Most people who know me realize that, notwithstanding my recent crisis of political faith, I will not be voting for John McCain in November. But as an adoptive mother I have a soft spot in my heart for the McCain family since they are an adoptive family, too.

That soft spot hardened up a bit when Karl
Rove and his henchmen (allegedly) started some push-polling in 2000
about what voters would think if they found out that McCain had
fathered a black child out of wedlock. They were talking about Bridget McCain who was adopted by the McCains from Bangladesh.

Why
am I mad at McCain for what Rove did?? Well, you see, McCain never
spoke out to set the record straight -- he said nothing to stand up for
his youngest daughter. Not only that, but the McCains never told
Bridget. She only found out recently after Googling her name. She was reported to have have asked, "Why does George Bush hate me?"

My heart hardened even further after McCain's announcement that he was against gay adoption. For me, that's just a different way of saying that children are better off in orphanages or being shuffled around in foster care
than being with loving and caring parents. When the you-know-what hit
the fan on that one, McCain back-pedaled, claiming that what he really
meant to say was that adoption shouldn't be regulated by the federal
government and that it should be a state issue -- nice punt.

According to Wonkette:

McCain expressed his personal preference for children to be raised by a mother
and a father wherever possible. However, as an adoptive father himself,
McCain believes children deserve loving and caring home environments,
and he recognizes that there are many abandoned children who have yet
to find homes. McCain believes that in those situations that caring
parental figures are better for the child than the alternative.

blondiewrites at Gay and Lesbian Lifestyles blog is scratching her head over that comment.

Well,
how mighty of him to say that children with no chance of being adopted
by straight couples can have gay parents then. That is like saying if
the pizza comes out burnt, then you can have steak.

And the problem with McCain's state regulation argument is that, as the
McCains and the PunditMom family well know, for international adoptions
like ours, there's plenty of federal involvement and screening,
including federal fingerprinting and background checks. And there are
lots of gay couples who want to adopt internationally. So what about
them, John?

Amy at The Masson Family blog focuses on a special irony:

What
bothers me ... is that this man is assuming that any person is a better
parent if he or she is heterosexual, just by virtue of liking the
opposite sex. It doesn’t matter if they get divorced, beat their kids,
or just move across to DC for a career and leave their family in
Arizona. Apparently a man who is not actively involved in the raising
of children is a better parent than two committed parents who happen to
be of the same gender.
...

Families
can be successful or unsuccessful based on a number of things, but I
think odds are better when you have two loving, devoted, present
parents - regardless of their gender.

If my partner was a woman instead of a man, I be a worse mother to my
child? I don't think so John, but I guess you do. You're not losing my
vote, since you didn't have it in the first place. But when you're
putting yourself out there as a family values kind of guy, maybe
spending a little more time thinking about children who really need
families would be a good first step.

Aside from focusing on politics at a variety of places around the blogosphere, BlogHer Contributing Editor Joanne Bamberger often writes about adoption at her place PunditMSave Nowom.