Yesterday, Politico published a lengthy piece by Jonathan Martin called, “Sarah Palin is wreaking havoc on the campaign trail, GOP sources say.” It’s a pretty normal flow of information, until you get to this:

“There is an enormous volume of requests for Gov. Palin to do all kinds of activities to help the party and individual candidates,” said Michael Goldfarb, an adviser to Palin. “She’s done as many of these events as she possibly can.”

He framed it as a matter of Palin putting her family first.

“People lose sight of the fact that this is a woman with certain responsibilities that other major figures in the Republican Party don’t have — in her case, five kids, one of whom is very young,” Goldfarb said.

I know when I read it I thought, “Aw man – you did not just say that – you did NOT just say that – did you just say that?”

Some of you are probably thinking, “What’d he say! What’d he say!” Here’s what he said:

…this is a woman with certain responsibilities that other major figures in the Republican Party don’t have — in her case, five kids, one of whom is very young.

Thank you, Michael, for highlighting the ultimate double standard that women in politics face: The menz simply are not expected or thought of as having responsibilities to their families. Period. End of story. No debate.

Read the whole story on why what Goldfarb said is the oldest double standard and chauvinist trope in the book here at Women and Politics.