In Friday's Washington Post, gossips Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts reported that Sarah Palin's eldest child Track is divorcing his wife after a little more than a year of marriage. "She keeps her jewelry; he keeps his guns" in the settlement, they joked from the TMZ report.
But in June of 2010, when Al Gore's eldest child Karenna was divorcing, she was a "crisis management" role model like Dear Old Mom and Dad. Check out the difference. Here's Friday's Palin announcement:
Divorcing: Track Palin, 23, and Britta Hanson, 22, who filed a court petition in Alaska to dissolve their marriage, the Associated Press reports. He's Sarah Palin's eldest, the Army reservist, the one who has logged relatively little reality TV time; she's his high school sweetheart. Did you totally forget he was married? Just last year, in May!
One child, the daughter they welcomed a few months later. It sounds like a civil split: TMZ reports that court papers indicate they've worked out the child support and possessions (she keeps her jewelry; he keeps his guns). And now he will likely disappear from your radar again, which is probably fine with him. There is an upside to being the least-famous Palin.
Translation: We would have been so much meaner to you if you were as prominent as your sister Bristol the almost-Bridezilla. The Post gossips reported the birth of their daughter Kyla last year in a blurb, identifying as their family insider source the liberal Palin-bashing author Joe McGinniss.
Then there's the almost-Christmas-card-catchup sound of the Gore piece in 2010, where we learned being the most-prominent Gore child generally gets you book deals and warm media wishes:
Barely a week after Al and Tipper Gore announced their separation, their eldest daughter has publicly parted from Drew Schiff, her doctor-financier husband of 13 years, in similar put-it-out-there-and-clear-the-air fashion. The former veep and his wife announced their surprise split in a joint e-mail to friends; the Gore-Schiff separation was shared Wednesday with People, a magazine on good terms with political dynasties, by friends to ward off any ugly gossip. The N.Y.C.-based parents of three children, they said, are in counseling together, and not yet moving toward divorce.
At one point, Karenna, 36, -- an active and out-front part of her father's 2000 presidential campaign -- seemed the most likely of the four Gore kids (more on the others later) to follow her dad and grandfather to Capitol Hill. In 1996, though, when she was a recent Harvard grad headed for law school, she met Schiff, the scion of an old-money finance family. They married in July 1997 -- just nine months later -- before 300 guests at Washington National Cathedral (where her parents wed), followed by a reception at the vice presidential mansion, with Aretha Franklin singing. She was 23, he was 31.
Other than writing the kind of inspirational tome that sometimes paves the way for a political career -- "Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America," in 2006 -- she has kept a low profile, friends say, focused on volunteering, a documentary project and being a mom. Schiff, now 44, works for a biotech investment company.
So what about all those other Gores? Kristin, 32, wrote two successful political chick-lit novels and a screenplay, "Nailed," which got an A-listy treatment with Jake Gyllenhaal and director David O. Russell before production got held up by financing problems. Last year, she and husband Paul Cusack divorced.
Sarah, 31, wed businessman Bill Lee in 2007. A former med student, she's now focusing on art, friends say, and like Kristin, she's based on the West Coast.
Albert III, 27, earlier this year joined Strategic Capital Partners, a real-estate investment firm, as a VP for business development in the N.Y.C. office.
(HT: Dan Gainor)
