by Elise Warren

Created on: June 17, 2009   Last Updated: July 06, 2009

My mother always said , "What goes around, comes around". My grandmother stated it differently , quoting the bible (as she heard it): You reap what you sow". As a child, I knew exactly what those sayings meant. I knew that if you sowed seeds of kindness, you would grow some good feelings, and if you sought discord for others, it would come right back to you in your own life. Through out my (almost) four decades of life, I have experienced examples of both: kindness and hatefulness that I have demonstrated, returning to me many-fold.

Flash forward to a hot summer night as I sit down to enjoy one of my favorite late night tv shows: The Late Show with David Letterman. In his monologue he jokes about Sarah Palin's visit to New York, and bemuses that her daughter may have been "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez during the seven inning stretch. I realize, as any logical human would, that he is referring to Palin's eighteen year old daughter, Bristol, who became pregnant as a high schooler. Even as I sat there, laughing, but cringing a bit, I thought perhaps Bristol would laugh too, as she has posed for many magazines of late, with her child, and has become a media darling as she warns others of premarital teenage sex.

Soon after, Sarah Palin demands a public apology on behalf of her daughter. My mind was spinning. I clearly remembered that during the election, Palin uttered horrific, damaging words regarding Barack Obama without ANY thought as to how those words were to be perceived. In Clearwater , Florida , on the campaign trail, she yelled into the microphone that Obama was a man who sees America as being so imperfect, that "he worked with a former domestic terrorist who targeted his own country". In Fort Myers, Florida, the sheriff laughed as he introduced Palin and stressed that Barack Obama's middle name was HUSSEIN, and Palin laughed too, basking in the insults that the crowd yelled regarding Obama. At rally after rally, she snickered as the crowds yelled "terrorist " and other hateful things as she bashed her opponent. Within some crowds , words of "kill him" were heard, and one African American television camera man overheard the audience yelling at him to "Sit Down, Boy!". All the while, Palin not only smiled, but she incited, or caused this kind of reaction. Not once did she try to stop her followers, in fact she seemed to enjoy it. I remember cringing then, too. Not the same type of cringe endured during Letterman's joke, but one

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