Hillary Clinton vehemently opposed the State Department’s 2010 decision to use “parent one and two” instead of “mother and father” on U.S. passport applications, according to a newly released email from her time in office.
“I’m not defending that decision, which I disagree [with] and knew nothing about, in front of this Congress,” Clinton scolded in an email to top aides Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan in January of 2011. “I could live [with] letting people in nontraditional families choose another descriptor so long as we retained the presumption of mother and father.”
Clinton asked her aides who was behind the decision, and worried about the controversy it would general from conservative media outlets. “We need to address this today or we will be facing a huge Fox-generated media storm led by Palin et al.,” she wrote, referring to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).
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Actually, it appears that Palin did not scare anyone to do anything. While “Palin et al” was referenced in the email as you noted, there was coverage by Fox News and- predictably, objection from conservatives.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/07/passport-applications-soon-gender-neutral/
“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could
it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to
provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,†Family
Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News
Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex
‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and
violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.â€
So it appears that Clinton was correct, and the “et al”- but not Palin-did actually help created Fox-generated media objection, if not a storm.
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/212239.pdf
The final result appears to be a combination of the 2: If parent information is required, the application asks “Mother/Father/Parent.” Presumably that satisfied all concerned.
You lost me at Paylin. Pffffffttt!