Rumors

If you throw enough rumors around, sooner or later one will get some substantiation.

So it went with Sarah Palin, the presumptive Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican party.

Good Lord, have the nuts gone on the rampage over this lady! From the moment John McCain announced that she would be his running mate on Friday to today the rumors have sprung up, been soundly debunked, and just as quickly replaced with another rumor.

I won't stoop to the level of repeating the more slanderous ones, but finally one has found a mark. It seems that 17 year old Bristol is pregnant.

The Palin family announces that she will be keeping the baby and marrying the father. The McCain campaign announces that they knew, but thought Sarah was a good choice anyway. The Nutroots announces that they are, indeed, crazy insane and would like any reason to gnaw at the bones of their opponents.

This, if nothing else, proves that the Palins are just like the rest of us, much more so than the Ivy league self-selected nobility. They have their ups and downs, and they make mistakes. Then, rather than blame others, they deal with their mistakes in a rational manner, and they move on.

Here's a huge difference. In the Obama worldview, babies are seen as punishments and abortions are viewed as a reasonable escape from irresponsible behavior. In the Palin worldview, you screw up and you pay the price. No escape from acting irresponsibly.

I like the Palin worldview. It matches my own.

Bristol has just complicated her life, but it does not have to be a show stopper. I believe her Mom and Dad will be as supportive and loving as they always have been, and although they may be disappointed with her irresponsibility they can be proud that she is facing up to it. (Never mind that shotgun son, it's gonna be a beautiful wedding. Right?) She can still go on to do great things, she will just have to work harder at it because she has more things to deal with. But, that is a result of choices that she and her future husband made, and rather than duck the responsibility they are going to deal with it.

Barack Obama, after three days of scathing and, to put it bluntly, over the top attacks on the Palin family has finally declared the kids and families of politicians to be off limits. This of course doesn't mean the attacks will stop, it just means that BarryO can distance himself from them.

The right-leaning blogosphere, on the other hand, put itself on just such a restriction without any urgings from anyone else from the very beginning, thank you very much. You never heard slanderous and vile rumors about the Clinton kid or the Kerry girls from the Rightosphere because there was a gentleman's agreement in place that the kids were not running for office and were therefore off-limits. But remember, it's the leftists that are the caring ones.

This is the difference between the caring and compassionate Progressives and the evil Nazi Rethuglican Riech-wingers, I guess.

(Note to Barry, if you put your wife and kids on the campaign trail to make speeches for you, they become targets. Bristol has at no time made speeches for her mom.)

Update: BREAKING NEWS! Todd Palin had a DUI when he was 22!!!!!!!!ONE!!!!!!!!
Just think, if he would have driven off a bridge and let his secretary drown in his car he could be a US Senator by now.