I think many Americans were touched last night by an image from the Republican convention. It is one that was frighteningly all-American -- but also controversial, with some saying the reality it represents being reason enough for Palin being rejected as Vice President, and why she should not be on it at all. I refer, of course, to the fact that Sarah Palin is the mother five not-entirely-perfect children, and that she is somehow a bad parent for seeking this office -- or even for being the Governor of Alaska.

I've held the image above in my heart even as I've struggled with how to refute that charge, with where I could look for an example from history to either disprove it or demonstrate its inherent sexism. And as I did so, a disturbing image popped into my head -- one that could only have sprung into the mind of a student of history.

Now some of you may not see the connection, and others may mistake what I mean by connecting last night's events with an American tragedy four decades ago. But consider the picture that the tragic event shown above deprived us of -- Senator Robert Francis Kennedy accepting the nomination of the 1968 convention in Chicago (either for president or vice president -- contrary to popular history he had not locked up the former and may have had to settle for the latter on a ticket with Hubert Humphrey), his arm around his visibly pregnant wife as the couple was surrounded by their TEN beautiful children under the age of 18 (as well as his niece and nephew, the children of his murdered brother).

Think about it -- rather than the stark shades of black and gray and white that depict the end of what many Democrats would describe as the Golden Age of American liberalism, we would have had an amazing technicolor celebration of what was seen as the model American Catholic family (though we now know that was merely a facade).

And no one would have dreamed of asking any form of the Sarah Palin question about Bobby Kennedy:

1. Was he selfish to seek this office?
   
2. Would he short change his brood to serve America?
   
3. Would he fall short as president because of his obligations as a parent?
   
4. Was he just plain a bad father because he didn't wait until they were older to run -- say 1984 or 1988?

That leads me to ask the obvious question -- why not? There are only two honest answers, either partisan bias or naked sexism. After all, the major difference in circumstance here is that Kennedy was a male liberal Democrat, and Palin is a female conservative Republican.

Personally, I'd argue that it is a lot of both, with sexism being the larger component. Consider the attempts to find nude Sarah Palin photos or pictures of Sarah Palin in a bikini. Has there been a comparable search for similar photos of Barack Obama or Joe Biden in order to discredit them-- and would anyone seriously argue that this picture of Obama on his recent vacation somehow makes him morally unfit for office?

Of course, given that there has been no serious effort to discredit Senator McCain with similar photos, we must be led to the conclusion that much of the opposition to Palin is based upon her gender.

And that my friends, is something we as Americans need to firmly and forthrightly reject. Too bad that the icons of feminism and so-called leaders on behalf of women's rights cannot be bothered to speak out against a return to the most egregious of sexual double standards at the same time they shrilly denounce Palin as unfit for office on the basis of ideology. Why can't they take the time to demand that their side hold a woman to the same standard they would hold a man of their own party?

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