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GOP Congressman's Daughter Tweeted About Contraception, Media Descends
CMR ^ | March 5, 2012 | Matthew Archbold

Posted on 03/06/2012 6:12:16 AM PST by NYer

A pro-life Congressman in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood has six children, one of whom tweeted that she was picking up contraception at Planned Parenthood.

Now the media, which is currently, obsessed with lecturing conservatives on civility in the discussion of contraception and religious liberty, is descending and dragging the Congressman's daughter into the spotlight.

Roll Call's "Heard on the Hill" column reports:

Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R) has six kids, and HOH has a favorite! Her name is Maggie Fitzpatrick, and she’s a young co-ed and a prolific tweeter without a filter.

Her tweets chronicle the life of an average upper-middle-class college girl, which is only made fascinating because she is a Congressman’s daughter. Her feed includes your standard tweets: underage drinking in the Capitol, being annoyed by activists while trying to pick up her birth control at Planned Parenthood — just a few among hundreds.

On Jan. 5, 2011, Maggie’s dad and the rest of the 112th Congress was sworn in to office. Fitzpatrick and his buddy Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) decided to take the oath via television, rather than trek from the Capitol Visitor Center to the House floor.

It was an embarrassing incident for Fitzpatrick and Sessions, but another embarrassing incident was happening at the same time!

Maggie, not yet 21, twittered at 4:08 p.m, “if ya havent noticed im drunk. and in the capital. this might end terrible.”

If we hadn’t noticed in 2011, we certainly took note in 2012, when an older and wiser Maggie tweeted at her friend: “haha that awkward moment when your drunk in the capital building at a swearing in + your being judged #congressmansdaughterproblems.”

Maggie ran into more problems last October.

“[P]rotest outside of planned parenthood right now,” she tweeted. “[C]razy people yelling at me about abortion, I just want my birth control #backthef—off.”

Fitzpatrick, by the way, voted last year to curtail federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
This is pretty unconscionable by the media.

And, you see, the media will say that they're not just tearing a family apart because they disagree with the Dad's politics. They say they're pointing out the hypocrisy. Another columnist seems to argue the incident is relevant because Fitzpatrick tells people all the time about how proud he is of his kids. The columnist wrote today:

It’s not exactly a case of a congressman’s daughter gone wild, but Margaret Rose Fitzpatrick hasn’t been toeing the line of her conservative Catholic upbringing at college, according to her rather salty Twitter feed...

Maggie, for reasons only Maggie knows, went public with the nose-thumbing, creating fodder for her father’s critics and political gossip hounds. This can’t be easy for a man who fosters the notion the Fitzpatricks are a picture-perfect family, trotting his very bright, very attractive kids out for campaigns and public events.

Within 20 minutes of most any conversation I’ve ever had with the congressman on any subject, he reminds me he has six children to whom he and their mother are devoted.

He has very proudly parented in public when the parenting was easy. “Meet my daughter Maggie,” he would say as she stood dutifully by his side at the polls.

Parenting her in public now is a whole other thing.
Mike Fitzpatrick has asked the media to allow his daughter to have a private life.

“Every parent faces the same challenges of raising children in a complicated world,” Fitzpatrick told Roll Call. “Parenting is made more difficult in the age of Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes children say or do things that you disagree with, but you love them unconditionally. My daughter Maggie is a young college student. This is a matter that my wife Kathy and I will handle privately.”

Privately? No. You're a Republican. You and your family don't get privacy.


TOPICS: Current Events; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: catholic; gop; mikefitzpatrick; pennsylvania; plannedparenthood
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1 posted on 03/06/2012 6:12:19 AM PST by NYer
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To: netmilsmom; thefrankbaum; Tax-chick; GregB; saradippity; Berlin_Freeper; Litany; SumProVita; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 03/06/2012 6:12:55 AM PST by NYer (He who hides in his heart the remembrance of wrongs is like a man who feeds a snake on his chest. St)
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To: NYer

she does sound like a Twit. Poor parents I guess.


3 posted on 03/06/2012 6:23:55 AM PST by MNDude
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To: NYer; lilycicero; MaryLou1; glock rocks; JPG; VinceASA; Monkey Face; RIghtwardHo; pieces of time; ..
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.


4 posted on 03/06/2012 6:27:26 AM PST by narses
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To: NYer
The left treats politics as war and the right looks for comity and civility. Conservatives are endlessly shocked at what the left does as a matter of strategy and tactics - they shouldn't be.
5 posted on 03/06/2012 6:30:38 AM PST by Truth29
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To: MNDude

—she does sound like a Twit. Poor parents I guess.—

I have three twenty something daughters. If our situation was the same as this families the tweets would be the equivalent of thumbing their nose at me. They are not stupid enough to do it for any other reason. Not that they would do it for the former reason, but you get my drift:

Either this girl is an idiot, or she’s doing it to damage her father on purpose. There are really no other rational options.


6 posted on 03/06/2012 6:43:53 AM PST by cuban leaf (Were doomed! Details at eleven.)
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To: NYer
What does it matter? This is between GOD, the girl and her parents. kerry’s daughter appears in France in a see through dress that required absolutely no imagination for the details of any parts of her anatomy... the left marveled at her “beauty”... just that old double media standard that is killing America and her soul.

LLS

7 posted on 03/06/2012 6:44:52 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!)
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To: Truth29

To a large degree you are correct. If conservatives do not wake up to this we and our dear America are destined for the dustbin of history.

You have been able to count on every time some conservative takes off the kid gloves, another “can’t we all just get along” compassionate conservative tries to shame us back to their meek thinking. Look around, its easy to see where it got us.


8 posted on 03/06/2012 6:50:08 AM PST by X-spurt (Its time for ON YOUR FEET or on your knees)
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To: NYer

Note to self ... never become a politician so that my family will not be under the MSM’s microscope.

Funny how there was so much focus on the Bush girls, but little about Clinton or Obama’s daughters. Media = hypocrites.


9 posted on 03/06/2012 6:59:22 AM PST by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)
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To: Truth29
The left treats politics as war

And war as politics.

10 posted on 03/06/2012 7:00:55 AM PST by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)
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To: LibLieSlayer
http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/kerry.asp Snopes has the pic, which I don't think meets FR standards. Alexandra Kerry's got a good body but rather unfortunately inherited her father's face. I don't see her attire as relevant to Kerry, nor is the current story relevant to the GOP Congressman. Kerry wasn't demanding that we pay for his daughter's wardrobe, nor is this Congressman's daughter demanding that we pay for her pills. It's a non-issue, at least outside that family.
11 posted on 03/06/2012 7:05:33 AM PST by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)
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To: al_c

Obama’s daughters are adolescents and need to be left out of politics altogether. OTOH, Bush’s daughters were in college, and while they should have been left out of the news, at least one of them regularly behaved like a fool in public.


12 posted on 03/06/2012 7:15:10 AM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: achilles2000

Twitter is for twits.


13 posted on 03/06/2012 7:41:32 AM PST by CarmichaelPatriot
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To: CarmichaelPatriot

Twitter reflects the infantilization of the culture...


14 posted on 03/06/2012 7:46:21 AM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: achilles2000
Obama’s daughters are adolescents and need to be left out of politics altogether. OTOH, Bush’s daughters were in college, and while they should have been left out of the news, at least one of them regularly behaved like a fool in public.

I completely understand about Obama's daughters and agree. But how much of the Bush twins was because of stupidity, and how much was because of the spotlight on them. Case in point ... getting caught trying to by drinks at Chuy's. What college kid doesn't try to buy liquor even when under age? And for the manager to call 911 over that is an abuse of the emergency call system.

My point was and still is ... there is a double-standard on Dem/GOP offspring. Dems are off limits and rarely, if ever, discussed. GOP offspring are fair game.

15 posted on 03/06/2012 7:54:40 AM PST by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)
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To: cuban leaf

I have three twenty something daughters too (well the youngest, also a Maggie, is about to turn 20 next month) and I absolutely agree with you about the thumbing her nose at her father analysis.

One of mine is a 2L in law school and the other a sophomore in college (the oldest is about to get married) and they are both very attractive, smart and not interested in the birth control hooking up college scene that so many of their peers were sucked into.

I don’t mean to come off as bragging, I am pointing out that it can be done. Both of my daughters are far more attractive than the Fluke (wo?)man (lesbo?) and do not partake in the hooking up. They have fun and are not the goody two shoes types, either.

I just don’t understand why so many of these young women blindly follow the crowd birth control abortion crowd, even when raised not to.


16 posted on 03/06/2012 8:05:34 AM PST by stonehouse01 (Equal rights for unborn women)
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To: achilles2000

If you use Twitter for the stereotypical purpose, to make it all about you, then yes, I would agree. However, just like any other online tool (Free Republic, for example), it can be used to spread news and get your message out.


17 posted on 03/06/2012 8:07:35 AM PST by Pyro7480 (Viva Cristo Rey!)
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To: stonehouse01

-——I just don’t understand why so many of these young women blindly follow the crowd birth control abortion crowd, even when raised not to.-——

Looking back at my college years, I remember that few kids, even the ones who took their faith somewhat seriously, were very poorly formed.

The default, bottom-line belief was relativism. If it works for you, fine. If it feels good, it’s OK.

Most importantly, since they don’t possess a positive vision (they don’t know who they are or where they’re going —child of God whose object is Heaven) they default their way through their decisions, generally taking the path of least resistance.

They also pick up behavioral cues from a grab bag of sources: TV, magazines, peers, school, etc.

I was pretty confused myself at that age, having both Jesus and Mick Jagger as heros, not even recognizing the contradiction. I spent my twenties sorting things out, and figuring out what the hell happened.

We don’t do kids any favors by leaving them ignorant.


18 posted on 03/06/2012 8:22:00 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas (Viva Christo Rey!)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

Very well stated - I wasn’t exactly on very firm ground in my college days myself. I have subsequently blamed much of it in the poor catechesis that was mostly just pop psychology with a few catholic words thrown in here that passed for formation. This was the Diocese of Rochester - the lack of understanding of the foundational truths that catholicism is based on is due to poor catechesis and is rampant today. I strongly suspect that this watering down was deliberately introduced by liberation theologian/marxist/atheist “theologians” who were trying to topple the church from within (and nearly succeeding),but that is another topic.

My 14 year old daughter’s religion class is fluff and very relativistic. The idea of a Truth that can be known is not taught - carefully avoided, in fact, in favor of the god of relativism as you point out. I only have her in it so she can make her confirmation so she can get married in the church. The important basics of the Faith (original sin, the Trinity, the Incarnation/Redemption/hypostatic union) I teach her myself.


19 posted on 03/06/2012 8:40:28 AM PST by stonehouse01 (Equal rights for unborn women)
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To: Pollster1
snopes is a leftist owned site. You are free to believe as you wish... to me... this Congressman's daughter posting something is his family's business. She enjoys her 1st Amendment rights as much as we do. We do not stop the left from speaking lies... even though we disagree... they are the ones that do that. BTW... my point was that there is a double standard for Conservatives... are you arguing otherwise?

LLS

20 posted on 03/06/2012 9:12:43 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!)
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