<p>xiggi, really? Did you read the title of the thread?</p>
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<p>I actually know a kid (well, young person now), who got a 36 on the first outing with the ACT, but did so while still managing to miss a question or two. This person wanted 100% correct answers so they took it again! Yea, I don’t get it. But they went on to triple major in college (I didn’t think this was allowed), finished in four years, and is now at one of the top M.D./Ph.D. programs in the country (while getting accepted at somewhere around 8 or 9 out of 10 top programs), so who am I to judge? But repeating, I don’t get it.</p>
<p>“Another opinion column referred to a Washington Post columnist who made snarky remarks on how John Roberts’ children were dressed at his swearing in ceremony. They were 5 and 6 at the time. No resignation.”</p>
<p>I remember that, and I thought it was despicable. They were dressed very cutely. A little old-fashioned and formal, but I mean, so what, it doesn’t get more old-fashioned and formal than a swearing-in ceremony for a Chief Justice. People need lives. </p>
<p>I don’t want to defend Robin Givhan too much, because I never really liked her articles, but I do think there is a distinction between her (unclassy) description of Roberts’ kids as being dressed like Easter eggs, and what Lauten did. Givhan was not making a political attack on Roberts–as I noted above, she was bipartisan in her sartorial critiques of politicians. What Lauten did went beyond that, attacking the children directly, and included a particularly ugly attack on the parents.</p>
<p>!: what the heck does ACT tests, SATs have to do with the issue at hand? If the kids of any president is a no go area, then don’t put them out there. The girls are in full bloom teenagedom…so let them stay upstairs and/or remove them from the situation.</p>
<p>As far as someone’s ability to judge people’s behavior…we do it all the time. Famous or not…We judge in conversations, in the media, or in print. No one gets a pass…we judge.</p>
<p>I don’t think comments about children have a place anywhere in the national discourse. However there are gradations of comments. Saying a little kid is dressed like an Easter egg is inappropriate but does not cross the line into fire-able in my opinion. The Lauten comments clearly crossed the line into fire-able. </p>
<p>The difference is on so many levels:
- She used her comments about the girls’ dress to leap to comments about their characters and who they were as persons (the reference to belonging at a bar).
- She drew conclusions about their attitudes and beliefs (the act like you care about your country comment was totally uncalled for)
- She used the kids as pawns to attack the parents. Kids are not pawns. </p>
<p>She was right to resign, and it’s not the same as an editorial writer or TV comic, both of whom were forced to apologize. We can react by not subscribing to the newspaper or turning off the tv. Lauten, on the other hand, was paid out of taxpayer funds to the extent that she was on a congressional payroll. </p>
<p>My husband and I roll our eyes at the turkey pardon and we’re in our 50s. </p>
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<p>While it is utterly stupid to list test scores online, there are a number of plausible reasons one might have taken both. People who live in ACT-landia might have had no choice than taking the mandatory test that was “extorted” by the ACT marketing gurus. Hence that score. But more than a decade ago, the acceptance of the ACT was not as universal as it is today, and in addition to needing a SAT score to confirm the NSMF, one might have realized that taking the SAT was warranted. </p>
<p>^^ I’m so glad that’s changed! </p>
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<p>Why do you ask? What is there in the tile of the thead that invalidates --or justifies-- anything I wrote? Is there anything in particular that offended you that you feel compelled to ask me if I … read the title of the thread. </p>
<p>Was it unclear to you that I did not condone whatever this 36 ACT person did say about the POTUS kids? But that does not mean that I find the piling on and the traction that this stupid act generated more … attractive.</p>
<p>As far as having political kids and non-elected political figures in the limelight, is it not acceptable to have different opinions about how that works? </p>
<p>I am personally a lot more uncomfortable with the pictures of the Obama’s older daughter’s backside that is making the rounds of social media than I am with some random woman griping at the two girls. </p>
<p>“Carol Costello”</p>
<p>I have no idea who this person is and never heard about what she said/did (or what Bristol Palin did, either) but if it’s true (and I have no doubt it’s not true,) that was totally inappropriate and unprofessional. If she worked for me she’s be fired. </p>
<p>I vaguely remember the Bush girls getting caught underage in a bar and I’m sure I rolled my eyes at that and thought people was trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. Other than that, I don’t recall much attention being paid to either girls when Dubya was in office. I think they were both already in college when he was elected. </p>
<p>What I don’t get is this compulsion so many people have to tweet every single thing that pops into their minds. I can’t keep count of the times I have heard someone had to issue an apology after something they tweeted. You would think people would learn. </p>
<ol>
<li>If you believe Lauter voluntarily resigned, I’ve got some swampland in Florida to sell to you</li>
<li>Lauter’s bad taste was amplified by tossing in criticism of the girls’ political parents</li>
<li>Didn’t Letterman defend himself by saying that the adult Bristol, and not the younger daughter, was the subject of his joke?</li>
<li>Never heard any pundit make crude comments about the disabled Palin baby. Anyone who would so demean an infant is a jackass.</li>
<li>Did anyone get Tom Turkey’s opinion of the Obama girls’ attire? I imagine he had other anxious thoughts on his mind.</li>
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Really? There was a whole pundit “thing” about whether she should have aborted. And Andrew Sullivan still hasn’t crawled out of Sarah Palin’s reproductive organs. He has always demanded her medical records be released because he doesn’t believe Sarah is her youngest child’s mother.
Letterman was free to defend himself, but he actually used the younger daughter’s name and ran with it. Bristol was a minor child at the time, as well.</p>
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This. And why did this woman think anyone would want her opinions about the Obama girls anyway. Sure some people were thinking “brat,” but I think that most decent people were thinking “my how they’ve grown.”</p>
<p>@zoosermom </p>
<p>Yes, very sad that her backside pic is being passed around. Disgusting!</p>
<p>“I am personally a lot more uncomfortable with the pictures of the Obama’s older daughter’s backside that is making the rounds of social media than I am with some random woman griping at the two girls.”</p>
<p>I just had to google this. Oy. </p>
<p>Who knew that there was such a photo making the rounds! Lauten has a boss for whom she did publicity. If her boss decided that she was bad publicity she had to go. As inappropriate and down right mean as Letterman was, his comments reflect negatively back on himself. He is free to decide if he wants to appear like an a$$hat or not to the public at large. Letterman represents his own reputation.</p>
<p>I feel like the minor children of politicians and other celebrities and children (minor and adult) who lead private lives should be completely off limits. That holds for the Bush girls then and now. Bristol fall into a category different from her siblings and the other political kids in that she has actively courted publicity and sought to be a “celebrity” in the Paris Hilton vein . . . famous for being famous. She did DWTS and was not the demure youth that Sadie is. She had several reality shows and was striving to earn a living based on the fame of being her mother’s daughter and kind of an All-American train wreck. I’m not sure what she does for a living now, but there was a time when she was a professional public figure. That doesn’t mean that snide comments are nice or in good form but I think it does put her in a different category. As an adult public personality in her own right people are free to say what they want about her and let the chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>I do remember talking head show conversations about Sarah insisting on flying overnight back to Alaska from the lower 48 when she was apparently in labor. I also remember nosey-Rosie commentators that questioned whether or not she should bring a disabled baby into the world. I gave neither much thought because I was fairly confident that any parent would feel and shout to the rafters that it’s no one else’s business how they choose to bring their baby into the world.</p>
<p>I remember frame by frame photographic analysis of Sarah Palin’s stomach during her pregnancy while investigative sleaze reporters tried to figure out if she was really pregnant at that time or it the baby was actually Bristol’s first child. </p>
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<p>Man. I would HATE to be an teen-aged girl living in the metaphorical bull’s-eye of the White House. Adolescence is hard enough when your dad is a plumber or a dentist and not the POTUS…</p>