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.