More on those double standards...

This election year candidates' personal lives and families are fair game for Republicans as long as the candidate in question is not a Republican.

My niece sent this in an email. It was too good not to post.

" I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

" If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

" Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

" If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

" Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

" Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

" Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

" If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

" If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

"If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

"If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

" If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

" If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

" If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

" If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

"OK, much clearer now. "


Seriously folks, we are voting for someone to lead our country during perilous economic and political times. We aren't drawing straws for who buys the next keg.