Bristol is a product of abstinence only education.  This isn't the first time I've run into a fervent anti-choicer with pregnant teenage daughters.  They are so busy focusing on your family that they ignore their own.

The Republicans had no problem constantly attacking Chelsea Clinton.  Rush Limbaugh referred to her as the White House dog.  So far with all her "immoral" upbringing she's going through Stanford and, to the best of my knowledge, isn't pregnant.

Now the tables are turned and the GOP decries any mention of the children as "off-limits" although Palin has no problem bragging how one of her children has Down's Syndrome and uses that story to appeal to the religious reich.

Naturally the GOP will be looking forward to an election where they can attack the children of a Democrat because children aren't off limits when it's a child of a Democrat (they had no problem going after Al Gore's son in the 2000 election, or making up a story about McCain fathering an Black baby).

Just remember, Republicans are hypocritical.  They can't run on the issues so they'll use personal attacks any time they can and play the victim if anyone uses their tactics against them.

Not only is Chelsea not pregnant, she's also pushing 30 rather than 17.

Conservatives demand that pregnant teens be removed from schools because they set a bad example for other teenagers.  But if a pregnant teen is the daughter of a Republican VP candidate then she is considered a good role model and displaying great Christian values.

Must be another example of those objective moral values the fundies keep on telling us about.

I am not typically the conspiracy theory type but ive been reading alot of fairly reasonable criticism that claims that the Palins' 5th child is actually the eldest daughters. The peices fit, and I deem it interesting at very least.

So if that is true, it informs me that the Palins are willing to live a lie to perpetuate a "good christian" appearance. Also that the eldest daughter is out of control and likley needs effective parenting most of all.

Liberals will never beat conservatives at their own game because they fail to understand that at the heart of the conservative voter is conflict and hypocrisy. The total lack of self-awareness is treated as strength.

I can see this.  I don't know any other way for self awareness to take place (or be nurtured) unless one learns to be completely honest with one's self.  The human animal in our culture has learned to live by lying to himself about himself and finds comfort with that. Confronting this fact (As psychoanalysis often attempts to do) leads to considerable hostility.

We are a nation of myth makers and myth sellers/buyers (& this encompasses more than religion here).  No one more so than the Conservative, the Authoritarian and the conformist.  As Dennett might point out...we've grown accustomed to the sense that "belief" in itself is good.

A lack of self awareness/honesty becomes a self defense mechanism that prevents the recognition or acceptance of hypocrisy, but then honesty/SA has little to no value to the myth maker/buyer mindset.

I think it's very wise for Obama and party to distance themselves from criticism about this.  The RNC will only spin this into the Palin's as victims.  That doesn't mean that journalists (If we actually have any of those left) shouldn't confront them w/ their hypocrisy in every interview or that sex education/morality should be excluded from any and all debates between parties leading up to the election.

For the record, it is also being reported that Palin and her husband eloped on Aug. 29, 1988.  They had their first child 8 months later.

Abstinence only education.  It works !!

Both parties have are a double edge sword and BOTH parties have mushroomed the size of government over the past 30 years.

Conservatives want to play morality police and put a cross on the Capital dome. The left want to ban anything that might make someone else cry because it is "offensive".

I don't like either party but I'd rather risk voting for the party that has a bigger umbrella and one that is less likely to turn our country into a theocracy like the right wants.

This got me thinking about the myth of the classless American society in relation to the myths we have that are rooted in religion.  Red states tend to be both poorer and more religious than blue states.  There is a traditional conservative argument that says that if you have any economic troubles then you just aren't working hard enough because the United States is classless and anyone can move to a higher social class if they just try.  While I would agree that this does happen more here than in many other countries, it’s both not that simple and not really all that common.  We do see some movement between classes, but not huge leaps.  The lottery becomes the sole hope of so many who want to change their class, and I think we all know just how well that works!

As a nation we are told that anyone not only can pull him or herself up by their own bootstraps, but that it is their obligation to do so.  The poor here tend to buy into this, even if they know they’ve really tried to do so but failed.  And since most of us have seen complaining slackers, this argument does resonate.  Most people I've known have also seen the disabled, elderly, or temporarily stuck in bad situations that do need a bit of help in getting by.  That reality tends to get swept under the rug in this country and you will find that even the poor often will not speak up against societal structures that cause them problems.  This is not the case in other countries though.  The poor seem to be more aware of their status in society and often agitate for change in ways we simply don’t see here.

So then if you go back to looking at red states in general and just look at the issues of poverty and religion, do so many Americans buy into this conservative economic dogma due to comfort with accepting myth from the religious part of their life, or do they flock to religion in such high percentages in order to escape from the reality of poverty that they feel guilt for because they have failed to better themselves economically?  Which is greater, comfort with myth or exhaustion and the desire to escape from reality?

She even admitted that the illegal Iraqi invasion was solely about oil.  She's happy her son might die to give the oil companies some more profits.  Then again, this is the same woman who claimed to take a 12 hours flight from Texas to Alaska, then an hour long car ride to Wasilla after her water broke (although she never told the crew of Alaska Airlines she was preggers and the hospital never recorded her giving birth).

Palin is a fundy, anything she says is suspect.  It's no wonder fellow Alaskan Republicans think she isn't qualified.

When you make Christians question their faith by showing there is no proof for god, in order to dissuade you from this act they sometimes outwardly project comments like "All you're doing is making my faith stronger."  They're liars, frauds, and project their pain onto the world so as to make the pain stop.  Numbnut right winger on the radio might've said that his wife changed position because of the vicious attacks, or he could admit the truth... his wife was stunned that Palin is so fucked up, and is going to vote for her anyway.

It's a meme from the weak.  "The more you prove us wrong, the more sure we become."  Either they are morons or liars.  Liars to themselves and everyone around them.

Oh btw just to show how much I don't believe the rightwinger on the radio, and how we shouldn't let that nonsense slow us down, let me say this...

Palin lied about her having a baby to cover up her daughters pregnancy, she still to this day claims that her daughters baby (Trig) is actually hers.  Her daughters baby is the result of her horrible handle on how to properly educate a child.  Furthermore immediately after the baby the daughter got knocked up again... BECAUSE SHE STILL HAD NOT BEEN TAUGHT ABOUT SAFE SEX.  Palins base however is so fucking stupid that they think because Sarah Palin came out and said her daughter is pregnant now, she has come clean, and Trig couldn't possibly be hers.  Well they're idiots.  Bristol Palin is 3.5 months pregnant with her second child, Sarah Palin is a dope, and her constituency will cause the worst problems America has ever seen if they vote for her and McBush.

In the face of clearly exhibited hypocrisy, the Republicans have chosen to play victim as their defense mechanism.

I think Obama has been very wise to see this and avoid this trap by telling his own campaign staffers to leave this alone...at least for now.  

If your goal is to play the "victim", you need to be able to point to a would-be attacker/enemy.  If there isn't one, then you must manufacture one.  Manufacturing an enemy:  Something the Neo-Cons have gotten quite good at.

It doesn't mean that the media should let them off the hook though as I've seen almost no one who has called them out on their obvious hypocrisy. Some questions I'd ask if given the chance:

 - What if this were Obama's daughter that had gotten pregnant.  Wouldn't the Republican party be having a field day w/ the word morality?

 - Why should those who try to project themselves as upholding morality in this country be exempt from criticism ?

 - What if the pregnant girl was living w/ a single parent?  Or black ?  Haven't you supported policies that could be best described as devoid of compassion for that demographic ?  What makes a black kid or a family with financial hardship exempt from your compassion ? 

 - Abstinence only education has never been shown to be effective and even your own family now exhibits this ineffectiveness.  Tell me how you can possibly justify holding this position ? 

 - Shouldn't the very group that seeks to impose their values and their morality on everyone else be held to a much higher standard of morality ?

 - Why do you suppose these groups that seek to impose morality always seem to exhibit such an inferior brand of morality than the demographics they try to impose on ?

Somehow I doubt this caller was genuine, like all those Hillary supporters who claimed they were going to vote for McCain.  Nobody who is going to support Obama is going to honestly switch their vote to someone who is the polar opposite based upon a trivial issue like Bristol's pregnancy.

The Republicans hire people to call into radio shows in order to affect the meme of society.  Democrats do the same thing to shows like Rush Limbaugh (don't know if they are actually paid like the Republicans are).

Abstinence-only sex "education" is ridiculous in the same way that the expectation of Catholic priests and nuns to remain celibate is. To deny humans such a hardwired behavior is asking for trouble. That much has been proven.

...The most pressing issue for me regarding Palin (being a citizen of a country other than the U.S.) is her batshit-fucking-crazy rhetoric about leading Holy War across the globe in order to trigger Armageddon.

Seriously. That's shit she's gleefully admitted she's all for.

And yet scarier are the facts that:

A) There are so many fundy's apparently ready to march to the gates of Hell with her.

B) Your guys's voting machines are, at best, buggy as shit - and as worst, a total farce (meaning that Obama's popular support right now might not even fucking matter)

I believe I heard on the radio the other day that she's Pentecostal. They played a couple of recordings of speeches she'd made at church events, and you're right - completely batshit crazy.