McCains, Palins Really, Really Adore Down Syndrome Children

A Rush Limbaugh caller related his recent heartwarming encounter with the McCain and Palin families. The McCain campaign bus pulled into Washington, Pennsylvania where Kurt (the caller) and his family waited for a glimpse of the famous duo. Kurt and his wife have a five-year-old daughter, Chloe, with Down syndrome and held a sign saying “We Love Kids with Down Syndrome.”

The McCain and Palin families saw the sign and gave a thumbs up. The Secret Service approached Kurt and his family and brought them to the campaign bus where they met the candidates and took lots of photos. I don’t know what touched me more — the photo of Sarah Palin holding little Chloe or Cindy McCain holding her hand over her heart.

To read the complete interview transcript with photos, please click here.

Contrast this incredibly beautiful human story with the continued hate which permeates our airwaves and the Internet. The South Carolina Dem leader who said Palin’s apparent only qualification for office is that she didn’t have an abortion. The Canadian OB-GYN who now worries that abortions will go down since Palin didn’t abort her baby. The posting on eBay to bid on a “prop” Palin kid with Down syndrome. Biden chiding Palin for not caring about her son because she opposes embryonic stem cell research. The rumor that Trig is really the child of Bristol Palin.

It is both our finest and worst hours as Americans. The presence and images of Trig Palin in the American consciousness gives newfound admiration for people with disabilities and the families who raise them. The ugly rhetoric illuminates anew the blatant discrimination against infants with disabilities and the audacity of parents who don’t abort them.

Barbara Lyons