage is a mistake. Not to mention a cynical public relations exercise.
Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, are lined up alongside their daughter in a smiling charade of family unity. Like McCain, they must realise what has been decided for the young people is just plain wrong.
We're not looking at a photograph of a family standing together in adversity. It's an image of a group of adults manipulating a couple of children for their own ends.
The teenagers in this picture are victims, and just because it's smiles all round doesn't make what's happening to them any more palatable.
I wonder how much freedom of choice Bristol and Levi are exercising? Shotgun wedding is written on their faces -- particularly his.
Bulldozing a pair of teens into getting married is a ludicrous scheme because it's almost certain to end in failure, as well as a lot of heartache before the final derailing.
It is politically expedient, however. What's best for the couple does not compute. This is about what's best for the Republican Party and its presidential goals.
The way father-to-be Levi was put on display at the Republican National Convention was nothing short of ghoulish -- look at him: desperately young, desperately out of his depth, desperately scared.
The couple were waggled at the cameras as though they are Romeo and Juliet. They're not. They're a boy and girl trying to deal with a stressful situation under intense, relentless and prurient scrutiny.
There is nothing new in a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend encountering familial pressure to marry. It happens around the world in a variety of cultures, usually for reasons of social conformity.
This is a first, though. Bristol and Levi are being encouraged to marry for political motives.
The Republican Party represents family values. Sex outside marriage and unwed pregnant teenagers are at odds with its dogma. Bristol and Levi have strayed from the neo-con straight and narrow, and to compensate are being press-ganged into marriage.
It's a way of controlling the story. The spin doctors are probably congratulating themselves for sorting it out. Drama over, nothing to see here, move along folks.
But it's not the end of the story for these teens whose lives are being ruthlessly manipulated. There are long-term repercussions to the solution presented to them: they'll find themselves locked together, when their friends are enjoying their first taste of freedom.
I wonder if Bristol was offered the option of going it alone with her family's help, instead of marriage?
That would have been the sensible alternative -- supporting her and Levi as they have their baby, helping them to see if they can sustain a relationship with one another as well as with the child. But marriage and parenthood at 17 and 18 -- never mind the barrage of publicity they're experiencing -- puts them under intolerable pressure. And for what? To improve Sarah Palin's electoral prospects. Would Bristol and Levi be making marriage plans if she wasn't having a tilt at the vice-presidency? Highly unlikely.
There's something else to consider here. Sarah Palin was aware of her daughter's pregnancy when she agreed to run. She knew the girl would become the focus of remorseless attention at a particularly vulnerable time in her life.
But she went ahead and threw her hat in the ring. To me, that decision throws light on the Governor of Alaska's character.
No doubt, she believes this might be her one chance of winning higher office. She probably told herself the pregnancy would be a one-minute wonder and media attention would pass on. She's right on both counts.
But here's where she has gone wrong. Accepting McCain's offer to become his running mate may have been the best move for the mother but it wasn't the best move -- not by a long stretch -- for the daughter.
As we see here, it's an ugly business when a 17-year-old's pregnancy becomes politicised; even uglier when the question of her marriage becomes a political issue.
Anyone running for public office is fooling themselves if they think they can stand as a single candidate. Their family automatically comes under inspection.
Sarah Palin is no fool. She understood her daughter would be pushed into the firing line when she chose to run. The child's needs have been sacrificed to the parent's drive for power.
Bristol and Levi have fallen into step and are politically useful to the Republicans now. But when their use passes, as pass it will, they'll be on their own. With a baby and a pair of wedding rings.
So much for mother knows best.
www.martinadevlin.com mdevlin@independent.ie
- Martina Devlin
