totally disgusted by the netroots words and attitude towards both 'pregnancy' stories, we are better than this or we damn sure should be.

seriously, leave the kids out of it. they are, if not exactly "innocent," whatever tht may mean, not the subject. it is odd tho; i thought palin had 5 kids. where's the other one in that pic?

Sadly, a lot of the "netroots" has played right into the hands of the McCain organization. Middle America sees this exactly as it is- a sad and private family matter, and are turned off by the blogosphere & media furore. Mr. Obama's reaction of disgust to the whole issue is bang-on.

Yes, the baby is the Palin family's business. But, Palin herself and her policies and her hypocritical attitudes towards women's rights, her attempts to subvert the law, and so many other things that make her unfit for office ARE on the table. And, for the record, if she's FOR choice for her daughter and against choice for all other women, then she's fair game.

This woman is part and parcel of the biggest, most cynical manipulation the GOP has ever put out. She -- and they -- must be stopped. And the way to do it is to keep her shortcomings as well as McSame's in the public eye.

If she can see fit to lecture the rest of us about sexual matters, suggest a Big Brother state that continues to stick its nose into our bedrooms and OUR private matters, yet insist on privacy for her family's problems while letting the GOP make hay with "librul" family problems, then yes, this unprepared, inexperienced corrupt politician IS fair game.

But I agree, her daughter is not. I feel sorry for the kid -- rushed into a shotgun marriage, her "choice" to have a baby politicized by her mother in a rush for votes... this is no way to start a child or a marriage.

Those "family values" that Sarah Palin magically espouses for all the rest of us??? she doesn't pay too much attention to them in her own family, now does she?

Again, the kid's not the focus -- but Palin's attitudes and past actions are fair game.

So, sean-paul, stop lecturing us like we're a bunch of idiots -- you underestimate us just as the GOP is doing. We're not stupid. We can see what is going on here... and we need to be able to call the GOP and Sarah Palin on their monumental hypocrisy here.

children are not fair game, but Palin's lack of qualifications to be within a heartsbeat of one of the most important jobs on this planet needs critiquing.

So too does McCain's lack of vetting procedure and his dreadful mistake in trying to palm off 'any' right-wing woman to fill the role. If he doesn't withdraw this woman's name, he's just a common garden hypocrit.

My assessment of her ability to be a Mother, I'll not let overflow to her innocent teen. However, Palin as an adult, failed miserably in her Motherhood role. Her child needed protection, not a hasty teen wedding. Adoption is an option--decisions that affect the rest of her life are being made too fast! Whom is the face-saving for? It seems in reaction to malicious Internet gossip about the Mother! She seems to be punitive rather than compassionate...sentencing her child to a life I wouldn't wish on my dog!

Come to think of it, 'compassionate conservatism, strikes me as a contradiction in terms.

and nothing about her poor daughter.

Has anybody thought about how incredibly self-absorbed Sarah Palin must be? She knew when she accepted the nod from McCain that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant. She had to know that the pregnancy would become known, and her daughter would be subject to all kinds of invasion of her privacy. What kind of a mother is willing to put her child through that to further her own career?

What a creep.

And the obvious thing: Palin should never be put in a position to care for anything important if she can't even teach her own children how not to get pregnant. And if she doesn't "believe" in birth control, well, who wants someone guided by magical thinking a heartbeat away from the presidency?

2006 Q & A with Palin's response:

http://eagleforumalaska.blogspot.com/2006/07/2006-gubernatorial-candidate.html

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

Uh, see, the Pledge of Allegiance wasn't written until 1892 by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy. After the founding fathers were long dead. "Under God" wasn't added until 1954. At a time when all the founding fathers were still dead.

The question re: sex education in the schools was as follows:

3. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

I don't see how that position isn't going to be an issue tied in with her daughter's pregnancy. National-level reseach shows that abstinence education is ineffective, and Palin still opposes real sex education and contraceptive instruction.

McCain made a rash choice. But, McCain & Palin are wed.

This is about McCain's wisdom in his choice of Palin; Palin's ignorance, rigidity and stupidity, and is a clear example of the sins of the mother visited upon the unfortunate daughter.

Yes, McCain chose a hick. McCain chose trailer trash. MCain chose an uneducated, unsophisticated, narrow minded, untraveled, and ignorant person.

In England there is a saying, First Generation makes it, second generation consolidates it, third generation wastes it. McCain is a typical third generation wastrel, high demands of society, unable to deliver; the gene pool runs very shallow after three generations.

Palin's unmarried, underage, abstinence based daughter is an indictment both of McCain's rash choice, and the bankrupt morality of the social conservatives. Bankrupt even before considering childhood inoculations, SCIP, head start, good schools, opportunities in the workforce, treatment of drug users, and hate filled morality.

McCain and Plain deserve each other. Should McCain win, pass on quickly, then Palin takes the white house. Palin's combination of rigid right wing beliefs -- don't confuse me with the facts -- and an understanding of domestic and foreign policy skills which makes Bush look like Einstein, would put a final nail in the republican and social conservative coffin.

Palin would deliver such a devastating blow to the social conservatives that they would retreat, with their non-christian -- wrathful god Jehova vs Christ's beatitudes -- and nasty morality -- life begins and conception and should be protected until birth, then baby you're on your own --, back into their churches, not to be see in public or politics for many generations.

Sorry, but I don't agree.

I'm seeing this argument now over and over in the progressive blogs: "We're better than this, "Don't attack a young girl" and "It's about John McCain and not a young girl" but as is being presented as the argument, "That's not the point."

Part of the "Southern strategy" and the "Godly people" is for Republicans to go around with brass handled canes and come up from behind and beat anyone to death if they dare challenge the gentility, righteousness and Godliness of Republicans. It has to be challenged and if we too have to walk around with brass handled canes, then that's the life Republicans have defined. "You don't bring a knife into a gun fight" is the quote that's posted endlessly from "progressives." This is a war to save America and fighting that war with one hand and one leg tied in the name of some high minded goodness is a quick way to get killed. And killed is exactly what has happened to Democrats, the constitution and the concerns and interests of average Americans for the last 40 years.

Consider religion. No one is permitted to attack religion. No one is allowed to point out the total bullshit of running one's life and a nation based on the edicts of self serving con artists claiming to define the words, thoughts and edicts of some imaginary friend. Yet the converse is never true. The "religious" can denigrate, disrespect and murder (yes, that's what killing abortion workers is all about) those that don't follow the phony edicts of the TV preachers. The "religious right" has no problem demonizing those that don't heel click the Republican gospel. Talk show demagogues have no problem railing about how those that don't abide by the "talking points" sent down from on high are to die, either by the hand of God or some Godly servant with a bomb or rifle with a scope. These people have to be attacked and have to be attacked at their base. Their phony morals and righteousness. To not attack them is to lose one's dignity, rights and in some cases, life.

One aspect of this righteous scheme is the meme that Republicans represent higher morals and great family values. Yet here is a case in the Palin family where it's completely without any basis in reality. The deeply religious parents fuck like rabbits without using contraceptives (supposedly) and yet their children, in the next rooms, can't take part in the floor pounding, wall banging revelry till they're properly married. That attitude has worked wonders for controlling the spread of smoking in children. It's proven to be a failure with sex long before that. Yet it's a proposition that cannot be questioned because it's supposed to represent a higher moral plane and suggesting any counter is to push some low moral path. The slut path. So who is the one that actually defines an unwed pregnant teenager as unfit for the community? Whose meme is the one that demonizes? Who is the one that should be challenged?

We get the same self serving Marquis of Queensberry rules of etiquette with patriotism and war heroes. John Kerry, who volunteered for front line duty and developed a method of countering the enemy by driving directly into their surprise gunfire, is belittled as a phony claiming undeserved medals. A Democrat who lost three limbs in a war is also belittled. Yet a Republican POW who "cracked" after three days because he lacked a good health care plan and also made numerous propaganda tapes for an enemy America was at war with cannot in any way have his "heroics" questioned. Wesley Clark used the standard "hero" preface about the Republican POW but then had the temerity to wonder how that particular set of hero qualities related to the presidency was vilified and cast out of the Democrat (sic) party - thanks to the Republican smear machine. Even John Kerry took part in the kicking of Clark. And for what? Complimenting McCain's war behavior? The man was a Tokyo Rose. She had to wait decades before the insults stopped. McCain was an insta-hero allowed to define his own heroics. But could any Democrat who had made propaganda tapes for "the enemy" ever run for any public office? No fucking way.

So when you claim to refuse to go the "low road" and talk about the natural behavior of a teenage girl who are you helping? You're helping the people that actually demonize her in the community. You're helping people that force young women to "disappear" for a few months. But that's only if they are lucky enough to have a family that can "disappear" them and disappear their "problem." Or make up a phony story to right the "wrong." We're not the one's that demonize young women. They are. The "religious" and morally superior doing "God's work" and speaking "God's word."

These are not Godly people and they must be challenged and challenged on the points and basis of argument that they present and stand on.

It's very much in the vein of Dred-Scott where the immoral act is forced on others. (Remember that for the Old South "God" said it was OK to enslave Africans.) So forcing birth on women is an act of Godliness but allowing women to determine the direction of their own lives, if they so choose, is murder and justifies the murderous actions of the righteous.

I'm not the one attacking a young girl on a private matter. They are. The Republicans are. The "Religious Right" is. They must be challenged on these fundamental memes. It's not the correct path to not challenge people swinging brass handled gentleman's canes while they shout about your uncouthness and their highmindness.

John McCain is not a war hero whose every action cannot be questioned because of his war heroics. The Palin family is not above reproach because they are a family in crisis. The crisis is one they have defined - for all of us. And when we face such a crisis, they're ready with their canes.

John McCain can laugh about women being raped, Hillary Clinton being a bitch and Chelsea Clinton being the offspring of an ugly dike, but Wesley Clark is made a non-person by Democrats for a "hero" compliment. That's the loser attitude we're supposed to continue to follow?

No thanks.

Her mother welcomed public intrusion into her personal life, including that of her family, when she accepted the position, and cannot now ask to draw a curtain over these matters. Moreover, she is an archetypal representative of the worst, most moralizing, and hypocritical element of the Republican Party. There are people in this movement who want to outlaw not just any abortion, but all contraceptives plus any sex education in schools. When any one of them gets caught in behavior that contradicts what they want to impose on everybody else, they deserve every bit of the public opprobrium which comes their way. It's too bad that their children get caught in the crossfire and pay terrible consequences, but so do millions of children in these evangelical families who suffer silently and whose parents continue their religious abuse because no outside pressure is available to force them to stop.

Republicans have long ago ceased to recognize anything about their own behavior that is hypocritical. Why else would so many members of Congress be found to engage in the very behavior they publicly abhor and try to outlaw? If we in the rest of this country sit back and let them get away with it, because their families deserve privacy, then this hypocrisy will never end.

And another thing. I've said this before and I think it is true: the Vice President pick cannot help the presidential candidate, it can only hurt him. Every bit of damage Sarah Palin inflicts on herself is damage that sticks to John McCain.

Has anyone else noticed some slowing down of McCain's processing lately? I heard him in an interview the other day, and he sounded almost confused. It could be exhaustion, so not trying to start some nonsense, but it got my attention.

Bush, Cheney and McCain's cancelling their appearances at the RNC comes with a good excuse, but it also distances them from questions delegates may have.

Someone else mentioned that the Palin choice sounded Rovian; I had the same thought when I first heard. The subsequent whisper campaign re pregnancy(s) also smells like Rove.

So...What are we not supposed to notice? Or am I seeing monsters under the bed?

NYT - - ...Ms. Palin is a lot more appealing personally than the often testy guy at the top of her ticket. And the inescapable reality is that there are millions of voters who identify with her, and may be quick to resent attacks that they perceive as bullying or overkill.

Here’s the deal: Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction. She’s meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign — the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions. Willie Horton was a distraction. The chatter about gays, guns and God has been a long-running distraction. And we all remember the Swift-boat campaign....

If you want a real issue, forget all of the above[ and revisit Monday’s front page of The New York Times. Hundreds of families are being forced out of their homes each month in Louisville, Ky., because of mortgage foreclosures. With record numbers of poor and homeless students, the public schools are struggling.

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}

not forgetting, "just a heartbeat away", but, as McCain once put it,
their main business is attending State Funerals the President can't be bothered with.

Also remember,talking about vetting, John Edwards could have been our presidential candidate.

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}

That would only make sense if McCain was, like, ahead. He really doesn't need people talking about him or Palin right now. He needs people talking about Obama.

And I'm pretty sure the netroots, whatever they are, had little to do with it. This took off when CNN ran with it Monday.

I have so many mixed emotions on this.

I agree that candidates' families should be off-limits. And if the Republicans and their brutal allies line up all the children and mow them down, that doesn't make it right for Democrats to do likewise. Sometimes doing the right thing makes you powerless against naked aggression, but is the only way to remain sane and avoid a total destruction of civilization.

It is said Palin approves of her daughter's right of choice. But is that true? How devastating to the ticket's support from the base would it have been if her daughter had chosen to have an abortion? Independents might have been more supportive, but the base would have revolted. It is conceivable (we'll probably never know for sure) that enormous pressure was exerted on her daughter to prevent her from choosing abortion. If so, that is not choice.

Also, while we should love those individuals born from a lack of sex education and family planning, that does not mean that we must close our eyes to what failed policies resulted in their births.

Palin opposes sex education and family planning. We see the result in her own family. Is that what we want for America? Too often such behavior results in truly unwanted children, abused children, unhealthy children, and young parents who are not ready to be good parents.

Since everything's a-ok and hunky dory, shouldn't daddy-to-be have stumbled up to the altar at least 5 months ago? Or maybe shotgun weddings work differently in Alaska? Or maybe the parents of the 16 maybe 17 year old hubby-in-waiting is occupying his time finishing high school while his parents hire a lawyer. This could be an exceedingly wise move if there's any doubts about paternity. Even in Alaska.

groom or bride completed high school. Who needs a diploma if all you're not planning to do with your life is raise kids?

but mindless useless propaganda.
www.projectcensored.org
www.globalresearch.ca
www.augustreview.com