In my mind, the main reason not to like Sarah Palin has simply been that she's a conservative right wing Republican. I try not to let politics become a personal thing. If you let it get personal, then you have to accept the good with the bad about everyone - and it all just cancels anyway. But as long as you keep a fair distance from the candidate personally, and just look at the politics, you can make dispassionate decisions and construct arguments that are free from hyperbole.

That's at least what I normally try to do. But now Governor Palin has pushed me to the point where distance and dispassion are no longer possible.

I have really had it with the hockey mom - who lists among her resume of humbling traits that connect her to common voters, "I'm the mother of a special needs child."

Really? Really, Sarah? You're a special needs mom?

I think not, Sarah. I was your best friend in the Democratic Party, because I WASNT going to take anything you say personally. I don't live in Alaska, I don't watch Saturday Night Live, and I don't automatically dislike Pentacostal Christians. I was just going to vote against you and McCain because you're conservatives, and that's it. But now you've crossed the line.

Governor Palin may have carried a child with Down Syndrome and given birth to it, but she does NOT ... listen carefully ... she does NOT belong on the list with that extraordinary group of women and men who are really special needs parents.

Let me explain the difference between Governor Palin and a real mother of a child with a disability. A real special needs mom is alone in many ways. When we find out that there's something wrong with our infant or young child, we have a choice to make. That choice is this: sacrifice everything and devote your life to the needs of this child, or hand the child off to someone and get it out of your way so that you can get on with your own plans.

I really don't have statistics for how many out of the total choose each of those options, but there are some things I DO know and I can point out. The moms you see at support group meetings, both the moms who RUN the meetings and work and volunteer for organizations like the Autism Society, as well as the moms who just show up for support, all chose the first option. Some may have jobs because they need the income, but there are constant struggles with adequate childcare and horror stories about some babysitter who was cruel to the child. All those who work are consumed by guilt because they know how desperately that child needs their love and attention, and they know that you simply cannot substitute other caregivers without paying a price. The chance that child with a disability will develop and flourish is directly related to the connection that child has with someone who will nurture it. The moms who show up at support meetings are moms who have chosen to forsake their own plans in order to nurture and connect with a child who is at some disadvantage in the world.

Making that choice makes a special needs mom alone. You lose sleep because your child can't sleep well, so you sit up - alone. Your child is sick more often than other children, and each illness carries much more potential danger to your disadvantaged child than to other completely healthy children. So you lose sleep because you worry - alone. You spend all your time connecting with your difficult to reach child because you DON'T want that little person to withdraw and become lost behind the wall that separates them from everyone else. You alone see their laughter and their smiles and their "normal" moments. You know they're in there somewhere, you just have to reach them, and then hold on to them and keep them from slipping away. You realize at some point that you don't really have a lot of friends because this takes all your time. You quit or lose jobs that don't understand that you sometimes have to put the child first. You realize that makeup and hairstyles are luxuries afforded to other women who have more free time than you do.

and THEN, yes keep listening, THEN you start dealing with the school board, teachers - overworked, undertrained. Principals - busy. Special ed departments - underfinanced. You have to fight to get your child admitted to a special ed department, because they are either too "high functioning" and should be placed in regular classes, or they are too "disabled" and belong in a special facility or at home, or maybe you just dont have all the right diagnostic papers and assessments from the right clinics and physicians. Special education classes in the public school system are so underfinanced and understaffed and undersupported that they have a narrow window of conditions under which they will accept a child. So, while you wait to get into special ed, your child sits in a regular classroom, and you get phonecalls and teacher conferences about how disruptive your child's behavior is. "Duh, ya think?" is not an answer you SHOULD give to a teacher or principal in that situation, but eventually, all of us do. You get tired of hearing that your child is a discipline problem. You get tired of hearing people suggest you put the child on medication to make them more quiet and less trouble. As your child gets older, you get tired of consoling a child who comes home crying because for the hundredth time some teacher has called the child "stupid", or has done nothing when other kids pick on the child. In short, school is one ongoing nightmare after another for a special needs child and mom.

Governor Palin wants to appear humble and common and show how connected she is to the lives of every day voters, and she has decided she can appeal to those of us who are special needs moms by calling herself one too. So far, she has taken the first step in earning the right to identify with us. She has pushed a child with a genetic abnormality out of her womb. Sorry, Sarah, but it's not that easy.