and stranger and stranger.

Sure, sure he knew...

This was beginning to leak out yesterday. Apparently everyone in Wasilla knew. Bristol was wearing an engagement ring at the roll-out speech, and carrying Trig in such a way as to conceal her abdomen.

I think Obama should stay away from this as much as possible. We also should avoid demeaning or judgmental remarks -- children are off limits.

I don't think it's unfair, however, to speculate in a respectful way about the effect on the race, if any.

But I thought the Republicans were about family values.

Aaaahhhhh, now I get it.

This news certainly clears up the entire picture. Nothing more to see here. Move along now....c'mon, just move along.

I thought this was a joke, but it's real?

Um, I'm all for being respectful, and not piling on a pregnant 17 year old, but can you imagine the reaction had it been the 17 year old daughter of Obama that made this announcement?

The religious right has to be torn by this. Young teenage mother to be, keeping the baby, but she had sex outside of marriage...

Hmmmm. Abstinence only education, anyone?

And, how much money does anyone want to bet that the wingnutters will dig deep to connect this decision with what Obama said about not wanting his daughters to have to go through a teenage pregnancy?

The tapdancing should be something awesome to see.

This is getting beyond bizarre. Why don't the fundies and evangelical christians ever get investigated properly by the media ?

I agree the kid should be left out of it.

But shouldn't someone be asking Palin about the efficacy of that "abstinence-only" sex ed she promotes? Seems it didn't work all that well for her own daughter.

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?

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

Abstinence education seems to work very well.

I have to agree with Alex to an extent. Voters will reach their own conclusions about whether they feel comfortable with the Palin family and how they run their lives. But being president is about showing to the voters that you can keep your shit together. Between getting brothers-in-law fired and teen preganancies, this just seems a bit too Wal-Mart for many voters to view them as presidential material.

Some female moderate voters may already be uncomfortable with Sarah Palin's going back to work right after giving birth and view this new story as further proof she is "not a good mother." To me it's just weird, considering the Down's Syndrome has to make caregiving more difficult.

We're better off, though, spending our time asking why she hates polar bears and the like.

What a mess.

Given that Palin is against all sex ed aside from "don't do it", one wonders if this poor child even knew that one could get pregnant from having sex.

I feel sorry for Bristol that her Mother decided to shine a national spotlight on her at this difficult time in her young life. I wish Bristol all the best, and that she may have a beautiful healthy baby. I also hope that she is not being shotgunned into a bad marriage, just for the sake of making her political mom look good.

I do not like the fact that Sarah Palin decided to run for National Office, and expose her daughter to all this scrutiny. It appears to me that Sarah Palin put politics ahead of family.

Let us not pile on Bristol. May she have a safe and healthy delivery, and be given the privacy that all women are entitled too.

Let us treat Bristol better than her own Mother has.

Not that I say this is right, but can we now assume that abstinence only education doesn't work.

Is it true that Dick Cheney will officiate at the shotgun wedding?

I wonder if Palin is reconsidering her opposition to sex education in the schools in light of this development. Obviously, she didn't do such a great job of educating her own daughter at home.

What does this say about Palin's judgement? She's got a 4 month old infant, a pregnant daughter, a son going to Iraq and she's got time to be VP?

I totally believe in women being able to do it all but any women of middle age knows you can't do it all at the same time.

You need to practice abstinence...
Nice, I guess like the Bush administration, the rules apply to all but us...

Soon she will call for not allowing the use of condoms...

This woman is on the extreme right. She is just dangerous, and with McWar to her side, you can imagine the results, and what could be ahead of us...

She expects the media to respect her kids' privacy? No mention of the kid headed to Iraq, then? No more about the not-aborted Down Syndrome son?

This candidate's kids' privacy seems to be on a toggle switch.

wow. i didn't think this campaign could possible get any more interesting. But it has.

Gee, all, what happened to the tolerance you preach? There is nothing inconsistent about the Palins' family beliefs and the fact that the daughter is pregnant. When did the Palins say that there teenagers were incapable of mistakes? When did she and Todd say they were perfect? They didn't. Conservatives like Palin don't contend their children are perfect or that underage sex isn't a temptation to all. They just promise to try to do the right thing when mistakes happen- which they did, by promising their daughter their love and support.

Go back to wishing for your secular nanny-state and try to practice your own occasionally espoused tolerance.

It is remarkable that the McCain campaign stated that it was Bristol's own choice to keep the baby. The GOP is campaigning precisely to eliminate that choice. I can't understand why they would have used that wording.

Man, I go away for the night and all hell breaks loose.

Pregnancy announcements? Speeches to secessionist groups?

I'm tellin' ya, peeps. This family is ca-reepy. There's some weird shit going on in the house of Palin, and I'm thinking that this ain't the end of it.

Well, I wasn't one to jump on this rumor and I think one needs a lot more than Fristian reading of images to try to argue that Sarah's most recent child is actually her daughters, but isn't trying to bat down the rumors by saying that her daughter is 5 months pregnant (and thus got pregnant 2 weeks to a month before Trig was born) kind of a round about way of doing it?

I think this is the type of thing Dems have to treat with a light touch, or else it backfires.

That said, a governor who opposes sex education has a daughter who has pre-marital, unprotected sex? Granted, Palin's daughter is responsible for her own decision, but it doesn't give sex education a good name.

And for some reason it reminds me of when Dan Quayle said he was pro-life but would be okay with his own daughter having an abortion. Hypocrisy.

The right wingers will totally miss the irony of this paragon of family values teenage daughter getting pregnant, and instead laud the daughter for not terminating the pregnancy.

As the stepmother of a young man with Down Syndrome, I find that emphasis particularly disturbing. Sara Palin knew her baby was "defective", but she chose to go through with the pregnancy anyway. Wow, what a wonderful woman! What a saint! She didn't have an abortion! Her daughter didn't have an abortion!

I tell you, these people are shameless.

Excuse me, but isn't the REAL scandal here that Sarah Palin may be pretending that "Trig" is HER daughter, when it's her granddaughter? If this is true, it is soap-opera material and could well lead to her withdrawing her name in order to "spend more time with my family."

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR MCCAIN!!

(sorry, folks, I was feeling nostalgic for the Primary race)

Another example that abstinence only sex ed does not work, and that perhaps, mom should be spending more time at home with the kids while they are growing up instead of being Governor. Having to work is a reality for many families, but having fives kids by choice and choosing a demanding career have consequences.

Sarah Palin, with five children, one with D.S., and now t'other is pregnant, clearly has bigger fish to fry than pursuing a career she has shown zero interest in having, her utter unreadiness aside.

This is an easy conclusion to get to. Obama need only keep the focus on the issues, and he's in.

Frank Luntz is at is again, though I seriously doubt the uncommittedness of these voters:
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/08/focusedthe_sequel.html

Great catch blmack. Trace back to when Bristol was first out of school with "mono". They will be tripped up by their own lies shortly.

Sarah Palin: footnote in presidential campaign history - file alongside Eagleton.

Strange . . . during the McCain announcement, which I watched online, I was talking with a friend over the phone & mentioned that Palin's older daughters seemed kind of affectless and unhappy (or that was the vibe I got anyway). My friend said they were probably just nervous & overwhelmed. Still, I argued, the cohesion, happiness and sweetness one felt from the Obama & Biden clans just wasn't evident on the McCain stage.

Now it makes more sense. It can't have failed to cross the minds of Bristol and Willow that this pregnancy would become national news. It makes me really sad, actually. The scrutiny, inescapable because of her mother's role (and positions), the fear, the unfathomable changes (motherhood, marriage), all the serious consequences of one's decisions at such a young age. And the spotlight.

As citizens, we can handle this with some grace. But I really do question Palin's eagerness to accept a role she's obviously not qualified for yet(/i> when her family is in such tumult. I guess this is what's meant by "Country First."

Did McCain know? Did the Palins know?

So the Palins are such good parents, such good Christians, such good citizens, that they could not even convince their daughter of the preferability of getting married before she got pregnant? And Palin is such a feminist she could not convince her 17yr old that life held something for her besides being a convenient receptacle for the sperm and lust of her high-school boyfriend? And the boy? Jeez, there's a young man with respect for women, and respect for women's God-given powers to bear children.
And if the girl was, as girls can be, sorta flighty, romantic, and didn't have good impulse control, couldn't they keep an eye on her, and not just turn her out to the first boy that came along? Ho-kay! Basically, helping her to keep her legs together?

Oh and their plans to impress their daughter and potential son-in-law with the responsibility of child-bearing don't impress me. It sounds like "give them all the resources they need to get married, and really get themselves in marital and parental trouble

Shotgun wedding in AK ...literally...

It's not so much about tolerance from the perspective of the left. It's the abstinence only education (that doesn't work), and the no sex before marriage spiel (that doesn't work) along with the non use of contraception.

It's all well and good when this happens to an upper middle class family, but if this is the result of the type of education our VP is preaching, then there are thousands of kids out there for whom a similar situation would be much more difficult.

No Legislation of Fundamentalism!

Wow--this is so strange. Here are my reactions:

1) Sympathy for the poor daughter whose pregnancy is suddenly national news. She must be mortified.

2) Surprise that Palin accepted the nomination with all this baggage she clearly knew she had (i.e. pregnant teenage daughter and investigation into whether she had her brother-in-law's boss fired). That's not judgement we can believe in.

3) Amusement that McCain is all puffed-up and offended by the rumors flying around the Internet (and on liberal blogs "with Obama's name in them"). Uh, hello, this is just the sort of whisper campaign Rove and his band of thugs engage in alllll the time!!! In fact, it's they're trademark. The Republicans can apparently dish it out but can't take it. Not that there's anything right with it...

Why would she even accept the nomination?

I don't think Bristol should be villified. But I have to ask, doesn't this go against the whole family values narrative they were fostering with the self proclaimed "soccer mom" with five children?

Will this go over well with the conservative base they were trying to "fire up"?

McCain's campaign has officially turned into the Jerry Springer show now. I'm sorry for Bristol, that her mother put her through this.

This is truly bizarre. How far down the fucking rabbit hole are we going to go on this? One seriously has to wonder if McCain picked Palin - a living, breathing sitcom caricature - so that she would fail, allowing him to choose someone else AFTER the RNC.

Additionally, given the McCain campaign's fixation on news cycles, we can't assume that this announcement happening at the same time as the 24 hour Gustav news coverage is a simple coincidence.

Will the kids get married before or after the election? Inquiring minds want to know.

Let us pray that the Republicans don't have pictures of John Edwards sneaking into the Alaska Governor's mansion around March of this year...

I really disagree here about leaving this alone. This event speaks to a potentially bigger issue of oversight. To be completely objective here, if Palin cannot monitor her on teen daughter and who she's dating, how in the world can Palin monitor the massive federal gov and deal with federal officials who live on circumvention. I think this is a line of argument that is brutally cold but completely relevant to the issue of preparedness for being VP.

This is one helluva Punk'd episode. Ashton should get an emmyfor this. "Best WTF" award

You have to laugh at what the country club wing of the Republican Party must think of this soap opera.

Abstinence only is a disaster, and it damages the lives of young women and men.

and the lives of potential V P candidates as we shall soon see.

Well, I sense gnashing of teeth and an epic battle between the "old" winger guard (against sex out of wedlock) and the "new" guard (support them no matter what). Which is the more likely group of voters?

Can somebody tell me the Date of Birth of Bristol Palin? Is there any indication if the father's name and D.O.B. as well?

Curious, though it seems that age of consent in Alaska is 16 - 2 I was wondering.

I guess it wouldn't matter as her Mom is governor and would issue a pardon as long as the father married the bride.

Wait, how does this disprove the rumor?

Lil Trig still isn't on the hospital's online nursery list for that month...