Leave the Kids Out of It

In the past year or so, it seems to me that politicians have been using children to get their messages across. But it's not just politicians; even political commentators are using their kids to make a point.  Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have all used their children to promote their viewpoints recently.

When Michelle Obama first started her childhood obesity campaign, she held a press conference talking about her daughter Malia's weight problem, saying that's why she became so interested in fighting childhood obesity -- for her daughter. During the health care fight, both Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck mentioned their children with disabilities in order to drum up fear that health care reform was actually comprised of death panels that would kill disabled children. With fake tears in his eyes, Glenn Beck said, "I want you to know that I have a daughter who was born with Cerebral Palsy, and they said that when she was born that she would never walk or talk or feed herself. She went to college. They were wrong." Beck then went on to exploit his daughter in order to make the argument that when the economy is in crisis, the President and the administration have to make tough choices (which apparently, Glenn Beck thinks, will include the systematic killing of people with disabilities...the video below is an excellent and entertaining takedown of Glenn Beck's argument by Cenk Uiygur of The Young Turks.) 

Take a lesson people: using your kids to promote your political point of view in order to get the sympathy vote just makes you seem pathetic and desperate. Even if your kids have some say in it, it's exploitative, manipulative, and just plain unfair. Knock it off.