"...Passed Around Like a Football"

From the associate editor of the American School Board Journal, who's covered special-needs education for 12 years:

"...I found myself in a conversation with four other women about balancing work, child care, and how to maximize a maternity leave. One of the women has a 9-month-old child, three of us are pregnant, the fifth is a pediatrician. I didn’t know any of their political affiliations, but I quickly learned that they were not impressed with Palin....

"I kept coming back to my conversations with parents of children in special education, and the sacrifices they made -— sometimes, they didn’t have a choice -- in their careers and personal lives to raise a child with special needs. We all know the early months and years are critically important to administer therapies and interventions that can help a child’s development, and seeing images of Palin’s 5-month-old baby being passed around like a football at the GOP convention convinced me that she doesn’t understand the responsibilities of parenting a special-needs infant or the responsibilities of being vice president."