McCain official to Stephanopoulos: Dem Attack Will “Backfire Spectacularly”

The dems are the last people she has to worry about. How about those holier-than-thou evangelicals.

Why would the Dems attack? Obama’s going to stay far away from this, obviously.
But gee, guys, thanks for the warning shot.

Seems as though Sarah needs to spend more time at home, not on the campaign trail. Any woman can have a child, but it takes a real mother to raise one. She needs to teach her daughtet first and formemost about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and secondly about he enormous responsibilites of being a single mother. Forcng the young man to marry her at such a young age is not the answer, not even from a political perspective.

Surely the Democrats are not going to be picking on a 17 year old pregnant girl to make a point…..and if so what would that point be? That no matter how well you raise your children they have sex in their teens and they end up pregnant….oh and by the way for the idiot who mentioned evangelicals….I suspect they are happy she is keeping the baby as opposed to say the daughters of Obama who would have it aborted to save them from the “mistake”….yes little lemmings lets play this game.

I doubt that the Dems will attack at alll. Why should they.
If the GOP starts to sink just get out of the way. The American people will come to their own conclusions.
I doubt VERY SERIOUSLY that McCain new about this at all. This goes to show you that the McCain team did NOT vet Sarah Palin thoroughly at all.
I expect MORE things to come out soon.
Stay tuned…

she wont have the real problems of young parenthood, daddy and mommy have money. Nice to say leave the children alone everytime someone says that, I cant help but be reminded of how the gop and media attacked a young chelesa clinton based on her looks. Chelesa was fair game everyone else off limits? Doesnt seem fair.

why is it a “bomb” to have a pregnant daughter? as a TRUE progressive – not a lame democrat – i believe that there is nothing stigmatizing about a teenage pregnancy. she should have abstained or used birth control….but she is not evil and neither are her parents, just because she’s pregnant. what happened to progressives? you guys are so fake.

The Dems won’t go after it. The public will draw up their own opinion.
Her 17 years old daughter is pregnant and her youngest child as down syndrome. Why is running for VP?
This is about jugdement. The public will make their opinion.

For several days, a growing scrutiny about Sarah Palin’s April 2008 pregnancy has evolved into a contentious debate and call for unbiased media investigation. Citing numerous mainstream-media sources, several sites have indicated that it was Bristol Palin’s, the Gov.’s 16 yr-old daughter, not Sarah Palin herself, who birthed the child. Palin has on numerous occasions invoked the child, who was born with Down Syndrome, as support of her pro-life views, allowing what should be a private family event to become a partisan campaign topic. A number of sources questioned why Palin, who is a trim woman who typically dresses in form-fitting clothing, did not announce her pregnancy until she was 8 months in and why not even her closest advisors felt she showed any signs of pregnancy until after Palin made the announcement. Further, Palin’s daughter was taken out of school for the last 4-5 months of the pregnancy term. An article by a Texas news agency questions Palin’s bizarre late-term behavior wherein she appeared distressed at a 4/18 governor’s conference in Texas and explained that her distress was due to her water breaking. Nonetheless, Palin remained in Texas for several more hours to deliver a speech, boarded a 8 hour+ series of flight to Alaska, and took a bizarre lengthy car ride to a remote location with no media.
Palin has been quick to defend her family and today reports that her 16-year old daughter is in fact NOW pregnant. Palin explains that this should put to bed the rumors. However, quite frankly, I think it’s only going to fuel the fire since Palin herself admits that her daughter is in fact sexually active, and the timeline of her daughter’s pregnancy does not exactly refute in any way the fact that Bristol Palin could have delivered the first child as well. WILL A MAJOR MEDIA NETWORK PLEASE CONDUCT A FAIR INVESTIGATION SO WE CAN MOVE ON????

HHAHA HA HAHHAA HA HA HA HA AHAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only person this will backfire on is Palin. Especially if the real truth comes out. Allowing her daughter to have liberties to the point of getting pregnant at 17 is nothing to be proud of. This is what most mothers dread the most. and going around with an illegitimate baby for five months and being forced to marry at 17 after pressure from the web bloggers? Women will not rally around this candidate for she is no example of motherhood like Hillary Clinton. This is disgraceful. And her politics sways with the wind to the point of forcing her daughter to marry at 17.

I don’t see the problem here, teenagers are having babies left and right, what’s the difference?

McCain should have used better judgement in slecting his VP. Now the entire campaign has become a National Enquirer media circus.

sarah 2 – your post is pathetic. who said that she forced her daughter to get married? it even said the daughter “decided” to keep the child. good grief. you people aren’t even serious.
ps: teens have sex. it doesnt mean that they have bad parents. historically, 17 was almost an old age for marrying….

Barb, don’t blame me. Blame the mother for putting politics ahead of FAMILY VALUES! This kid is only 17, and this may very well be her second child. Something is not right is this apparently perfect household. Who in their right mind wants to get married at 17? And, how many people do you know that go married at 17 and are still married?

“HE WHO IS WITH OUT SIN CAST THE FRIST
STONE”

I think a lot of smug people all too often forget candidates, and their families, are still human and face the same type of things average Americans do. Anyone who uses this as a reason to vote for or against someone needs to take a look at their own lives and not cast stones. Being a child of a candidate, no matter how well they are raised, does not exempt teenagers from the same temptations and problems facing all teenagers. Some of you need to get a life.

The difference is that when Obama’s daughters get pregnant in the White House they will have an abortion.

According to Obama for this “mistake” she is being ‘punished with a baby.’ At least he put it that way for his daughters.

Teen pregnancy = BAD PARENTING SKILLS!

The only people who will be judgemental of Sarah Palin are young parents of small children who have no idea what is coming ahead of them. All of us who have have raised our families know that there are problems and you have to step up and handle each one given to you.My girlfriend has a gay son that she has had to learn to embrace despite religious teachings. Another friend dealt with her kid’s drug problems, one whose child had an anxiety disorder. My child gave up a scholarship at a highly regarded private school this week to go to our local state college which I am still trying to adjust to. If she is a mother, she has challenges. Being vice-president is nothing in comparison. This makes her all the more human to me
although I know it is difficult. How many of us have looked at our kids and said,”Well this isn’t the life I had planned for you.” All you can do as a parent is adjust.

I can say from experience that my parents were wonderful, supportive parents who were deeply conservative. They did their best to keep me safe and away from bad influences, but to be blunt, like a lot of kids with parents like mine (and the Palins) we rebelled. My parents (and the Palins) cannot be blamed because they did their level best.
The fact that they stand up for their daughter and welcome her baby says so, so much about Palin’s integrity.

I am so sick of the sexist “democrats” saying Palin should be at home.
Equal rights is something we Democrats are supposed to be in favor of. Those “democrats” saying this are making real Democrats look like nasty, snotty, backwards-thinking snobs.

It is admirable that Bristol has decided to have the baby although I have concerns about a 17 year old marrying and having a baby. I have a lot of compassion for Bristol–her mother has just exposed her private life to the world. This is what her mother calls support? Support would have been turning down the VP spot–and I would feel the same way if a male had exposed his daughter’s private life like this.

I am so sick of the sexist “democrats” saying Palin should be at home.
Matt, Sarah Palin is the one who put so much emphasis on FAMILY VALLUES! I am not saying she needs to be a home, but I am saying stop bieng a hypocrite about it. Either you believe in family values or you don’t. If you do, you live by that creed. If you don’t, you simply talk about it as if you do!

That’s Bristol’s SECOND pregnancy.
Sarah Pollen claimed the first child as her own!
And don’t believe the ‘five months pregnant’ claim.
Five IS JUST A CONVENIENT NUMBER to that the Pollens hope to use and deceive Americans with Trig’s birth in April.
An April birth of Bristol’s Trig means that Bristol CANNOT be 5 months pregnant!
And Americans should be wary of the REAL father of Trig on account of his Down Syndrome!
There is no way that a 40 something year old woman (risky pregnancy) is going to have her ‘water break’ and travel 8 hours on a plane to go CONVENIENTLY deliver the baby in Alaska.
Sarah Pollen is either LYING about her ‘last’ pregnancy, or Sara Pollen is insane, like McCain! lol
Either case, very very bad judgment!
Poor leader, especially poor leader for would-be mothers of ALL ages!

NO Experience, NO Family Values, NO VP. This family would serve as a very poor role model for a society already burdened with teenage pregnacies. Great pick John! Is there anything else you think we ought to know?

Come November 5,2008 McCain political obituary will be announced.Too bad. My concern is, Sarah Palin, she is young and has future.Do not identify yourself with Mr.Same,McBush! A word of advice.Go OBAMA/BIDEN 2008 & 2012

What a mistake?! Out of all the highly qualified women in this country, this poorly vetted choice was by far the worse pick! Say what you will about Obama, but judging by the way he has ran his flawless campaign and the manner in which he chose his VP—I think he is well on his way to being the next President. It’s all about judgement, of which McCain apparently has none.

The palins just get weirder and weirder. Outside the US she’s already seen as a bible-bashing, moose-eating, abortion-fighting, global warming denying gun-nut weirdo. And thats without taking her family into account! and to think she could be a heartbeat away…. very scary.

Has my opinion of Sarah Palin changed? Absolutely not. It’s not her fault.
If Obama’s daughter was 16 or 17 and got pregnant, I wouldn’t blame him either, and I would not suggest it’s his fault.
Kids sometimes do what they want, regardless of their parents positions.
I didn’t realize we had the right to be so disgustingly judgemental.

Ticker, we are simply exercising our first amendment rights. Anyone using this blog is considered a blogger– irrespective of party affiliation. If you can’t stand the heat….you know the rest.

Outside the US palin’s already seen as a bible-bashing, moose-eating, abortion-fighting, global warming denying gun-nut weirdo. to think she could be a heartbeat away…. very scary.
This is headline news on the BBC by the way… no mention if it on Fox news…. hmmmmmmmmmm……….

What if Obama had been flushed when his mom Ann found out she was pregnant and not married to BO Sr…….she was three months pregnant when they married, I believe. Wonder if she considered aborting Barack Hussein?

Kids sometimes do what they want, regardless of their parents positions.
Posted by: patrick
And when their parents take “positions” like this, it’s easy to see why their kids do what they want:
http://flickr.com/photos/anikascreations/2813457482/sizes/o/
She may not have a future as a VP, but don’t bet against her in a wet t-shirt contest.

I don’t see this hurting the GOP. I think, that in front of national scrutiny, Palin will take on the media and will defend her family. As far as the Evangelical vote, I don’t see this detouring their support.

I would not be surprised if Sarah Palin hastily withdraws from this race. There are too many unknowns surfacing, especially surrounding the birth of her last child.

I think it’s ridiculous that people who defend Palin attack Obama and his daughters with the “if they were pregnant they’d have an abortion” LIE. Obama would actually teach his daughters about safe sex and contraception. If they got pregnant regardless he’d allow them the make their own informed choice, probably encouraging them to keep the child, but accepting any choice they made.
Stop pretending you know what Obama is thinking. He’s a Christian and he wants the number of abortions to decrease in the country. One way to do that is to stop pretending abstinence-only program works, it doesn’t and never did, this Palin case doesn’t change that one bit in any way.

One of McCain’s campaign slogans is:
“Put Country First”
The problem is, Governor Sarah Palin wants to put Alaska first.
Here she is giving a speech, as Governor, at the Alaska Independence Party’s Convention. The AIP wants to secede from the United States, then fund their new state using revenues from Alaska’s oil and gas resources. Not Very Patriotic.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/1/4231/18477/878/581881

Kevin, that’s exactly what is heating up the blogs today…Sarah’s last child might very well be her grandson. I don’t know if it is true, but it’s avery HOT topic today.

I do wish Republicans would stop celebrating her “EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE”.
Her executive experience consists in the main of inheriting a budget flusn – No exploding – with revenue given a trebling in the price of oil over the last year.
50% – an entire 1/2 of Alaska’s state budget in 2007 came from record oil revenues.
Anyone would look like a good executive with so much money to spend.
Executive Experience? She has the executive experience of a Saudi Prince who has a hard time figuring out how to spend his billions.

Gov. Palin’s LIES:
In Dayton, on Friday, Gov. Palin claimed as one of her signuture accomplishments the squashing of Alaska’s famous “Bridge to Nowhere”.
This was an out an out lie. She deserves no credit for terminating that project.
In fact, she was elected as Governor, in part, because she claimed she would fight to save the “Bridge to Nowhere”.
She only changed her mind when the (Democratic) Congress old her it was cutting Federal funding in half.
She was absulutely content to pay for this boondoggle when federal funds paid for it, she only terminated the project when faced with paying for it out of the Alaskan state budget!
Incidentally, although the “Bridge to Nowhere” is no longer being built, a multi-million dollar access road to that bridge, i.e. the “Road to Nowhere” is still being built, although there is no longer any reason to build it.
Why? Because it is still being paid for with federal funds. !!!;-)
Some reformer! LOL

So, another evolution in the principles underlying the Democrats. Now, if a woman has young children, she should be criticized for continuing to pursue her career and should be suspect because she may become pregnant again and not be able to devote herself properly to her job.
So can companies now decline to place women in critical roles, because they may become pregnant, and be clean with the Democrats?

Let’s put McCain and Palin on that bridge to nowhere in November.

Prominent religious conservatives, many of whom have been lukewarm toward McCain’s candidacy, predicted that Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy would not diminish conservative Christian enthusiasm over the vice presidential hopeful.
“I think it’s a very private matter,” said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America. “It’s a matter that should stay in the family and they have to work through it together. My prayers go out to them.”
Added Combs: “We’re excited about the governor and think she’s going to do well.”
Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: “We’re all sinners.”
“We all make mistakes. Certainly, the ideal is not to get pregnant out of wedlock. But she made the right decision after her mistake,” he said.
Staver also criticized anyone who would seek to make it a negative campaign issue: “It’s absolutely shameful to put her child in the spotlight. She’s not running for office. When someone can’t face issues, they try to tear down a family.”

Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: “We’re all sinners.”
“We all make mistakes. Certainly, the ideal is not to get pregnant out of wedlock. But she made the right decision after her mistake,” he said.
Staver also criticized anyone who would seek to make it a negative campaign issue: “It’s absolutely shameful to put her child in the spotlight. She’s not running for office. When someone can’t face issues, they try to tear down a family.”
******
Exactly what the Obama supporters are doing at this moment. McCain is right…this will blow up in the Democrats face. Bristol is not running for VP, Sarah is.

Maybe they don’t believe in birth control but in this day and age with Aids why wouldn’t they use a condom. It’s not just her, it’s all these pregnant teens. Are they just stupid.

The comments from the obama GANG are a DISGRACE to your guy!
Obama was born to an unwed mother – then she gave him to his grandparents -
SO What – guess that’s OK.
Experience of Palin – she is a GOV and is running for VICE Pres
OBama has ZERO experience and is trying to be President of the USA.
Age of McCain – HOW OLD IS BIDEN????
BACK OFF!

Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits,” Obama said, “and people’s children are especially off limits.
“This shouldn’t be part of our politics,” he continued, “It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.
“And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories,” he said. “You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits.”
******
Thank you, Sen. Obama, for supporting Gov. Palin in this….a sincere thank you!
McCain/Palin 08!

David from Texas,
If the Palin family wanted to keep the pregnancy private then they shouldn’t have said anything.
Palin was the one who spilled the details of her daughter’s pregancy, not the media or any of the pundits for that matter.
To make the attempt to prempitivly put shame on anyone who chooses to discuss the matter is itself shameful.
People are not putting blame on the daugher, we are simply pointing out the sheer hypocisy of the GOP’s version of Christian family values. They are the first ones to put shame on anyone who uses contraception, or chooses to have an abortion. The GOP “Christians” can’t have it both ways.

Leftist arrogance will probably mask an underlying leftist terror over Sarah Palin’s power to attract voters. The question which will not be examined is whether she is more or less qualified than Barack Obama to be President. Read:
http://christianprophecy.blogspot.com/

Bristol’s preganancy SHOULD be a private matter, but IS NOT because her mother has chosen to use her personal life, her private life to advance her political career.
You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t invite the public to vote for you because of you and your family and what it is supposed to represent – a SUPER MOM, the living exemplar of evangelical principles, and then tell the public to look the other way when something to embarass that picture occurs.
Does Bristol’s pregnancy tell us anything about Gov. Palin? It tells us a couple of things
1. She is willing to sacrifice her daughter’s privacy in order to grab for the brass ring.
2. It suggests that “Teaching Abstinence only” (one of the Governor’s public political positions) to your kids may not be the most effective sex education.
3. It suggests that a family, where the mother is Governor of a State, and the father is absent from the family for one out of every two weeks, may not be the best parenting model. While Gov. Palin CLAIMS to have struck a remarkable balance between work and life, maybe she – or her husband, have not been providing their kids with as much guidance as they should.
While the cat’s away the mice will play…
Parenting in absentia is no way to raise kids.

A sickly and 72 year old McCain, and Sarah Palin, who can’t raise her own children, as VP……that’s a scary thought. Is there another VP in the history of this nation whose child became pregnant out of wedlock at 17? I am just curious. After 8 years of GW Bush,I will never settle for this crap again.

Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University School of Law, said: “We’re all sinners.”
“We all make mistakes. Certainly, the ideal is not to get pregnant out of wedlock. But she made the right decision after her mistake,” he said.
Just what a pregnant 17 year old needs to hear…She’s a sinner and made a mistake…Why would her mother put her through this:( Truly sad!

Hey David from Texas,
Calling Obama supporters stupid doesn’t make you smarter, just more of a hypocrite.
In the middle of your insult, you passed judgment on Obama simply because he was raised by a single mom. That’s all these so-called GOP Christians so is pass judgment. That’s the hypocrisy that people are pointing out.
The GOP Christians claim that contraception is a sin and that it encourages teens to have sex. Some type of protection is better than none at all. And by simply telling teens to not have sex before they get married shouldn’t be the only form of sex education.

The main argument here is that clearly Palin wasn’t properly vetted. There is no way that the McCain campaign could have known all of this and still chose to pick her.
I bet Romney, Pawlenty and Ridge are laughing their butts off!!

What is wrong with people? Why are you not concerned at all about issues? Are you all seriously that threatened by a strong, intelligent woman that you have to dig up crap that has ZERO to do with her ability to be vice president? Is this ALL you have? Wow, a 17 year old is having sex. Shocking. Stop the presses. It would be much more surprising if she weren’t, frankly. Now let’s leave the candidates’ children OUT of the arguments and focus on the issues like adults.
And those of you who are perpetrating the rumors that the youngest Palin child is actually that of the oldest? Let me tell you, if lies and slander are all that you have to try to defeat the character of Sarah Palin, then you will have a very, very, VERY difficult time getting your candidate a seat into the White House.
FYI: Barack Obama’s mother was a teenager when he was born. If he’s your candidate, you have no grounds dismissing Gov. Palin for standing by her pregnant daughter and for wishing to keep a MINOR out of the spotlight. For the love of all that is good and holy, have a little bit of integrity.
This is as disgusting as I’ve seen the blogosphere get. All of you should be sending letters of apology to the Palins, to every parent who has stood by and supported a pregnant teen, and to every young man or woman who has dealt with an unplanned pregnancy.

@Davis:
Another claim that deserves more attention is her claim to “Executive Experience”. I’ve said elsewhere that this claim is also very shaky, since the bulk of Alaska’s state budget is based on oil revenues, and her tenure just happened to coincide with a trebling of the price of oil.
In my view, this gives her the “Executive Experience” of a Saudi Sheikh. Any Governor – even the most incompetent – would look good spending record windfalls.
Given the country’s current energy crisis, the last thing the United States needs is someone with the executive experience of a Saudi Prince.

M@cchiavelli,
Here’s a couple of stories you might enjoy. These guys don’t fool around at Thinkprogress…
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/30/palin-wanted-nowhere-bridges/
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/31/mccain-bridge-nowhere/

tamdar,
It looks to me like “the Media” is the only ones pursuing the pregnancy story.
Not anyone in the Obama campaign…
There are bigger political “fish to fry” relating to this sloppy VP pick of Sarah Palin by McCain!
See my posts above…
Bye, bye McCain……

So standing by a pregnant daughter is not a family value? And any household where a teen has sex and gets pregnant is poorly run? Any mother whose teenage daughter gets pregnant is directly at fault in that pregancy?
***************************************
Teaching your daughter about AIDS and the responsibilities of a sinlge mother before she gets pregnant are family values. Sarah and the republicans are the ones that put all this emphasis on the Palin’s family being a role model for America….but that was before they found out that little Bristol was pregnant. Now, you say we are mean and insensitive for exposing this faux family. It is what it is!!

@ Deidra:
Sorry, but Gov. Palin and John McCain INVITED the American public to look at her as a SuperMom, they made questions of sex-education, reproductive issues, abortion, central to this campaign by making Gov. palin’s personal choices and biography central to her claim on our attention.
We have done so. Let us draw our own conclusions about what any of this means.
Only yesterday, evagelicals were telling all and sundry to look at Gov. Palin’s decision to carry an child with down’s syndrome to term. The McCain campaign and Gov. Palin made the birth of a child with Down’s Syndrome political. They made Gov. Palin’s biography THE Argument. Now we are supposed to look the other way when her seventeen year old, unwed daughter becomes pregant?
The American public is absolutely right to ask what any of this means – Gov. Palin gave us the right. We can draw our own conclusions.

Daily Kos is an Obama site and they are part of this smear campaign against Palin.

Davis
ThinkProgress was named the best liberal blog in 2006. They are an Obama website. Take your messages back to your pod.

James
Governor Palin took on the corruption in her own party. They had a Republican Governor steeped in dirty politics just like Senator Obama. She won!
What does Obama do with Chicago style politics? He becomes one of their operatives.

yoga, excellent point.
I would NEVER vote for ANYONE from the Chicago cesspool of politics. No telling who Obama owes favors to.

Gallup Daily: Obama Maintains 6-Point Lead, 49% to 43%

I must have missed Palin’s “family values” speech.
The one I heard was how she loves to go after corruption.
However, I have listened ad nauseum to speeches how Obama is different and wants to change big $$ politics in DC.
This from a guy mired in Chicago’s cesspool of politics and who gets favors from Tony Rezko.
Huge difference. But nice try.

So, again, what has Sarah Palin done to suggest that she doens’t have “family values”? And where is this list of values?
If she were trying to make abortion illegal but secretly coerced her teenage daughter to have an abortion, that would be one thing. But she’s done nothing to contradict or detract from her stances that abstinence eliminates unwanted pregnancy or that abortion is wrong. I happen to be pro-choice myself, but I still don’t see what her contradictions, much less hypocricies, have been.

yoga82,
your main problem with Obama seems to be that you take the most offensive comments by the most ignorant of his supporters and attach them to him as if he said them. I just can’t take that seriously.

@yoga82:
Obama isn’t talking about his, we are.
And the reason we are is because Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain invited us to. On the day of her introduction to the national stage, they presented her family as the very model of family values. Gov. Palin and Evangeleicals have made her parenting an issue, not Democrats; Gov. Palin made her reproductive choices an issue; Gov. Palin made her positions on sex-education an issue; Gov. Palin made abortion an issue when she held up her fifth child up to the world – a child born with Down’s Syndrome – and declared MY DECISION TO HAVE THIS CHILD IS WHAT I STAND FOR! And remember, since I would outlaw abortion EVEN IN CASES OF INCEST AND RAPE – I am in political life to make certain that my personal choices are the only choices a woman can make.

El Pajaro
Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and others have been on the web 24/7 doing the dirty work for Obama since January. He cannot separate himself from his own operatives.

GT, the only way the republicans can make this look right is to have the immature 17 year olds get married. I would love to hear what the young man really thinks. Proper vetting would avoided this.

I’ll accept at face value that McCain and Palin rolled out her candidacy on the very grounds of some list of values that they labeled “family values” (and I’d still love to see that list).
Taking that as a given, which particular of these family values has Governor Palin contradicted in her treatment of Bristol’s pregnancy? Is it supporting her pregnant daughter that violates this list? Or is it being proud of her grandchild that is in violation of this list? Is it now apparent that abstinence would have prevented this pregnancy?
Which value has she so violated that her 17 year old daughter is now justifiably exposed to ugly and vicious attacks about her relationships, her sexuality, or her belly?

@tamdar:
No one I’ve read hear is “shovelling bile” at Gov. Palin’s daughter. The only bile I’ve noticed getting shovelled is against Barack Obama, or Barack’s mother, neither who really are even a party to this debate.
Gov. Palin and John McCain made the Governor’s parenting a political issue by trotting her out as some sort of evangelcial supermom.
Actually, pretty much like Obama, her claim to national attention is based on her personal life – her biography. Certainly that is why McCain chose her to be his running-mate. Her political record is to thin – yes even thinner than Obama’s. The only reason McCain chose her is for her symbolism. We’re just trying to figure out what kind of person actually stands behind the symbol. The fact that her teen-age daughter got pregnant out-of-wedlock does shed some light on the Palin family. I can understand that the Governor was too busy running the State of Alaska to give her children sufficient attention, but did the “First Dude” have to leave his kids unattended one out of every two weeks to go work the oil fields. What kind of parents are the Palin’s really? The mother has a high powered, all-consuming political career, and the father is absent half the time.

yoga82,
I think we agree that the attacks on Palin’s motherhood are tasteless. The thing is, I am pretty sure Obama agrees too. I have never heard him speak like that and I don’t think I ever will.
There are lots of issues to attack Palin on, her bridge to nowhere being one. Attacking her as a woman is both stupid and disgusting.

@yoga82:
All I can say is – you are wrong. Obama’s made his statment, telling the public and his supporters to let this matter remain private. Guess what, the American public is entirely free to disagree with Obama. And that is what you see on the blogs right now.
Gov. Palin INVITED America to see in her biography and family a model of what living by Christian Values can mean. So, in light of this new information, the American public (not Obama supporters only) are trying to make sense of what this new information tells us about the Palin family.
Palin and McCain have deployed her biography and family as a political argument. We are just giving this argument the full attention and respect it deserves.

You can’t blame Obama for what every reporter in the country is PUBLISHING! That is an elementary argument that deserves an F!

It’s all about “JUDGEMENT” or the lack thereof in this instance. Republicans have always campaigned via negative personal attacks and fear! But when the same type of stuff gets thrown back at them, they are the first to whine. This is politics, and it is not for the thin skinned. Continuing the war in Iraq, tax cut for the rich, voting against a free college education for our veterans,the keating 5 scandal, not properly vetting your VP—all point towards McCain’s lack of judgement. This is America… where freedom of speech and press reign.

@Tandar:
Once again you miss the point. The public did not make the Palin’s parenting an issue, Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain DID make it an issue. Just like Obama (notice I’m being non-partisan here), Gov. Palin has a very thin political resume. In a way biography is all we have to go on when judging both candidates.
Palin’s personal biography and personal reproductive choices ARE THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT. Especially since she wants to make these private choies the law of the land. She chose to have a child with down’s syndrome, God Bless her and her child. But she also wants to force all famlies to make that same decision. That makes her private life political.
She preaches abstinence as the only form of contraception, and keeping sex-education a private matter, to be taughth at home and not in school. Well, those are public, political positions. The fact that she apparently “Walks the Walk” (as her supporters like to emphasize), but her teenage daughter still got pregnant out-of-wedlock is very relevant? What does Gov. Palin say now about the efficacy of sex-education at home, abstinence, and contraception in light or her unwed, teen-age daughter’s pregnany. I’d honestly like to know if she has changed her mind.
Finally, the Palin family is being held up as a model of balancing work-and-home. I respect Gov. Palin’s decision to go into public life. But I do wonder how much attention a couple can give their children when one member is leading and all-consuming political life, and the other parent (the father) is absent half of the time. With noone home to watch the kids, something is bound to give. Maybe the “First Dude” could have taken a job closer to home.

@pb: “This pushed me over the edge. I don’t want to, but I’m voting McCain/Palin. I can’t take the nutroots any more.”
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Could you elaborate on this? What has been said here that pushed you over the edge?
It is Gov. Palin who has made her biography, her private choices (to have a child with down’s syndrome), her positions on contraception and sex-education (abstinence only, and sex-education should be left to the parents), her parenting (a model balancing of work-and-life), and her gender (“women aren’t finished yet!). the basis of her claim to the national attention, and her right to stand one heart beat removed from the most powerful office in the world.
Most importantly, she doesn’t want to keep her private choices private, she wants to make them the law of the land and force everyone to make the same decisions she has.
We are respectfully looking at the person behind the symbolism.
She asked us to.

David from Texas, that’s the type of response I would expect from a republican. True to form, your party has no new ideas, which is why Obama is so appealing.
“Let him without sin cast the first stone, right? “

Respectfully? M@cchiavelli, yesterday the netroots were screaming that Palin had concealed her daughter’s pregnancy and taken the child as her own. Or had caused Trig Palin’s DS. Today she’s a failed parent who should have stayed at home, and caused Trig Palin’s DS. Don’t Kos’ diarists hear themselves when they start talking?
If Palin were a Democrat, she’d be held up as a great example. Since she’s GOP, she’s instead a monster. The hypocrisy makes me sick at heart. I so wanted to “move on”, as they say . . . but now I have to vote Republican. Or Libertarian. Or Green, god help me. But not for Obama.
As far as law of the land–yeah, that’s the nature of law. It forces activity to trend one way or another. It’s unavoidable. Ask the *real* Machiavelli! (An ironic choice of nom de plume!) But if you don’t like the direction the law is prodding, don’t alienate centrist voters with slime and maybe you can pass your agenda. Good bye.

This just too good seeing all of you Republican trolls squirming!! Defending McSenile’s bad Palin VP pick!
What’s going to come out tomorrow? She is a member of some secret “witches coven” and has 666 tattooed on her behind??
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bye, bye McBush – it is so over!!

MEANWHILE THE RNC CONVENTION IS FAILING!!!
It will be the biggest joke in history!!
CNN is reporting on all the stories floating around the floor of the convention right now. Like all of Palin’s problems and why wasn’t she vetted properly!!
The delegates are all worried about what will come out tomorrow in the sad Palin VP mistake saga….
Poor, poor Republicans….
And since Gustov turned into a CAT 1 and pretty much missed New Orleans, what is John McCain going to do hide behind now???
At least he got to avoid having Bush and Cheney speak on TV at the convention!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!

@Tandar: “If we’re going to decide that we need to judge the candidates by what kind of parents they are, then we’ll need to know all the successes that Joe Biden and Barack Obama have had with their children.”
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Actually, not. It is McCain and Palin who wnat to make their private, personal choices the law of the land. Palin is not just saying look at my life, this is who I am, she is saying “Look at my choices” I am going to make my choices the law of the land because they are the only acceptable choices. It is because she intends to make her private choices the law of the land that these choices warrant public attention.
Obama and Biden, on the other hand, say you live your life we’ll live ours. Your private life is not the government’s business. So, there is a world of difference between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin precisely on this question of privacy. The private lives of Obama/Biden deserve to be kept private – they do not intend to force their private decisions on the nation.
The opposite is true of McCain/Palin: they explicity INTEND to make their private decisions – specifically around reproductive issues – the law of the land – the only decisions anyone can make.

A horrible RNC, an unfit VP candidate and mother,a senile Presidential nominee, a pill popping dingbat wife, a recession, a declining dollar,$4 per gal gas, a 100 year war in Iraq, Sarah’s drunken husband, Sarah’s pregnant daughter, home foreclosures, high unemployment….way to go Republicans!! You ought to be scared.

We have Obama – Biden.
1. Obama who has by all accounts been true to his wife. They have two wonderful girls and no real domestic issues.
2. Biden only remarried after his 1st wife was killed in a car accident. Again, by all accounts true to his wife.
McCain – Palin
1. McCain dumped his 1st wife after she was disfigured in a car accident.
2. Palin . . . well, you know
On a “Pepsi Challenge” who would you take based on domestic stability alone?

Obama stated:
“We don’t go after people’s families; we don’t get them involved in the politics. It’s not appropriate, and it’s not relevant,” he added. “Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I ever thought that there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”
Posted by: david from texas | Sep 1, 2008 5:58:33 PM
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Gee David,
Too bad for you and McCain that we don’t “work” for Obama, huh?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m astonished at how many people assume that Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy had to do with Palin’s parenting skills. Obviously most of the people saying this have never had teenagers! You can’t watch them 24/7. You can try to instill good values, but once they become a teen they pretty much have to find their own way. You can’t put them in lockdown, no matter how much you want to.
And BTW, Barack Obama’s mom was unwed when she got pregnant with him and had him when she was 18. Teenage pregnancy is not a big deal nowadays, unless you live under a rock.
As far as the hypocrisy thing goes, when did she ever claim sainthood/moral authority over anyone else? You guys are quick to lump her in with the far, far right loonies that bomb abortion clinics. I don’t see that. You say she’s a hypocrite for teaching abstinence and letting her child get knocked up, but how many kids in school go through detailed, lengthy sex ed training, which includes education on birth control, etc, get knocked up anyway. Does that make the sex ed teacher the hypocrite?
And BTW, I would love to see more of what him AND Barack Obama stand for. This silly back and forth is pointless and takes time away from hearing about the real issues.

Why would the democrats go after this. Please don’t confuse us with low road Republicans.

Three stories on this subject and
not one on Obama’s William Ayers
Connection:
August 22, 2008
Bill & Barack’s Excellent Adventure
By Thomas Lifson
William Ayers, unrepentant terrorist and education professor, is once again being tied to Barack Obama in the public mind. Controversy builds over the withholding of the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an expensive failed school reform effort headed by Obama and effectively run by Ayers, held by the library of the University of Illinois Chicago. Researchers who have gained access to a few documents recording the history of the project have found strong evidence of a very important working relationship between the two men on the project, Obama’s sole claim to executive experience.
Oddly enough, even though the project produced no measurable improvement in student performance according to its own final report, educators and administrators — participants and grantees of the CAC — were reported by outside monitors to be often “ebullient” about the activities. For insiders, it was an excellent adventure. For the pupils stuck in the failing public schools of Chicago, an ongoing, unrelieved disaster.
Obama and his campaign long have gone out of their way to downplay, in fact distort, the long and evidently deep relationship between Ayers and Obama. In the Philadelphia Democratic debate last April, George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his relationship with Ayers, and the candidate responded:
“This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
“And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George. [....]
“So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow — somehow their ideas could be attributed to me — I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.”
Almost two months earlier, the “neighbor” talking point campaign manager David Axelrod introduced the notion that Obama and Ayers were mostly just neighbors, telling The Politico’s Ben Smith,
“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school,” he said. “They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”
Ayers and his wife are in their sixties, while the Obamas are in their mid-forties. Ayers’ children are all adults, while Obama’s children are currently 10 and 7. Axelrod’s prevarication is telling, bespeaking confidence that nobody in the media will bother to dispute an obvious falsehood.
“Flimsy” turns out to be a completely misleading word when it comes to characterizing the Obama-Ayers relationship.
Notwithstanding the campaign’s efforts to direct attention away from Ayers, a 527 group, American Issues Project, has just released the following ad tying Obama to Ayers, and says it is spending 2.8 million on television airtime in key states.
Despite the legally questionable embargo of the CAC archives, most of its tax returns and official evaluations of the CAC have already been made public. In the hands of intrepid bloggers such as Steve Diamond, Tom Maguire and Dan Riehl, there is already proof of Obama’s extensive involvement with Ayers over the course of his chairmanship, and an emerging picture of Obama’s indecisiveness and absence when serious problems needed leadership.
Barack Obama joined the CAC shortly after William Ayers and Anne C. Hallett received news that their letter of November 8, 1994 submitting a grant proposal to The Annenberg Challenge had been approved. They were to get as much as $49 million from Annenberg, plus tens of millions more dollars from other foundations. Obama’s involvement predates by months the actual incorporation of the CAC and his appointment as founding chairman of the board. He came on board almost as soon as the proposal was approved.
How on earth did a relatively unknown associate at a politically-connected but small Chicago law firm come to be entrusted with the heady task of handing out tens of millions of dollars of other people’s money?
Keep in mind that Obama was at this point in his career very undistinguished considering his pedigree. It would be a kind understatement to say he had underperformed his academic resume. Three years out of Harvard Law and the Law Review Presidency, here is a short list of some of the things Obama had not done:
Clerked for a US Supreme Court Justice (or any Federal Judge);
worked in an important legal position at any level of serious responsibility;
written a law review article or note or published anything of legal substance.
As of 1995 Obama may have had the most professionally empty resume of any President of the Harvard Law Review three years gone from “The Law School.”
And yet Ayers gave him a gig that would enable him to hand out large amounts of money to many people in Chicago, who could be expected to be grateful, once Obama ran for office — as he was to do later that very year, in an event held at the home of Ayers and Dohrn.
Quite clearly, Obama was already well-enough known and trusted by Ayers to be offered the sensitive, prestigious and highly visible post of chairman of this important new undertaking. So we must ask, when did Obama and Ayers actually first get to know one another? And how did they come to trust one another?
One possible connection between Ayers and Obama was Sidley Austin, the prestigious Chicago law firm where Obama had a summer job after his first year at Harvard Law School, and where he met his future wife Michelle, assigned to him as a mentor. Also working at Sidley Austin was Bernadine Dohrn, wife of William Ayers, and a fellow Weather Underground terrorist. Given the shared “progressive” politics of the three, they probably knew one another and associated together at a firm known as a white shoe corporate practice.
Or Obama might have met Ayers even earlier, during his stint as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, in fact. Ayers was a well-known and very active figure in left wing Chicago politics, and might have encountered the young, articulate, Ivy League educated rookie black radical Obama, working in a Saul Alinksy spinoff.
We soon will know much more about the period of collaboration between Obama and Ayers following the start of the CAC. Even if the archives continue to be withheld from public scrutiny, the cat is out of the bag with the documents available to all. The formidable analytical engine of bloggers trading insights and new data is warming up.
But the period prior to 1995, the time when Bill and Barack, the terrorist and the presidential aspirant, got to know one another and build the relationship of trust, is one excellent adventure likely to remain obscure.

I really hope that the press and the Obama camp adheres to the idea that the pregnancy is a private matter.
Then I hope Sarah acnowledges that everyone else’s uterus is just as private and she should stick her nose elsewhere.
If she cannot, then she should stand up and address what pregnant teens without resources should do. It would be an interesting answer.

Sarah Palin is going to speak soon in the Convention. Better watch the change of public opinion in her favor. All these hypocrites pundits supporting Barack, so many of them are perverts and closeted pedophiles will go down the drain.
Watch!
She is no ordinary woman. She grew up in the world of Alaska’s wilderness.

There were 750,000 teen pregancies in USA (2006) in the 15-19 year old group, down 36% due to ‘Abstinance Education’ AND changes in birth control services. Abortion (Baby murder) was highest in the North East (over 40%) and lowest in the South and Mid-West (under 25%).
The libs want ‘woman as equals’ to be their mantra, but insist that Sarah Palin should have stayed home with her children to prevent this pregnancy?
Where would this election have gone if Barack Obama’s un-wed teen mom had had an abortion?
If her family had not rallied behind her and assisted her during that period?
If his Grand Mother hadn’t assisted in raising him?
Hypocrites….

Al from NJ:
“The list of his ugly friends with radical beliefs are endless”
Yup, Al you got it right.
Interesting that Barack sat in that church 20 years, called Wright his ‘Mentor’ and claims he “never heard that man say those things”…
Resko’s wife participated in Obama’s home purchase deal and Barack is surprised at the revelations…
That he worked with Bill Ayers on the board of that school, handed out millions of dollars and was not influenced by Ayers revoltionary politics….
Obama is either the biggest liar on the planet or the most unconscious candidate we have ever seen.

This is the craziest election I can remember. The choice that has been made on the Republican side for VP makes me wonder about the person who made the choice. Sort of shoot from the hip. Sure, it will be hard to publicly criticize given political correctness and all but really— No matter how hard one tries to put a spin on it she is not ready for this. I have heard those saying things like she as governor of Alaska is commander in chief of the national guard there and therefore ready to be national commander in chief – such blind toeing the line. Unbelieveable!

Bill, she may be ‘a heart beat away from the Presidency’ but Barack, who has admitted he needs on the job training, is the heart beat…? That’s Crazy!
All he has done for 12 years is give speeches. He’s good at it. What has he done? Nothing but talk.

“The fact that they stand up for their daughter and welcome her baby says so, so much about Palin’s integrity”
Or perhaps about her ambitiousness?

Going after a 17 year old girl ?
This shows how low and scared the Democrats are . Fighting with a 17 year old Girl.
My God, can’t you losing Democrats find an adult to fight with ?
IMO Mr. Obama knew he did not make a splash with his DNC and Sarah stole the spotlight and they all decided to go after Sarah and could not fine anything and decided to start a rumor about a 17 year old girl.
Shame on you Democrats . This makes Sarah stronger

Here’s what I don’t get–why on earth did McCain/Palin not announce the pregnancy when he picked her?
I truly don’t care that Bristol is pregnant. I am deeply bothered, however, that her pregnancy was only announced because of the internet rumors that Trig was Bristol’s son, not Gov. Palin’s. A birth certificate or medical records would have shot those rumors down in no time and made the DailyKos look like bullies.
Instead, Palin exposed her teenage daughter to the national glare in order to protect her place on the ticket. And the DailyKos, while not exactly looking above-it-all, still looks waaaaaaaaaay smarter than McCain’s vetting team.
THAT’S what I find so appalling about all of this.

What about the fact that Palin’s 5th child is not hers but her daughters!!!!
Posted by: STL-Vet | Sep 2, 2008 2:05:49
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That is not “a fact”, that is an internet-driven, conspiracy theory with as much substance as the “fact” that we never actually landed on the moon, that Bush was actually behind the 9/11 attacks, or that Obama is a secret Muslim.