Sarah and Todd as Role Models

Michelle Cottle, apparently in earnest:

But just when I’d written off young Bristol as too tiresome even for late-night tabloid reading, a throwaway quote from her lawyer in Wednesday’s WaPo made me reassess her whole relationship with Levi. Offering his armchair analysis of the love bird’s most recent troubles (beyond Johnston’s being a juicy slice of trailer trash, of course), attorney Rex Butler mused: “[Bristol] doesn’t want him in Hollywood. … She wants him to sort of be like Todd Palin in the background while she does the running around. Levi, on the other hand, is not ready to settle into that role.”

I ask you: How awesome is that? It seems Bristol Palin has been raised to assume that a man’s role is that of supportive helpmeet, that it is Dad who’s supposed to keep the home fires burning while Mom goes out and sets the world on fire. If that’s not a progressive perspective on gender roles, I don’t know what is. Way to fly that feminist flag, Sarah! And, oh yes, you too Todd.

I’m serious here. Sarah Palin may be the worst thing to happen to reasoned political discourse since Joe McCarthy, but teaching her daughter that women aren’t born to play second fiddle is an impressive feat—particularly in the macho environs of rural Alaska—and one that many conventional feminists still have plenty of trouble with. . . .

This is no way to suggest that Todd is an emasculated girly man. Commercial salmon fishing and working the North Slope oil fields are the stuff of many a manly legend. By traditional guy standards, the strong but silent Todd is more macho than the legions of cigar-chomping peacocks strutting around the steak houses of Washington. Which makes him an equally valuable role model, especially for the tradition-minded right-wingers who comprise the bulk of Palin worshippers: See, guys? Just because your wife is a bigger deal than you doesn’t mean you’re a wuss.

So, while Bristol is still young and foolish and clearly has plenty of adolescent angst left to work through, I remain optimistic about her future. Whatever else she may have learned from mom (and dad), it’s cheering to think that she absorbed at least one revolutionary lesson: Behind every great woman there is a great man.