Spitzer and Sex Education

In one of those telling front page-back page juxtapositions, the headline news about Eliot Spitzer overwhelms a government study showing that one out of every four American teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

After seven years of a federal government promoting abstinence only, both stories are reminders that the gap between what Americans say in public and do in private has morphed into a chasm of hypocrisy.

As righteous Republicans enjoy the spectacle of a Democratic governor joining the ranks of Larry Craig, David Vitter et al, little attention is being paid to the alarming news about teenagers who don't know or don't care enough to protect themselves from infections that can lead to serious disease.

The MSM media and bloggers are all atwitter with how much Spitzer spent for how long for whose favors, but what is happening to a generation of our children is treated as dry, statistical stuff.

As officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that the findings underscore the need for more screening, vaccination and other prevention measures, 19 million new sexually transmitted infections occur each year. They emphasize that "we must continue developing ways to reach those most at risk.”

Maybe reading about the woes of a careless governor will be a start.

Mismatch: Romney Tackles Obama

Now that his defecating dog has been laid to rest, Mitt Romney is on the offensive, trying to soil Barack Obama. He’s way out of his league.

Seizing on a bill Obama supported in the Illinois state Senate with a provision for age-appropriate sex education, Romney pounced.

"How much sex education is age appropriate for a 5-year-old? In my mind, zero is the right number," he said.

Obama swiveled to let Romney fall on his face.

"We have to deal with a coarsening of the culture and the over-sexualization of our young people,” he told a reporter. “Part of the coarsening of that culture is when politicians try to demagogue issues to score cheap political points.

"What we shouldn't do is to try to play political football with these issues.”

The wire-service story went on to report that in 2002 Romney told Planned Parenthood he supported “teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, factually accurate health and sexuality education” in public schools.

Obama’s football analogy is apt. In 1968, a Republican governor observed that “watching George Romney run for President is like watching a duck trying to make love to a football.”

It’s beginning to look like a family tradition.