Sarah Palin's daughter IS pregnant, actually

[cinyc]

BS, JSojourner!

BS!

I love you man, but you're getting awful unreasonable.

The conservative creed is that you should not have a baby until you get married.

The conservative creed is that conservative mothers should teach abstinence!

This is a big hit to the McCain campaign. Period.

You simply don't understand conservatives or Evangelicals.   Have you ever heard of the phrase love the sinner, hate the sin?  Evangelicals have.  Evangelicals also understand that nobody's perfect.

This won't hurt the McCain campaign among Evangelicals.   But if so-called "progressives" overplay their hand, it could boomerang against them.

Obama's response so far has been perfect - I said don't bring families into the campaign and I meant it.  Unfortunately for him, I suspect some so-called "progressives" will overplay this.  Obama's going to have to police his campaign website better to make sure things don't get posted there.

[cinyc]

The Anchorage Daily News reports that as of two days ago, Sarah Palin's press spokesman, Bill McAllister, didn't know Bristol was pregnant.

I'm inclined to believe more than ever McCain didn't know, that the Palin family was trying to keep this a secret (not an unrealistic proposition), and that deeper vetting would have brought it out because the Palins aren't pathological liars or idiots.

Link with the relevant bits to be found at the bottom.

http://www.adn.com/1536/story/512560.html

I really don't understand why everyone seems to think the McCain campaign didn't vet Governor Palin.  The Washington Post story says the campaign vetted Governor Palin as much as any other Veep candidate.  She WAS on the short list.  She made every cut when the list was whittled down along the way.  And the campaign performed an FBI background check on her.

[cinyc]

During the primaries someone posted on Obama's site that they wanted to slit Hillary Clinton's throat and throw her in a ditch. Sites can be moderated, but no one can control things that an anonymous person might write.

True - but a website owner can condemn and delete the offensive comments and ban the person who posted it.

Campaign blog-related websites can be a double-edged sword.

[cinyc]

Drudge isn't giving a big play to this story.  Interesting.

There's a hurricane hitting New Orleans right now.  If you don' t think that's a more important story than a 17-year-old getting pregnant, I don't know what to tell you.

Drudge has links up.  He's not ignoring it.

[cinyc]

Actually JJ, that the Kos story was a Rove plant has already been posited on a couple of blogs, left and right.  And I agree.

Fortunately, Obama is not taking the bait.

The Kos "story" had been kicking around up in Alaska since around the time Governor Palin announced she was pregnant.  Karl Rove (or whomever) would have had to have known then that Senator McCain would pick Sarah Palin as his veep.  Not likely.

By the way, the all-powerful Karl Rove is not the dark overlord behind the McCain campaign.  Steve Schmidt is.  Credit (or blame) should be given where it's due.

[cinyc]

Isn't Schmidt a Rove soldier? 

I don't know what that means.  I suppose if everyone who's ever worked with Karl Rove is considered a Rove soldier, sure.

Don't worry though - Even if Steve Schmidt is the dark overlord behind the McCain campaign, I still hear that Karl Rove controls the weather!