A Story Palin Should Tell

Mr King,

You are a good man, Charlie Brown. I'm not sure that many of us would be as graceful in analyzing the issues of the day as you are, were we black.

But I do think that Gov Palin should be understood and appreciated by the American people for her extreme right wing political philosophy, which is most apparent in her views on abortion (which she doesn't even support in cases of rape and incest) and sex education. Her views that abstinence only education are supported by about 10% of our society.

She's even more out of touch than McCain.

She may be an ex-beauty queen. She may have some compelling family issues. But we should focus on what her impact would be on this country in the areas of peace, prosperity, education, health care, energy independence, and the environment.

Palin should tell us what she thinks of the corrupt elite using lobbyists to rig the system in their favor, what she thinks of corporate greed that is subsidized by taxpayer bailouts, what her plan to solve the housing crisis is, how deep she thinks it is, etc.

All the best,

Thank you, King, for your very thoughtful response. Some of the comments I've observed regarding Palin's daughter have been just as appalling as the comments you've cited.

This just shows that we have to be honest and adopt science in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence alone, as preached by the republican party does not work. It is time to provide responsible comprehensive sex education to our youth.

I think one of the issues surrounding this pregnancy that we must talk about is the fact that Sarah Palin believes in abstinence only sex education. With her daughter facing a teen pregnancy, we should talk about abstinence only as a failed policy. And Palin is against giving other girls and women a choice in choosing how to handle a pregnancy since Palin is anti-abortion. These are important issues raised by this news that we need to have a discussion about.

ZAG, like a typical republican you are lying once again. I too have been reading the comments about the Palin's daughter and the comments are not even near the level of hatred quoted in Mr. King's column.

You Republicans are great at dishing it out, but you Republicans surely cannot take it.

Actually, this article points out how wrong Obama was to talk about this issue as if it only involved young black men taking responsibility for their children. See Obama .. it happens with white people too!!

Teen pregancy is not the end of the world. I can only wish for a good outcome for this young girl and her child. I am sure it is a very trying time for her parents and family. But a larger question is swirling around in my mind. Does Sarah Palin's ambition know no limits? Surely she had to know how terribly embarrasing and humiliting this world wide exposure would be for her 17 year old daughter. How many mother's would put a teenage daughter through such scrutiny at such a time? How many pregnant women would travel to the extent Palin did in the 8th month of a pregency? Was it the travel and schedule that resulted in an early delivery of the Down Syndrome child? Are these the types of risky decisions we could expect if she were to become POTUS?

No one blames the daughter... she's a child. I don't even blame the mother... well, sorta kinda I do. I think you have to balance career with parenting responsibilities, and I think Sarah Palin is showing that she hasn't handled that well. What IS the issue here is that Palin takes a very hard line against sex education in schools. Her abstinence only approach obviously did not work within her own family and demonstrates what a disastrous concept it is on a national level.

We need a real Vice President, not a soon to be mother of two, with one being of special needs.. I don't care about the values I don't care about if its right or wrong its the simple fact that shes a hypocrite and now wont even have the time to be one.. We need somebody that can be there not a mother of what is soon to be two infants...
PS.. abstinence only education is a load of s#@$!

Read Bamaman's comments and his own history with his mother... he is right on target this is private. a non issue ...

No one blames the daughter... she's a child. I don't even blame the mother... well, sorta kinda I do. I think you have to balance career with parenting responsibilities, and I think Sarah Palin is showing that she hasn't handled that well. What IS the issue here is that Palin takes a very hard line against sex education in schools. Her abstinence only approach obviously did not work within her own family and demonstrates what a disastrous concept it is on a national level.

Francisco,

"Actually, this article points out how wrong Obama was to talk about this issue as if it only involved young black men taking responsibility for their children. See Obama .. it happens with white people too!!"

Obama was asking men to take responsibility for thier children, not just black men. And in this instance, the boy is going to marry Bristol, which is what Obama was advocating.

Swift-boat the religious right hardliners. If it were Senator Obama's daughter they would burn her at the stake. No mercy for McCain. For once Democrats go for the jugular. Richard

Mr King sadly people are racist. I am white but grew up as Muslim religious minority in Balkans, in our country Serbia. I know how it feels to be segrageted.

AAll the best to grand kids.

>> We need a real Vice President, not a soon to be mother of two, with one being of special needs.>>

She's the mother of five, Erik. One of them an infant with special needs.

She's soon to be the grandmother of another infant.

I'm not voting for her myself, but you don't seem to be paying much attention.

I would urge everyone to also read the following story by Nathan Thornburgh of TIME

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837862,00.html

It is good to know that there are still journalists with decency and a balanced perspective on things

I’m going to get a little personal here. I share a lot in common with Ms Palin. I’m a father of five, one with special needs, and I also had a daughter who became pregnant at the age of 16. When this occurred some 7 years ago…I got mad…I stomped around…and then I realized that that I could fret and gripe all day long but it didn’t change a damn thing. Sh*t happens, life goes on and I wouldn’t trade my granddaughter for the world. Not in a million years. This issue with Ms Palin’s daughter is a non-political issue. It has nothing to do with politics and I am very happy that Sen. Obama made his announcement today stating that fact. If ANYONE has used or uses this as a political tool they should be FIRED…and not Valerie Plame fired…but really fired.

I would like to put a point on this though. As I stated in an earlier post on my blog (Aug 30th)…I was fully aware that the media would eat Ms Palin for lunch. The question to me is, what does that say about John McCain and his judgment? Why would he choose a running mate that he obviously knew was going to be eaten alive? His campaign stated they knew about this teenage pregnancy when Ms Palin was vetted. Did he really think no one would say anything…that the media that tore into Mark Foley, Larry Craig, and Bill Clinton would give Ms Palin a pass?

I must be a prophet and didn’t know it as I stated days ago that Ms Palin was simply a sacrifice of the GOP to the masses. I stated that she would be torn asunder…and the GOP would desperately attempt to point the finger at the Obama Campaign, to show that Democrats don’t actually support regular folks.

How sad it is to be a Republican power master. That you would sacrifice a beautiful family for your own petty desires. It’s a sad time in America. I feel for Ms Palin. I feel for her poor daughter as I had one of my own in the same situation. I feel for the Palin family and will give them my prayers. Apparently John McCain has no feeling whatsoever or he would not have put this woman and her family in this predicament. What does that say about John McCain’s judgment?

Some of the folks commenting on this blog are filled with nastiness. Why do any of you cite the color of skin or political affiliation in regards to this issue? Quit finger-pointing and show a little more grace, love and concern for our fellow man and woman. If each of us 'swept in front of our own doorstep', the 'Welcome' mat might be a little more visible...

Swift-boat the religious right hardliners. If it were Senator Obama's daughter they would burn her at the stake. No mercy for McCain. For once Democrats go for the jugular. Richard

OK..wait a minute here. Sarah Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy is off limits. However, what mother knowing her child would be subjected to harsh exposure to media and society would still run for VP when her family and child needs her most?
Sarah Palin's personal life has too many complications for her to be effectively focused on her job. Let's list them:
1) a child with down syndrome needs a lot more care than those who don't
2) A teenage daughter needs her mother's time and guidance through this difficult process. Will she put her meeting off with Vladamir Putin because her daugther's teenage husband is arguing with her?
3) A teenager doesn't know who she is let alone her husband and childs needs and therefore her mother should be there.
4) You have 5 children to look after,three children in crisis (a-teenage pregnancy, b-serving time in iraq, c-a child with downs syndrome) you won't be interupted ONCE by any of them during an important meeting?

It is obvious that Gov Palin is not any kind of asset for McCain...all the talk and spin the party is trying to put on her is useless.
Yes let her speak and explain and congratulations on being grandparents and I hope your fridge is full of Caribou hot dogs and you can continue to be the pride of a small town in Alaska and settle feuds the way back water people do but please get out of the way before its too late. What will the next scandal be after Troopergate and teen pregnancy. The election just got handed over to Obama. America is again the laughing stock of the world on this one.

Palin makes Dan Quail look over qualified

If a Democratic male had accepted the VP position a few months after his wife had given birth to a special needs child AND he had a minor daughter who was pregnant the right wing would be all over that person calling him selfish and irresponsible to put his family in such a position at a time when they needed privacy and his presence. And they would be right.

Well, guess what. Sarah Palin is not some heroine for working mothers but an incredibly selfish individual who put her career goals before her family and her country. Did anyone even ask the unwed father if HE wanted to be thrust into the national spotlight? No wonder Palin's Mother-in-law doesn't this she's VP material.

There were many excellent VP choices for McCain. Kay Hutchinson or Tom Ridge would have been a wonderful choices but didn't pass the rapid right's litmus test. McCain's appaling decision to choose his VP for shock value makes it clear he is unfit for command.

Palin is also a member of Feminists for Life.

http://www.feministsforlife.org/

I feel sorry for Bristol Palin and her boyfriend. Nothing like growing up quick without a shred of privacy. McCain and her mother had to know this was coming. Sarah Palin must be one ambitious woman to put her daughter through such public scrutiny at such a delicate time.

This is nuts. This may be a great human interest opportunity, but this is the woman that John McCain has selected to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

There is way too much we don't know about this woman. At least Senator Obama has been vetted for the past 4 years.

If you want to know more about what Palin valued as mayor, apparently the human element of governing was not one of them.

I found the following with a premium search. It is an article from 1997. You will not find it on google. It shows how Palin unnecessarily shafted 3 elderly co-workers...the entire staff of the city museum, for the sake of her ideology.

http://scootmandubious.blogspot.com/2008/08/palins-lack-of-compassion-towards-labor.html

From what I know of Gov Palin...she appears to be the type of person that would tell her daughter that sex is something you wait to be shared with the one you love.

Palin fell in love and married her high school sweetheart...who's to say her daughter isn't following her example?

Apparently...Palin doesn't feel like Obama...who said babies were a "punishment" to young women.

I feel sorry for Palin's daughter who has been put through this media hell by her ambitious mother. Where are Sarah Palin's family values? There is a crisis at home with a new born with Downs Syndrome and a pregnant teenage daughter. She should never have accepted this nomination.

36 years ago my son and his girlfriend became pregnant. As Sarah and Todd Palin have chosen, my wife and I did the same. My son was married and they had a wonderful daughter, my grandaughter. Sometimes we all want to pass judgment on others when we should work on our own issues. I understand that opponents had made claims that the downs child was actualy the daughters, and this disclosure was to set the record straight. I am sure that any person in the political or celebrity world would wish that private things could remain so.

Sins, transgressions, errors of judgement, etc. are not problems for evangelicals. Just say you have seen the light and you are saved, end of issue. Then walk out into the limelight and you become a great and virtuous person. This pregnancy is not a problem for Sarah Barracuda; not even close. It is an opportunity to once again ignore the real problems facing our nation, all the while parading around with a certain smugness and veil of virtue. It's a con game, pure and simple, and a huge percentage of the American population will fall for it.

Thank you for taking the time to write this column. How people can even see this as a racial issue is beyond me. Do they really believe that nice, upper middle-class, white girls from stable families don't get pregnant? Having volunteered in a crisis pregnancy center I an assure you that they do.

I respect Sarah Palin's decision to stand by her daughter and also her commitment to life and reproductive issues.

The facts remain that the overwhelming majority of women seeking abortions are not doing so because they have been raped or because their pregnancy could jeopardize their lives. Most women seeking abortion do so because they did not bother to take precautions against becoming pregnant and do not care to deal with the responsibilities of having a child. In this day and age there is no reason to be pregnant unless you want to.

Sarah Palin's personal life really doesn't have that much to do with her ability to lead - and before you come after me on that one ask yourselves what you conveniently and readily overlooked when Clinton was in office. Governor Palin has more collective experience running a government and managing a budget than does Senator Obama who has never even so much as run a lemonade stand. More power to her. She is just what is needed to shake things up in Washington.

In today's Obama world, it is alright to kill an unborn child conceived out of wedlock,than bring it into the world and love her/him. Unfortuantely most young people today do not want to get married at all, while others are confortable having a child and living together.

The issue of Palin's daughter coming out by the bloggers and the media, is not to have a healthy discussion about it. It is for the Democratic candidiate to win the Presidential election at any cost and destroy the opposition.

The same persons attacking Palin for this and for her husband getting a DUI at 22 years old, did not care about Edward's, Clinton's, Jesse Jackson's or Gary Hart's indiscretions.

So................?

Nobody even advised McCain or Palin that this exposure would be a disaster for her daughter Bristol? I'm having trouble comprehending how these people could be so selfish. This is a real tragedy for the poor girl.

So if Barack's mother executed her "choice" the Dems would not have a candidate. Ever think of that? We would be short one heck of an individual -- his mother paid a hefty price but brought up a great son. She shunned the convenience route and took responsibility. What a concept. What's more important -- baby seals or unborn humans? We think nothing of vacuuming out an unborn child but everything about clubbing a seal (which is pretty reprehensible).

Abstinence only works when you practice it. It's a good habit to be taught, but you also have to be realistic. There's a middle out there somewhere - we're getting closer. Palin and Obama are the closest we have to two real families in America.

What are the chances that the Palin's grandchild will be asking, where's my daddy?

SWMissouri, nice comments...up until you started the finger-pointing. Do you not believe that the Palin family had a choice in the matter? She said 'yes' to be vetted, had to open up her background and the background of her family to scrutiny, and then said 'yes' to Sen. McCain when asked to be his VP nominee. You sound so naive to suggest that there is a "Republican power master". And if there is, there is also one in the Democratic party.

The SEX discrimination in the media and the DEMOCRAT party is sick. Flatly sick! First Hillary and now this!

The past 3 days have all been about VETTING a Vice President. NOONE VEETTED THE NO EXPRIENCE MALE PRESIDENT CANDIDATE OBAMA! HE HAS NO EXPERIENCE!
NONE! ND HE WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT! HELLO MEDIA! HELLO DEMOCRATS!

Today, it is the teen preganacy of her
daughter!From the media! And this column makes it a race issue! It is a SEXIST issue! And this is total bull. Had she been a Democrat we may have NEVER known as she may have had an abortion.

And then we have CNN discussing this becoming MORE of a problem with having children and being the Vice President. Do they really mean BEING A WOMAN AND RAISING A FAMILY WHILE the VP? If she were a man this SEXIST comment would NEVER have come up.

If there was any doubt about voting for McCain/Palin the hypocritical and sexist reactions of the media and the Democrat Party have made the decision for me.

Now Sarah Palin can be so proud of daughter Bristol as she is offered as a teenage role model for millions of American girls.

I just read the comments on CNN's "Ticker" regarding Palin's daughter, and most were disgraceful. My commendations to the writer of this column for being much more restrained.

The case for emphasizing abstinence educataion does not stand or fall on the outcome for one child. Nor does the outcome for Palin's daughter mean that her parents were failures. Children are influenced by much more than parental teachings.

I am amazed at you Dems and your ignorance. Last time I checked, abstinence DOES work. When two people choose to NOT have sex, that results in NO pregnanciy--100% of the time. Get a grip! You Dems are only for women if their liberal idiots like Pelosi, Boxer, et al. Besides, our VP is hotter than any of the ones you've ever fielded!

Bristol was raised by conservative parents who are very well off and educated. Her mother is a governor and father is an OIL executive. I support her decision to keep the baby. It is even easier that she is probably going to marry the father and the parents are supportive and very well-off. But, imagine a teenager who is living on food stamp or at minimum wage without health insurance with little or no education probably duped and raped and become pregnant but does not know how to protect her rights and does not have her parents/community/society supporting her. For her it is so important that she has the choice for abortion. The mother will be subjected to serious health risks due to lack of care and under age and the child who will most likely born with some birth defect due to mother age, physical conditions and lack of health care. A birth would actually end two lives. A choice will actually save two lives. Let’s be rational, practical and reasonable in 21st century.

Saving life is not just life at conception …. It is beyond birth …. How our kids are raised, educated cared for ….. With no education, health care and at minimum wage, life is a worse punishment than death itself. Let’s ensure every one is guaranteed of education, health care and respectable wage …. that’s what will make life worth saving. That will enable every Bristol to keep the child, even if she is not governor's daughter. Pro-choice is the choice to SAVE life ….. that is truly pro-life. Causing 100000 Iraqis and 5000 innocent brave soldiers die for no reason is not pro-life.

I'm an Obama supporter, and had this been one of his daughters I would be saying the say thing. She is much too young and had she been in any other family, shed be in trouble, not being praised. We shouldn't allow children to think that her situation is ok. It really isn't. She was careless and is very lucky she comes from a welthy family. For other children this wouldn't be the case. This is not what McCain needed to help his Position on family values.

Wake up america... abstinence works every single time its tried. At least this baby will have 2 parents.

Fortunately for Sarah Palin's daughter, she has the support of a well to do family, unfortunately not many other pregnant teens do these days.

I wonder what the reaction from the conservatives would be if Obama had a 17 year old daughter that became pregnant?

and

How old is the boy who got her pregnant?, the McCain campaign is citing privacy rules so I can only think that the boy is a minor too.

The American family has fallen apart during the past 40 years and the result is seen in things like drug use by tens of millions, underage pregnancies, crime and all the rest. We probably have 40 to 50 million people in this country that shouldn't even be here thanks to the greed of the wealthy that run this nation. Now that everybody is empowered we see the result---I feel sorry for the children and the lives they will lead

Damn, as a Conservative Christian I CAN'T vote for this woman anymore!!!! She can't even control her own daughter!!! She is a shame for all the Christians and she should be purged of our community! I was finally thinking on vote on McCain because of her, but now she just showed she is another agent of the Enemy of the Humankind! A liar and a deceiver! We real Christians have no option on this election!!! We are between Mecca and Babylon!!! I will have to vote for Barr...

I never completely understood why people would be upset by pre-marital sex or out-of-wedlock babies. Take a quick look at anyone's family history and do a little math on marraige dates and first borns. Did you ever wonder why we had so many child brides back then? There is no lack of morality...we're just human. Why can't we just keep people's private business out of politics?

As Joyce Elders, the former Surgeon General said, "...abstenience is much easier to break than a condom." While teaching abstenience is fine on one level, sex education--how humans mature to sexual beings, sexual diseases, et al--is also needed. How can we expect our young men and women to abstain when they do not understand fully what they are abstaining from? Like drugs, it's more than merely saying "no." Education, not dogma, is the key to preventing early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Mr. King, it does seem like there's a bit of a double-standard going on here, though. When a child is born to an underage and unwed black mother, the GOP immediately goes into a lengthy lecture about parental responsibility, welfare, the cost to the state, and the societal burden.

When it's the grandchild of a presumptive GOP VP candidate, then it's all "what a blessing," and flowery goodness for all. And here we have Steve Schmidt telling us that politicizing this would appall Americans, and that asking the necessary question of what effect this might have on her ability to serve was "offensive."

Why are we not allowed to ask hard questions, or even softball questions, of the right? If Obama's upbringing in Hawaii, his "fist-jab," his wife's college papers, etc. can be politicized fairly, then surely asking some questions of a candidate who supports abstinence-only programs about how it worked within her own family should be fair game?

The fact is, when you run for political office, you open the doors to public scrutiny. The GOP has no problem with that at all when it's about a Democrat, but it's another story when it's one of their own.

What else do you expect from the 17 year old brat of a numbskull who against all scientific wisdom went ahead and conceived a baby at an age of 44 when malformity risks are high and sure enough when she is told of a baby with downs syndrome, blames God for it and sentences the child to a life time of misery by bringing it to the world and gets a hero award from the "republican base" for it?

I don't for the life of me understand why sex education (or lack of it) is a political issue at all. You think comprehensive sex education is effective and the way to go? Tell your kids all about sex and contraception, then. What's stopping you? On the flip side, you think abstinence is right? Teach it to your kids.

Why do you need the government to not only do it for you, but to put your views (whichever way you lean) onto everyone else's kids, too?

Parents should be responsible for teaching this stuff, not schools. No wonder we're falling behind the rest of the world academically. Too much time talking about the birds and the bees (or keeping your pants on, depending on the district) and not enough spend on the three Rs. Shameful!

I think her daughter should get an abortion! Keepin it real.

Obama/Biden '08

Do we really want this miss in the White House? Go back to being the mayor of hick town.

Mr.King, People will be angry for various reasons. The bible plays a big role in many conservative lives.

I can't digest Sarah Palin. Not for her parenting, not for her teen daughter getting pregnant but for lack of moral values.

She brings out a child that she knew has down syndrome before birth. That boy IS GOING TO SUFFER HIS ENTIRE LIFE AS A RETARD. WHAT KIND OF MOTHER WOULD DO THAT? and she is pro-life to the extent that she opposes obortion even in the case of RAPE AND INCEST. The Palins are just too conservative and have UNETHICAL MORAL VALUES. and She wants to be a Vice-President??

Blaming Palin for her daughter's actions is stupid. Her daughter is 17 and can make decisions of her own. Mommy isn't holding her hand anymore. It's her choice to make the beast with two backs outside of marriage contrary to what her mother taught her. Shame on her. But it's commendable that her mother is forgiving and is supporting her and her decision to save life by keeping the baby.

PS. For all those out there that think abstinence does not work: Pathetic! Of course it works!! I'm 29 and have kept it in my pants for that long. It's a matter of self-control and unfortunately there are a lot of people out there that don't have self control. Teach self-control, self-respect, respect for others, and the level of responsibility it takes to have a child. Tell the stories of single mothers living in sub-poverty conditions trying to make ends meet while their child (children) is starving or suffering from malnutrition. Show pictures; you know the cliche... If they can't come to the conclusion that they need to wait until they're in an economic position to take care of children, they probably shouldn't have children anyway....

Palin's daughter has nothing to do with it -- but it points out how Sarah Palin's parenting skills have failed her, and reflects on her potential skills as a leader.

It also points out that the rate of teen pregnancies and STDs will skyrocket if McSame/Palin are in office, and try to push more "abstinence only" programs, and God forbid, repeal Roe v. Wade.

Well at least Sarah Palin's daughter knows who da daddy be. Show me one welfare mother in south side Chicago dat knows dat.

It's a good thing Palin likes SHOOTING GUNS, now she can preside over a SHOT GUN WEDDING!

My teen son's girl friend says " do people think they are fooling...these days if you get pregnant...you have to be trying ...it's too easy to not get pregnant". Makes me wonder how responsible Ms Palin is.

Sarah Palin is not a Christian!!! Real Christian families won't let the devil do what he did with this girl and this 16 year old boy!!! She is just another wolf on sheep-skin!!!! Thanks God her mask fell to the ground!!! God won't let His people be misguided for this seductress and liar!!!

Please, dear sir, head on over to The Huffington Post or the Daily Kos and see how much tolerance and acceptance is being given to this family and Ms Palin in general. You and yours must be so proud.

I read in utter disbelief some of the callous and clearly ignorant comments made regarding this "news". Though not a supporter, I applaud Obama's comment that family and especially children need to be kept out of the mudslinging festival that is the thrust of our campaign process today. I'm certain this event is cause for distress in the Palin home and yet I don't think it is cause to indict the very beliefs the candidate is embracing. I feel some credit is deserved for placing a candidates strong beliefs in plain view to allow voters to decide if they can support them versus the smoke and mirrors we typically see. Perhaps we should look more closely at our own stated beliefs and how perfectly they manifest themselves in our lives before immediately casting criticism. How well would we all pass muster given the intense scrutiny all our potential leaders are placed under? I agree with an earlier comment albeit for differing reasons. Why would anyone expose their frailties to our ever judgemental, yet wholely imperfect society?

So what if Sarah Palin has smoked marijuana as have the vast majority of Americans under the age 50; and so what if her daughter got pregant out of wedlock. I'd vote for nearly anyone who would bring new blood to Washington DC. My grown daughter can't remember when there wasn't either a Bush or a Clinton in the Oval Office. When I was my daughter's age I had experienced five Presidents -- Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.
Sterling Greenwood
Aspen Free Press

The fact is that teen pregnancy among blacks is the highest on a percentage basis of any ethnic group in America.

I don't think anyone advocates teen pregnancy, because adolescent girls generally don't have the emotional maturity, let alone the financial resources to parent a child.

The silver lining to Bristol Palin's situation is that she has support, both financial and emotional to take this baby to term and will marry the baby's father, assuring that the child will have two parents. Sadly, that is seldom the case in most teen pregnancies, especially in the black community.

Senator Obama recognizes the damage caused by teen pregnancy, and especially the damage to children who have fathers they never knew. He lectured fellow African- Americans about that problem when he spoke before the NAACP.

Now, what was that point Colbert King was trying to make?

I think it shows how out of touch evangelical christian parents are. I doubt very much that the Palins taught their daughter the dangers of unprotected sex. Instead they probably preached the evangelical message of abstinence and sex is only right inside a marriage message. Is Vice-President nominee Palin now going to change her views on unproteceted sex outside of marriage?

I wish Palin's daughter the best. And I wish Palin the best. Having heard her for the first time two days ago and having read a good deal about her, I am genuinely excited. Here is a hard hitting governor that holds people accountable. Her is a governor who has worked with her hands and her mind. Can you imagine McCain, Obama, or Biden trying to run a fishing operation near the Arctic Circle? And she's forced the oil companies to contribute to the state as well. Sarah Palin has had more impact on the media in two days, than the other three candidates combined. The extreme interest from the media would indicate there is a great fear of her candidacy out there. I hope Palin tears up the world. She is a great change of pace!

I do applaud Ms. Palin's choices and their unconditional support for their daughter. This should be a lesson that there are alternatives to abortion.

My only hope is that people will not turn this into a political issue. My spider-sense, however, is telling me that because she is Republican, she will receive more grace from the Dobsons of the world than if she were a Democrat. If it were Obama's daughter, we would probably hear about his lack of moral character, ineffectiveness in instilling character in his family, and the fact that if he can't handle his own family how can he handle leading a nation, etc. I hope this isn't true. I'm not going to blame Ms. Palin. I sure hope she wouldn't do the same if the shoe were on the other foot.

Is there a CRIME here?

The father's age hasn't been reported. Statutory Rape is a possibility when youths have children. If Ms. Palin's lover was 15 when conception took place, a felony has occurred.

The VP Candidate knew - but elected to expose her daughter to the scrutiny of the press and law - perhaps there will be an indictment to follow. A Trial and, ultimately - the determination by the jury.

The "family values" party seems too be caught on the horns of a dilemma.

It ISN'T a non-issue. It would be a non-issue if it was your next-door neighbor or some other regular Joe, but it isn't. Sarah Palin is a vice presidential candidate and everything she does is now open to public scrutiny, as it should be.

I too have serious problems with a woman who would put her ego and ambition before the needs of her own family... ESPECIALLY when that woman is touting right-wing fundamentalist Christian values.

She should step away from the campaign immediately. I cannot fathom her continuing this charade. How sad for her kids! The adage rings true: The bigger they get, the harder they fall. WHAT in the world was she possibly thinking? She should have just said "NO" to McCain in the first place.

Talk about poor judgment!! She will never be vice president now; that much is a no-brainer.

Guess she'll have to write a book about it and go on the nationwide talk show tour....

It's time these Republicans stopped pandering to the evangelicals. Leave your darn religion OUT of politics, please.

Now, if this had been a hard-driving, ambitious Democrat whose daughter became pregnant, it's all quite predictable that the pious religious conservatives would be tch,tch,tching about how if the mother was in the home and raising her kids, this wouldn't have happend. Surely this poor girl's home life must have been substandard and lacking in proper teaching of morals, abstinence and the sin of sex before marriage.

Gawd, payback is hell. It's just too bad that a young lady has to suffer because of some stridently held beliefs. If she had been properly educated in birth control, perhaps it could have been avoided. Condoms fail once in 1000 times, abstinence fails 990 out of 1000 times.

"Yes let her speak and explain and congratulations on being grandparents and I hope your fridge is full of Caribou hot dogs and you can continue to be the pride of a small town in Alaska and settle feuds the way back water people do but please get out of the way before its too late."

This demonstrates, more than anything else, how ignorant, prejudiced and demeaning the general urban American public is regarding Alaskan rural life and those who were born to it. Apparently, liberal bigotry has sunk to new debts. For shame, I would have hoped that would not have been the case.

I don't like Palin's politics and I agree her daughter's pregnancy is a personal, not a political issue. What is really disturbing to me is the blind sexism underlying these questions as to how Palin will balance her parental responsibilities with the responsibilities of being vice president. If she were a man, would anyone be asking those questions?

"I'm also happy to learn that their daughter will have the unconditional love and support of the entire family as she and her husband-to-be raise their baby."

Gosh, you really are an idiot. This is the best comment that you can come up with as a journalist?

A 4th Estate has reached a new nadir.

As a pointy-headed bleeding heart liberal democrat it is my hope that the media - and the good people of this country - will stop talking about Gov Palin's private family matters and start talking about policy issues.

The last I checked, as a result of excessive lobbying and deregulation, we had a housing crisis that threatened to take down the financial system. What does Palin think about that?

How would she handle Iraq if, after we were told to leave by Maliki, the situation there devolved into civil war and Iran and Saudi Arabia joined the fray?

How does she plan on re-engineering the educational system so that we can compete with the Chinese in the 21st century?

How will she balance the budget when social security and entitlement programs (medicare, medicaid, etc) continue to grow?

That is what we should be focused on. The dumbing down of America, symbolized by George "Forrest" Bush and John "Mr Magoo" McCain, has to stop. Now. We have real issues to deal with.

Mr King, you treated the lady right..there su no reason that a mother or father should talk about their private affair, the only persons that want to know are the one that like to see another person in pain... to them it is like reading a dirty book......shame on all that think that way...

She has more experience that Mr. Obama. She connects to ordinary people who have to go to work everyday. Obama picked his vp so that he can get on the job training. Being president is not the streets of Chicago....

What a lot of people, white, black, Hispanic, Asian etc. don't seem to realize, by now, is that even some children who are raised in a stable well adjusted home can make mistakes in their teenage years.

There is the saying "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". This is true with all children.

This is the reason why even some children of preachers get pregnant out of wedlock.

Everyone should know by now that "people make mistakes", whether they are adults or teens, or children.

He who is without sin, cast the first stone.

It is our responsibility to teach our children good moral values, but it is their choice to live it once they are old enough to make decisions.

I believe that Sarah Palin is the right choice for vice-president. She is a wife and parent, and she has accomplished many things that have helped the the people of Alaska.

She is intelligent, strong, tenacious, and stands up for what is right. Yes, one of her daughters is pregnant, but that has nothing to do with her abilities to be an effective vice-president.

Vote McCain, I will.

Maria

I wonder whose health care plan will cover the OB/GYN bills as well as the pediatrician's? The baby's mom and dad, or its grandparents? Perhaps Alaska has a state-sponsored plan? If it's a good-enough plan, perhaps it should be considered for all of us at the federal level.

ProParents, I'm finger-pointing because I saw it coming...days ago.

I agree that Palin said yes...my argument is that McCain should not have put her in this position because of the Family issues that would have (did and still are) coming to light.

The Moral and Ethical thing for Mr. McCain to have done is told her that while he would have loved to have her on the ticket, he did not want her and her family to be put through the obvious media frenzy and subsequent pain that would ensue. That's what I would have done...maybe I'm just special. Seeing as I understand that being a podunk, hillbilly from MO...you'd think that a Senator for over 20 years would have noticed.

Eight out of 10 pregnancies in teens are unplanned. When are people in America going to realize this is a serious issue? Prevention and education are key. Abstience Only programs work almost as well as No Child Left Behind works in the education. We need to have the Courage to Talk our own children about sex, love, relationships, values, pregnancy, and family formation. Wake Up America!

I'm an Obama supporter and for anything that tears down the Republicans, but you know what? She's a kid. She is a kid going through a tough time and she shouldn't be used as a political tool or a springboard for national debate. This is a family matter and we should leave it alone.Sure they would jump all over it if the shoe was on the other foot, but that doesn't mean we should.
I just know if it was my kid and reporters were camped out on my lawn because of it, I'd happily bust some heads on the evening news.
Like Obama said -- Kids are off limits.

We should not be surprised that a daughter of a radical antiabortionist evangelical opponent of sex education turns up pregnant: the correlation between teenage pregnancy and religious fundamentalism is well known. It is primarily a "red state" phenomenon.

I'm an Obama supporter and for anything that tears down the Republicans, but you know what? She's a kid. She is a kid going through a tough time and she shouldn't be used as a political tool or a springboard for national debate. This is a family matter and we should leave it alone.
I just know if it was my kid and reporters were camped out on my lawn because of it, I'd happily bust some heads on the evening news.
Like Obama said -- Kids are off limits.

Eight out of 10 pregnancies in teens are unplanned. When are people in America going to realize this is a serious issue? Prevention and education are key. Abstience Only programs work almost as well as No Child Left Behind works in the education. We need to have the Courage to Talk our own children about sex, love, relationships, values, pregnancy, and family formation. Wake Up America!

The Vice Presidency of the United States is a 24/7 job. What is Sarah Palin going to give up if John McCain is elected and she becomes the VP? How is she going to give adequate attention to a 4 month old special needs baby, a pregnant 17 year old daughter and, oh yes, her job?

Something has gone horribly wrong here.If Mr.McCain knew about this, he might want to have spent five minutes thinking about the implications to our great country.

The Religious Right will always find ways to twist their logic to suit themselves, and condemn others.

Eight out of 10 pregnancies in teens are unplanned. When are people in America going to realize this is a serious issue? Prevention and education are key. Abstience Only programs work almost as well as No Child Left Behind works in the education. We need to have the Courage to Talk our own children about sex, love, relationships, values, pregnancy, and family formation. Wake Up America!

i bet she's against national health care too but has no problem using gov't coverage just like other republican politicians...we pay for hypocrisy in so many ways

Eight out of 10 pregnancies in teens are unplanned. When are people in America going to realize this is a serious issue? Prevention and education are key. Abstience Only programs work almost as well as No Child Left Behind works in the education. We need to have the Courage to Talk our own children about sex, love, relationships, values, pregnancy, and family formation. Wake Up America!

Face it...we're screwed AGAIN in this election. Mrs. Palin is just the icing on the cake.

Eight out of 10 pregnancies in teens are unplanned. When are people in America going to realize this is a serious issue? Prevention and education are key. Abstience Only programs work almost as well as No Child Left Behind works in the education. We need to have the Courage to Talk our own children about sex, love, relationships, values, pregnancy, and family formation. Wake Up America!

She has more experience that Mr. Obama. She connects to ordinary people who have to go to work everyday. Obama picked his vp so that he can get on the job training. Being president is not the streets of Chicago....

Palin's daughter has chosen not to have an abortion and that's great. Both her parents and the McCain campaign have made it clear that she made this choice and that everyone stands by her choice. That's fantastic. However, they want to take the right to choose away from everyone else in America. That's terrible! Every pregnant teen should be able to choose whether to have the child or not.

Mr King, you treated the lady right..there is no reason that a mother or father should talk about their private affair, the only persons that want to know are the one that like to see another person in pain... to them it is like reading a dirty book......shame on all that think that way...

It sure proves abstence education, even from a ardent supporter of abstence education, just does not work.

How wonderful they are ready to be grandparents, and their daughter is just so ready to give up a collage education and settle down to start a life of being barefoot and pregnant at the sweet age of 17.

Plain has been very vocal against any type of the use of birth control. Now her daughter is in a jamb.

Her daughter probably did not tell her mother for months, being too scared, and now some poor boy is going to be shanghaied into marrying the stupid girl, who's mother would not allow her to use birth control.

Good example for the nation, get your daughters pregnant before graduation, insist on them having the child, and then see if they can make a salvage a working marriage from their juvenile mistake.

Most sensible politicians, who have run on an abstinence platform, would have realized that it's real egg on their face, and stepped down, not up.

I am just so happy that the child is conceived out of wedlock but to rich grandparents. After all, we know that's all a baby needs, a silver spoon in it's mouth.

Whew. At least the air went out of the Trig story. Unfortunately the McCain campaign had to dump Bristol's pregnancy out in front of the nation because they failed to vet properly. They were unprepared because of McCain's rash decision making. Otherwise, they would have had a bead on this swirling rumor and have had pregnant pictures of the Gov and her doctor on tap.

The problem is not the pregnant daughter.

The problem is the neglectful mother - Sarah Palin. She should be the one scrutinized highly.

Sarah Palin, who talked about family values, about abstinence before marriage, obviously neglected her five children. Those words fell on the deaf neglected ears of the people most important in her life - her own cihldren.

A good mother realizes that two children are equivalent to a full time job. When you get to four children, you cannot work outside the home without neglecting your children. And this is what happened.

Do we want this person as our President?

If she says her executive experience is that of a mother of five children, then she has been neglectful as an executive.

Do we want this person as our President?

Yes, the child who is pregnant needs our sympathy and support.

But, oh her mother! The neglectful mother does not.

Do we want this person as our President?

No.

This Palin lady is a shame for all of us, Christians!!! Jesus said "better for someone to tie a rock to his neck and jump on a river than put our community on shame". This lady deserves no mercy for her irresponsibility!!! If she handles her family this way, think about on how she will going to handle our country????

I'm an Obama supporter and for anything that tears down the Republicans, but you know what? She's a kid. She is a kid going through a tough time and she shouldn't be used as a political tool or a springboard for national debate. This is a family matter and we should leave it alone.
I just know if it was my kid and reporters were camped out on my lawn because of it, I'd happily bust some heads on the evening news.
Like Obama said -- Kids are off limits.

She has more experience that Mr. Obama. She connects to ordinary people who have to go to work everyday. Obama picked his vp so that he can get on the job training. Being president is not the streets of Chicago....

"Yes let her speak and explain and congratulations on being grandparents and I hope your fridge is full of Caribou hot dogs and you can continue to be the pride of a small town in Alaska and settle feuds the way back water people do but please get out of the way before its too late."

This demonstrates, more than anything else, how ignorant, prejudiced and demeaning the general urban American public is regarding Alaskan rural life and those who were born to it. Apparently, liberal bigotry has sunk to new debts. For shame, I would have hoped that would not have been the case.

What a lot of people, white, black, Hispanic, Asian etc. don't seem to realize, by now, is that even some children who are raised in a stable well adjusted home can make mistakes in their teenage years.

There is the saying "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". This is true with all children.

This is the reason why even some children of preachers get pregnant out of wedlock.

Everyone should know by now that "people make mistakes", whether they are adults or teens, or children.

He who is without sin, cast the first stone.

I believe that Sarah Palin is the right choice for vice-president. She is a wife and parent, and she has accomplished many things that have helped the the people of Alaska.

She is intelligent, strong, tenacious, and stands up for what is right. Yes, one of her daughters is pregnant, but that has nothing to do with her abilities to be an effective vice-president.

Vote McCain, I will.

Maria

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf

There is a great divide along racial lines, for teenage pregnancies. We should not be that blind to the FACTs

Demands to curtail welfare checks, seems fine to me.

Look I know it sounds crazy but if you read the story given here you have to wonder:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/31/145838/319/386/581332

Did Sarah Palin fake her fith pregancy to protect her then 16 year old daughter? The photos are amazing and if true Palin needs to step out of the picture ASAP.

Sarah Palin ought to stay home and mind the store, not try to play vice president

She has more experience that Mr. Obama. She connects to ordinary people who have to go to work everyday. Obama picked his vp so that he can get on the job training. Being president is not the streets of Chicago....

How sad for a 17 year old to be thrust into the national media concerning a very private and personal matter. Sadder still that an ambitious mother of a pregnant 17 year old decides to expose her daughter to the media blitzgrig so that she can run for vice president. If she did, indeed, know prior to today's announcement, if she indeed, knew while she was getting, she should have passed, simply stating that her place was with her family now !

The Palin pregnancy is significant because it demonstrates that even when parents preach abstinence, teenagers WILL HAVE SEX. And underage, unmarried girls WILL GET PREGNANT. No amount of preaching will stop it.

What has at least a chance of reducing unwanted pregnancies is sex education in high schools, particularly about methods of birth control, like use of condoms. They'll still have sex, but fewer babies.

Duh...

The Vice Presidency of the United States is a 24/7 job. What is Sarah Palin going to give up if John McCain is elected and she becomes the VP? How is she going to give adequate attention to a 4 month old special needs baby, a pregnant 17 year old daughter and, oh yes, her job?

Something has gone horribly wrong here.If Mr.McCain knew about this, he might want to have spent five minutes thinking about the implications to our great country.

"Yes let her speak and explain and congratulations on being grandparents and I hope your fridge is full of Caribou hot dogs and you can continue to be the pride of a small town in Alaska and settle feuds the way back water people do but please get out of the way before its too late."

This demonstrates, more than anything else, how ignorant, prejudiced and demeaning the general urban American public is regarding Alaskan rural life and those who were born to it. Apparently, liberal bigotry has sunk to new debts. For shame, I would have hoped that would not have been the case.

Those of you who "blame" parents for their children's mistakes obviously are single. Trust me, people make mistakes esp. kids. Regarding Sarah Palin, why should she postpone her career??...she has a supportive husband, doesn't she? Obama has children and a wife who works, is he a bad parent? I feel McCain made a wise choice in Palin. Women will back her!!!!

Rofl... lololol ahhahahaaa...

oh - this is RICH !

Not being born here I am bewildered by the partisan politics and theater of politics in the US. When does the average voter start to worry about good government and not the personal lives of politicians? Many Republican politicos sure try so hard to represent a way of life but have trouble living according to the plan. Of course it gets them elected from time to time but how hard it must be to be against HPV vaccine because they say it promtoes promiscuity but in the end really hurts womens health; against gay marriage and then have two republicans busted for soliciting men etc etc. I think we need three parties; Republican (for big business); some religious based party; and the Democrats.

It never ceases to amaze me about how vitriolic hard core liberals can be in chastising people who do not see the world through their particular lens. As this campaign has gone on for the past year, it has really struck me that liberals see the world as a glass half empty and see themselves as victims. As a result, they have a tendency to lash out at others who they see as ones to blame for their unhappiness. I don't consider myself a conservative and I voted for Clinton twice. So no one should view me with a Republican label. As a dad of two adult girls of my own, I have learned that teenagers will do what they decide to do. Also, bad things can happen in families with great parents. Finally, on the topic of sex education, those lessons are best taught within the family. Why this should be a government function baffles me and frankly I doubt it could be effective.

Many teen mothers don't have the luxury of the emotional and financial support the Palin family can provide their daughter. How sad that Palin can't see that programs like sex-ed and contraception distribution help keep kids of all races and economic backgrounds from messing up their lives....but even more tragic how her views on contraception, sex education and abortion help perpetuate a system that has become so skewed against those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder that the American Dream is a now a near impossibility. If we want a country where 1% of the population controls 90% of the wealth, well we are already living in it. If we want even more of the same, vote McCain.

boring....

Sure, some change of pace, all right, if you're comfortable with a mother who may have condoned a three-year relationship between a then-14-year-old child--her daughter!--and a 23-year-old man. I have one word: DISGUSTING.
--
I hope Palin tears up the world. She is a great change of pace!

Posted by: SDCol | September 1, 2008 5:58 PM

You left wing nuts and kooks are crazy, and more importantly, and unfortunately, sexist and misogynist to the extreme. So a very successful, accomplished, powerful woman shouldn't run for VP because she has a family?? You are all nuts. But I guess it makes sense---you would rather it be that only single and/or childless and self-loathing radical leftist women hold the reins of power in this country.

I don't see how race ever got involved to begin with? Palin and her offspring are all caucasian (majority), end of story.

Teen pregnancy (read: promiscuity) rates are often similar, or even higher in rural "bible belt" areas as they are in the inner cities of large metros. The teen promiscuity problem has little to do with race or socio-economic status. And statistics can be easily skewed - so I won't even claim that the problem has much to do with where a kid is physically raised. It has everything to do with the social enviorment that all of our kids are being forced to grow up with, and how willing the parents really are to protect them from it. We sexualize everything from PG films, to TV commercials - many of which are ABOUT sex and sex functionality, even during daytime. We have pro-homosexuality agendas in the media, anti-gay agendas in the churches - all of these are injurious to the developing mind.

It's time to take back our media from the ubiquitously filthy, disgusting, immoral and unethical advertising. Better yet, we need to unplug our children and ourselves, and start actually raising them again.

Matt in TN

Deep Blue, it seem you have drank a little too much of the salt water. What is so right wing about holding the life of a child sacred, which it is. You sound like an absolute Fool.

This Palin lady is a shame for all of us, Christians!!! Jesus said "better for someone to tie a rock to his neck and jump on a river than put our community on shame". This lady deserves no mercy for her irresponsibility!!! If she handles her family this way, think about on how she will going to handle our country????

Good column!

Unfortunately, though, there are a whole lot of self-righteous, agenda-pushing jack-asses out there who will try to use this 'pregnancy' for their own purposes.

Particularly galling are the fools who think other human beings, in particular children, can be raised, taught and 'controlled' to live error free! This doesn't happen in the real world.

Yes guidance helps, but anyone who has ever been a parent, knows that luck is an even larger factor.

The rude stuff most of you Obama supporters are spouting makes clear that you're bigger losers than the Republicans who wouldn't stop harping on Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky fiasco.

Obama supports are the most spineless cowards in this country.

I'm white. I point out my race because I know firsthand that teen-aged pregnancy is not an issue of race. As a 17-year-old, I became pregnant and chose to give birth to the child and place him for adoption.

Here is another wrinkle: I am also pro-choice. I, however, made the decision that was best for me.

Life is complicated, and Gov. Palin and her daughter are only human. The fact of the girl's pregnancy is not relevant to her mother's candidacy, despite her mother's positions on sex education and abortion.

Only fools will say that Gov. Palin's daughter is proof of some shortfall in Palin's parenting or her ability to lead. Only bigger fools will say the girl should have had an abortion. And the biggest fools of all will say that teen-age pregnancy is a non-white problem.

By the way, I support Sen. Obama for president.

Let's how a little humanity here, for God's sake! Grow up, people.

This pregnancy is a coverup! Bristol is not pregnant and will have a “miscarriage”, and then they can use this “pregnancy” to deny that Trig is Bristol’s son, and then say that they don’t want to talk about her tragic miscarriage.

Well, since Sarah sent Tod back to work for BP so that they could send their children to good Christian universities, at least they have one less to (pretend to) educate and one more teen mother to put on Alaska's welfare rolls. Nice going, devout Christian hypocrites!

oh... you mean WHITE girls getting preggers - well, we should take care of them and honor their mom and pops, they have a big cross to bear...bless their hearts..

...same old double standards that have been around for years.. nothing new here ...now, they say ...let them deal with this private matter in private ...unless it is YOUR private matter .. then they tell you how you should deal with it ...plain and simple, the child has no guidance and no morals .. and that is what they want us to buy for the next 4 years...ain't gonna happen ...

It appears that Sarah Palin's daughter is now set to marry the father of her child. Would the Reverend Jeremiah Wright be conducting the ceremonies?? I think that would be very fitting and be a generous move by all those rabid Republicans who are ready o climb the moral high horse when it suits them

Until I became blind, I could not see. The words of hate from those who sit on the left side of the aisle is a disgrace.

This Palin mess says far more about McCain's judgement than Palin's. He is saying now that he knew about the pregnancy, and the 'Alaska Troopergate' problems before he selected her. Palin and her husband are certainly not practitioners of abstinence themselves. But that isn't the issue. The issue is that John McCain wants to put this woman one 72-yr-old heartbeat away from the big chair. Has he become so disillusioned with the available republican talent, that he needs such a problem-riddled candidate?
Of course Palin is still having kids herself. When that famous '3-o'clock-in-the-morning' call rings in the White House.... the president might be in labor.

this issue is a private one
-for da baby mommy
-and da baby daddy

one that i don't think we should be talking about -

I don't agree with Obama that families should be off limit on political issues, Republicans used ethics, morality, religion, personal character time and again as tool for political leverage, for them common sense, realism, experience are not only secondary but also scuttle back opponents whose embrace it as naive, indecent and anti religious. I'm glad that their own rhetoric came back to bite them right on time. Gov Palin should explain her stand on teenage pregnancy and her role as responsible mother. This apart she also should explain her stance in state trooper firing scandal.

Burn Obama and Palin together!!!! The Muslim and the Liar!!!!

I blame the daughter. We are supposed to walk as Christ did. I don't recall the son of God tramping around getting pregnant. What and the hell is wrong with you people? Next thing you'll tell me is that a woman can run a country better than a man. God have mercy on all your souls.

I appreciate the simple laying out of the case you have experienced here in the responses to your original post.

The people in judgment should be "us" being judged by ourselves, each one judging himself.

Any given topic or supposed object of ridicule, as you've proven here, only provides the litmus to indict our prejudices.

Thank you.

I am very concerned about what the law states in Alaska regarding teenage sex, and if the man involved is also a minor. Sarah Palin should give her daughter the opportunity to make the decision regarding her pregnancy as an adult and not hide under the politically expedient believes of her parents. Politics is sure interesting and the governor is sure a good example of a good, christian conservative mother.

Mr King, you gave it a good shot but the ugly partisanship of your readers will always shine through. You are absolutely correct when you state that teen pregnancy isn't a racial issue. It's not a Democrat or Republican issue either. Nor, is it an issue of "poor parenting". This is an issue that all of society must deal with.

In many ways, we expect teens to be adults when it comes to issues regarding sex but then we continue to treat them like children well into their 20's. There isn't a "political" solution to this, it's a societal problem and we need a complete attitude adjustment in order to get a grip on it.

It saddens me to see so many people "Throwing stones"... I suggest they take a minute and RE-READ the bible...

What has happened is a sin, yet sin is made to be forgiven--HOWEVER the "consequences" of that sin remain.

I have to wonder and question the upbringing of this child that had sex before marriage in a family of "strong christian values".

I will pray for the family and vote for someone else.

JMO

Shades of Dan Quayle - Miss Palin must have been watching too much Murphy Brown.

Shades of Dan Quayle - Miss Palin must have been watching too much Murphy Brown.

what about morals????
i'm not a preacher or anything, but morals stand for something
i really admired Palin, despite being a Democrat myself, for the way she handled this situation. But I really think people are disregarding the moral aspect of it. I know they were in love, I know it's common, but still, am I the only one that thinks this way???

P.S i'm not judging anyone, and kudos if you are a teen mother for taking on a HUGE reponsibility

I think Palin should head for the exit.

Astride a high horse, she preaches Republican "family values" relentlessly while her own daughter isn't on board.

Now she finds herself with two special needs children in her family: an infant with a severe disability and a pregnant teenage daughter. They both require her full attention and support.

If Palin can't honor her own rhetoric in the breach, then I want none of her. Such blatant hypocrisy is intolerable.

I am a conservative, however I am starting to see the logic in abortion. Just think if we mandated it for any unwanted child. Pretty soon there would be no liberals around. They would have all been aborted..That I think is the strongest argument ive ever heard of to support abortion. Hell I could even see gay mariages .. no need for abortion , just a bunch of gays and lesbians, who couldnt propagate, soon their would be no more liberals as well... think about it.....

The abstinence-only sex education (i.e. enforced ignorance) that Palin supports served her daughter well, no?

Does anyone really believe that parents can keep a 17-year-old from having sex? That is, short of chaining the kid to the furniture?

This is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the campaign itself. I'm more concerned about Sarah Palin's being in favor of oil drilling in wildlife areas and dumbing down science education than in whether her 17-year-old daughter is smart enough to sneak out and have sex but not smart enough to use birth control.

most of you are like a pack of wild DOGS just waiting to sink their teeth into fresh meat. most of you are probably parents! are your kids perfect do you know what your daughter is doing while on a date? NO you dont! its time some of you get a life leave the 17 year old daughter alone. she will be the one that will spend the next 18 years at least taking care of the child. just back off let the family handle this!!!!!

The reason Teen Pregancy is a black issue is that a lot of the middle and upper class whites choose to sacrifice their grandchildren on the alter of convienience.

I am a white male and know this from my work with Teen' Moms/Parents and God's property - High School Programs run by Youth for Christ helping children stay in school and raise their babies. The overwhelming majority of these children are black.

I also know because of the Hope Clinic when the majority of girls couseled away from abortion are white- middle class afraid to tell their parents, upper class being encouraged to have abortions by their parents.

Teen's getting pregnant is not a racial issue. Unfortunatly, the outcome seems to be.

Im still voting for Barack Obama. Nothing of this is going to change my mind.

I guess we will be never free from the folks who judge and tell others how they should live their lives. I often wonder when the people find the time to do it. For myself, just trying to keep my life on course is a 24/7 job. I do not have the time to tell other how or what they should be doing with their lives.

More confounding for me is the fact that new life is God’s miracle and gift to us; why do people feel a need to curse it.

I guess I’ll never understand.

Obama is going to lose. It's going to be a joy watching the Obamabots cry themselves into oblivion, never to be heard from again. Never have I witnessed such a hateful collection of scum as you fools. May you all burn in Hell, you lousy ****heads.

Not easy being a teenage mother, Good Luck!

The Left is always telling the Right how they should live and think.

I'm a bleeding-heart-tree-hugging-non-church-going-Liberal from Massachusetts and I vote for Ted Kennedy.

Unlike the Left, my daughters graduate from high school, go to college, have children while married and stay married longer.

The Left's answer to teen pregnancy - Abstinence Contracts!

Dear God!

As a pro-choice woman, I absolutely believe this IS a family matter. I take issue with the statement, however, that the Palins are proud of their daughter's "choice" to have her baby. McCain and Palin do not believe there is a choice. Only whether to raise it yourself or have someone else do that for you. They wish to deny all other women and girls the right to privately make their own choices BY LAW. And I DO have a problem with that. So much for *abstinence only* sex education. The Palin family just became the poster family for us who believe in CHOICE.

Cite your source, Dan. That absolutely does not sound like anything Obama would say.

I commend Senator Obama for his stand on this issue, that families, especially children are off limits.

It has been Palin's decision from the get go to put her family in the spotlight. It is to be expected that her decisions and judgement would and should be questioned.

I had a child at 17. I can't help putting myself in Bristol Palin's situation and feeling mortified for her. What agony to be the subject of such speculation and nasty comments.

Teenage pregnancies know no racial boundaries. It is a serious problem in the mostly white South Carolina town where I live. I wish sex education had been taught when I was young. It was not a subject my parents could bring themselves to discuss, and I was clueless. Abstinence only has never worked and never will.

As we get to know Sarah Palin, most accounts portray her as a a bright and gifted woman who has juggled and is juggling a lot. I empathize and admire that about her, even though I disagree strongly with many, but not all, of her positions. However, I seriously question Palin's judgment in accepting the VP task since she obviously did so while being willing to put what is a private matter and her daughter through the ruthless public eye. I can't imagine knowingly and willingly placing my family and my daughter in this unravelling position. Even the best of jugglers are not likely to be available as she will be needed in the coming months ---and years, both for her daughter and new grandchild. It is easy to forget that Pailin has unusual demands on her time with her own very young child with special needs. Opportunity knocks at unusual times, but is it good judgement to tackle the vice presidency, and possibly the presidency at a time like this???? And if McCain knew this, what does this say about his judgement?

Condemn Palin's daughter for being pregnant at 17? So was Obama's mother. guess that doesn't matter since you are attacking Palin.

Where are your thoughts now, you now hypocrytical "socially conscious" liberals regarding Don Fowler?????

Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, suggested that the hurricane's predicted landfall on the day the Republican National Convention opens "just demonstrates that God is on our side."

I think he was mistaken. When he said "God is on our side", he didn't know God was on side with the video camera.....

Shame on you all........ The story here is not morally significant. The story is the callous disregard of life and limb by the hurricane Gustav.

The story is a Bill Clinton and his famous cigar for making promisicuous sex OK in the eyes of the young. How many innocent children thought "If it is OK for the President, it must be OK for me".

Bill Clinton was the Champion of Promiscuity Peromotion.

So shove your condemnations of Palin

Mommy's clearly behind some kind of plot to have the brother-in-law railroaded out of his state trooper's job. Sonny has already enlisted in the army at age 18. Now we learn that the 17-year-old daughter's pregnant and is about to be forced into a shotgun wedding, in the full glare of the international media, apparently for the sake of mommy's candidacy to be vice president. All families have their internal issues, but this is too much at one time. I was favorably intrigued by Palin when McCain first made the announcement on Friday, but my view on her has already soured completely. She should have spent more time at those PTA meetings focusing on the upbringing of her family, and less time plotting her future in politics.

It is ammusing that the proponents of "abstinance education" claim that abstinance works 100% of the time. That is true abstinance does prevent a pregnancy. They seem to miss the point that simply teaching abstinance as sexual eductaion does not work and does not prevent pregnancy.

It is shocking that a mother of 5 would even consider taking a 24/7 position....one, much less, that is a heartbeat away from the presidency of our country. Sarah Palin has obviously put her career ahead of her family...even after having a special needs baby... If she's as clueless about meeting the needs of our country as she is about meeting the needs of her family, we could be in for some trouble.

This is proof that she should focus on her own house instead of the white house, she has a newborn and now her teenager is pregnant and she should focus on her family and it is sad that she chooses her career over her family, be a mother first, that is the most important thing.

Are we really fighting a war on two fronts and yet talking about this? Unreal.
How about we let the young Palin woman and the father work this out and focus on getting an energy policy that brings our soldiers home and reinvests our defense dollars on our people?

I would just like to start off by saying that I think that Sarah Palin is not equipped to be the VP. And it is not because her daughter is pregnant. Even under the best of circumstances and the best parenting, a child can still end up young and pregnant. That's totally irrelevant to her ability to serve. What IS relevant is that her priorities ARE NOT in order. It is obvious to me that this woman is power hungry and has no problem abandoning her family in order to get to the top. She has a infant with down's syndrome and a pregnant daughter who need her more than anyone else does at this time...and yet she is casting them aside to feed her ambitions. If her family can't depend on her, who in the heck thinks that this country will be able to? Sarah Palin needs to work things out with her own life before she tries to make a major difference in others.

Bottom Line,

Palin will withdraw for the good of John McCain. She does not want her private issue to become a distraction for the election of John McCain to become presiden.

I'd like to congratulate the Palin family on this pregnancy.....a baby is always a reason for congratulations under any circumstance. Period.

I find Palins pro-life stance commendable. In this day in age a women's right to give birth needs to be protected more than choice. Abortion is too easy, it will always be around. But you can probably see from some of these ugly comments that there are those who would require certain mothers to abort.

WooooHooooo more conservative values. Abstinence indeed!

What Has Obama Done?
He tacked his name on to 8 bills. He has done NOTHING. When you debate the Palin's values, that is sad. You want the kid to kill her kid? So sad.

I overheard my eight year old daughter commenting to a friend that the only thing not better about being a boy is that boys die sooner than girls. Even she gets at some level that our society favors males. No matter which way you slice it, Palin takes the blame for being a bad mother (with no mention of the failure of the father), and the girl takes the blame for giving in to hormonal urges, while the boy presumably will have little to no repercussions. Boys are the real pro-choice endorsers - I choose to be around, I choose to put someone's future at risk, I choose to support my child or choose to dodge the responsibility.

Either the behavior is unacceptable for both parties, female and male, or procreation is so sought after that unwanted children have a support network that doesn't currently exist. It's nice the Palin will provide for the grandchild. A lot of children are not provided for that way. It's just a shame.

At 40 and a mother of two, I decided against surgical sterilization and instead take birth control pills. My doctor makes it difficult to get my pills - take this test, go through that exam before I will be graced with a prescription. Anyone who has a problem with contraception, I invite you to step up with the $500k it would cost minimum for care for a special needs child. If you criticize someone for taking birth control and do not offer assistance for worst case scenarios, then the problem is yours. Birth control pills are NOT unethical, they demonstrate the maturity of a responsible person and provide a woman some control over her life.

Michael,

You don't know who I am. And calling strangers names on a political bulletin board - as opposed to making a cogent argument against their IDEAS - isn't exactly something Plato would do, oh wise one....

The sanctity of life doesn't end after birth. Supporting needless wars is also killing.

First, one should note the graciousness with which Barrack Obama handled this news, a graciousness that is certainly lacking in Republican circles.

Second, I think it is time for Republicans to join Democrats in formulating an intelligent and informed sex education program and put an end to the ineffective abstenence only programs that have been forced on the schools.

Third, it would be interesting to read from an abstinence supporter as to why abstinence is such a superior moral position. It is certainly not a position based on science.

As a mother with feminist leanings, I put my career on hold while I raised my two kids. It was a huge sacrifice on many levels but now that my kids are grown I can honestly say that giving them, their schooling, their activities with friends and their enrichment my undivided attention resulted in highly motivated, successful, compassionate young adults who both received merit scholarships to private colleges. Palin will have six dependent children (five plus the daughter's baby) and one with developmental disabilities. Either one or more of the brood gets denied full maternal attention, or if McCain wins, the country will be denied her full attention as a VP. Not to mention that she is wholly unqualified for the federal issues she would be confronted with. I believe that women can have it all, but not at the same time. Clearly at this stage of her life with young children and teens she needs to pay more attention at home. How's that for family values!

The boy is rep[ortedly 26 years old!
They had been dating for three years--
Palin Sr allowed her 14 year old daughter to date a 23 year old man!!!!
The chrisitina right are destroyuing the Republican party, and turning the Whitehouse into a double wide with the Jerry Springer mess-- All we need now are some DNA tests, hey that would boostt he ratings at the Republican convension

"Why would he choose a running mate that he obviously knew was going to be eaten alive? "

McCain obviously knows he is going to lose, but he wants to be able to blame it on someone else. He's a sad old man.

And let's not forget that Lance Armstrong was the product of a teenage mother before passing judgment.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7358118/

Wow.

This is great.

The marxist/socialists (aka democrats) are so flustered over the outstanding Palin pick that they're publicly stumbling over their own positions.

Are you seriously suggesting that this woman can't balance family and work? Is that your democratic position? Really?

Do you really think that she and her family didn't have a deep heart to heart before she entered the race? THEY WANT TO DO THIS. SHUT UP!

Why do you think that individual families are incapable of making their own decisions?

Oh. I know. It's because you're so insecure in your own abilities that you want to subjugate your decision making to the Government....

Go to Russia you losers!

Wow.

It's too bad that there's been such a breakdown of compassion in our country.

This nation has morphed into a very mean-spirited, angry mob in the past eight years.

THAT UNITER SURE WAS A DIVIDER.

Peace, peeps!

Honesty is the best Policy. Governor Palin told the truth to put to rest the ignorance of the Democrat Party attempting to discredit her thinking her fifth child was born by her oldest daughter.

This happens all the time in America. And we cannot be listening to the talking heads of the Democrat Party trying to hang (poor choice of words) the presumptive nominee as V.P. for the McCain ticket, bu stating that her daughter had the Down Syndrome Child in April.

Good Luck Barack. The back lash will be strong against you and Mr. Joe Biden.

Mr. King,

We are a racially blended family. Through the adotion process we are the pround parents of a very diverse group. As a father of white, black, and brown children I will assure you this is an issue of the nature of man.

It does not matter whether you are white, black, brown, republican, democrat, evangelical, catholic, or athiest. Everyone has the same issue. The stats are not overwhelmingly different however you slice and dice them.

Abstinence only may be flawed, but it is the "highest" message. A way for all of our youth to avoid the complications presented to Bristol Palin and many other young men and women every day.

It is no different than the "no smoking" or "eat right" and "exercise" message. You do not expect everyone to do what is best for them, but at least they know if they smoke or put on 100 extra pounds they will not be surprised at the undesirable results.

As Sarah Palin indicated, it is time to grow up a bit faster than they had planned and they will now have adult responsibilites.

Actions do have consequences.

Rob Greene:
Re: "4) You have 5 children to look after,three children in crisis (a-teenage pregnancy, b-serving time in iraq, c-a child with downs syndrome) you won't be interupted ONCE by any of them during an important meeting?"

As much as I detest the thought of McCain/Palin as President and VP I have to say: the woman has a partner who is reported to be the main family care giver. Would we be as focused on this family's parenting needs if the candidate was a man? As a feminist I assume that Todd Palin is as able to give care, advice and comfort to his children as Sarah Palin would be, it would not be unique if he were more able. Let's not let preconceived notions that only women can parent override geniune concerns about Sarah Palin's ablilies as a political leader.

That said I am no more likely to vote for McCain with a female running mate than with a male running mate (and that chance makes the odds on flying pigs look great!)

Look I know it sounds crazy but if you read the story given here you have to wonder:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/31/145838/319/386/581332

Did Sarah Palin fake her fifth pregnancy to protect her then 16 year old daughter? The photos are amazing and if true Palin needs to step out of the picture ASAP.

Palin has done so much more than Obama.

Obama has been trumping up votes, not bening a Senator.

He is un-qualified.

Palin is a fundamentalist Christian who doesn't hestitate to preach her brand of morality to the rest of us. She wants to ban sex education and prevention from being taught in our schools and won't hesitate to use her office to that end. So, it seems to me, that it is not off limits to point to her own daughter as an example of why Palin's "abstinence" views-- which she'd like to force on the rest of us-- are wrong.

The Religious Right will always find ways to twist their logic to suit themselves, and condemn others.

McCain should have selected Joe Lieberman. At least he could not become pregnant.

"Yes let her speak and explain and congratulations on being grandparents and I hope your fridge is full of Caribou hot dogs and you can continue to be the pride of a small town in Alaska and settle feuds the way back water people do but please get out of the way before its too late."

This demonstrates, more than anything else, how ignorant, prejudiced and demeaning the general urban American public is regarding Alaskan rural life and those who were born to it. Apparently, liberal bigotry has sunk to new debts. For shame, I would have hoped that would not have been the case.

Look we all feel for her, but for god sakes if they would have kept a closer watch on thier kid this probably would not be happening. I also wonder if the kid is getting enormous pressure to have the baby because he mom is in the spotlight.

People in Alaska love Sarah Palin and that is where she should stay.

>>just back off let the family handle this!!!!!

Yes, I'm sure you would say that if Obama announced that his unmarried 17-year-old daughter was 5 months pregnant...which was the entire point of this article, by the way. We'd be hearing the words "welfare queen" and "baby-mama" from every outpost of the GOP and the media in an non-stop frenzy for weeks.

What a bunch of sexist twaddle is being spewed on this board. Palin needs to stay home and be a mother?? This is exactly the kind of sexist nonsense that knocked Hillary out of the race before she had a chance to begin. No one is saying that Obama shouldn't be president because he has two children and he needs to stay home and be a father. A Downs child isn't the end of the world, nor is a teenage pregnancy. If obama becomes president and his daughter gets pregnant while he's the world leader, is anyone going to say he should resign to take care of his family, or will an important call be interupted by his family crisis?? Sexism is just disgusting and still rampant in this country and more tolerated by the masses than is racism.

one last thought how many of you think BILL CLINTON should be rode out on a rail for committing ADULTERY being married and president. he had oral sex the said it wasn't sex. he is grown man . Sarah Palin daughter is 17 big difference. those with out SIN cast the first stone. how many of had sex before marriage? ?????? the only difference between the 17 year old and some of YOU. she got caught you didn't!!!

You fake christians sure are mean.

//I’m going to get a little personal here. I share a lot in common with Ms Palin. I’m a father of five, one with special needs, and I also had a daughter who became pregnant at the age of 16. //

Who is this shameless liar?

I am not a Republican supporter this year, however, I don't feel Sarah Palin need explain anything.

Her unmarried Daughter, for whatever reason is pregnant. I believe in the Biblical adage, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone." I am shamed to admit, I am not perfect therefor I am not the one to cast any stones.

Whats done is done,or as my Grandmother used to say; "leave it be and move on."

The Baby has the right to a loving mother and loving grandparents. It seems to me Sarah has that part down pat.

I think the Baby will be fine, who knows he or she may be president someday.

I would advise those who are so upset by this one incident to look are the mess we have all have made of this country, both Republican and Democrat. Lets quit blaming each other, role up our sleeves and try to fix it.

Tommas

I am a conservative, however I am starting to see the logic in abortion. Just think if we mandated it for any unwanted child. Pretty soon there would be no liberals around. They would have all been aborted..That I think is the strongest argument ive ever heard of to support abortion. Hell I could even see gay mariages .. no need for abortion , just a bunch of gays and lesbians, who couldnt propogate, soon their would be no more liberals as well... think about it.....

"The facts remain that the overwhelming majority of women seeking abortions are not doing so because they have been raped or because their pregnancy could jeopardize their lives. Most women seeking abortion do so because they did not bother to take precautions against becoming pregnant and do not care to deal with the responsibilities of having a child. In this day and age there is no reason to be pregnant unless you want to."

I wish that were true Amy, however the people - Ms. Putin among them - who consider themselves to be 'pro-life' are the same people who lobby against birth control research, try to prevent insurance companies from covering birth control, believe it's ok for a pharmacist to not fill a birth control prescription and even for him to not return it to the woman so she can go elsewhere, and work hard to prevent any kind of real sex education so that our young people even know what their options are.

If you want young men and women to take responsibility, don't deny them responsible options or prevent them from knowing about the options they have.

The topic of the pregnancy becomes important when we realize that the McCain camp KNEW about it when they announced Palin as VP but waited to offer up the "rest of the story" until a hurricane was hammering the south. This is ugly politics: waiting for a big news event and using it to shield the party from the blowback of a painful truth. The poor folks in the south become, once again, the scapegoat in this ploy.

For all of you left wing, sexist, misogynist nuts out there, and on here, what's it like being an uninhibited sexist and misogynist?! Just a PTA mom huh? Should stay home with her kids, huh? I guess raising 5 kids, while running (or we can use the term managing, or even LEADING) one of the greatest energy-producing entities in the world, while having taken down and dismantled (and continuing to do so) a powerful, entrenced, corrupt good ole boy network from her own party...all that just equals being a PTA mom huh? Left wing fanatics, this is the 21st Century, you've got to just let go of all those sexist hang ups. It's not easy, I know that---I am married to a beautiful, successful, professional woman who also does alot more around the house than I do. I strive every day to be a better husband and dad, but it's not easy---as men, we are selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed---it's in our genes, and we want to keep being sexist and "in control" of the fairer sex. But fanatics, those days are over. As I get older, and wiser, I admire my wife's strength and her unique LEADERSHIP qualities and abilities. You all can get there too, you really can, but you've got to want it and you've got to work at it. So let's cut the sexist code-word crap and in-your-face sexist crap and acknowledge strength, vision, and LEADERSHIP in a woman when we see it and when it's right in front of us----like it was on every TV station, cable outlet, news website, etc on Friday. By the way, did Obama give a speech Thursday night, because I haven't seen it discussed anywhere the last three days.

What in Gods name Gov Palin can convince that this 17 year child could be a mother? and the sperm donor(so called father) can be supportive to her?

"I am amazed at you Dems and your ignorance. Last time I checked, abstinence DOES work. When two people choose to NOT have sex, that results in NO pregnanciy--100% of the time. Get a grip! You Dems are only for women if their liberal idiots like Pelosi, Boxer, et al. Besides, our VP is hotter than any of the ones you've ever fielded!

Posted by: sms_8oo"
-------
Abstinence education does NOT work because those people who are taught it never practice it. They engage in more oral sex and more anal sex than their counterparts who are taught about contraception. This has been studied and reported in professional medical journals. And when they do engage in sex, more end up pregnant for obvious reasons.

Palin might make a good "christian" missionary, but she is a horrid VP choice and a slap in the face to all Americans who need a true leader in these trying times. She should step down for the sake of America and tend to her own family's needs.

Teen pregnancy is a complex problem. As with most problems, there is no universally acceptable solutions. The Palin family has determined a course of action they find to be the best one for them.

The bigger lesson though is that, in a free society, people need to be free to find, and to implement, the answers that work best for them. The Palins' approach to sex education, premarital sex, contraception, abortion, teen-age marriage, and "unconditional support" for their daughter, is all well and good for them. However, in a free society, people need to be free to make their own choices.

I would choose to ensure that my teen age child had received sex education, access to contraception, access to abortion, and more. Those would be my choices. I respect that others might make different choices. Political conservatives talk about individual freedoms -- then they seek to limit the specific freedoms they find to be objectionable.

It is all well and good that Sarah Palin honors her own beliefs with her actions. I admire her for NOT being a hypocrite. I admire her for her courage. However, I do not want anyone in this country to be required to make choices they do not want to make. We must maintain freedom of reproductive choice. Roe v Wade must NOT be overturned. Government should stay out of our bedrooms and out of our personal lives. That's not a "liberal" position. It's a sensible, realistic and workable position that can be embraced by intelligent people on the left and on the right.

Sarah Palin is anti-birth control and pro life even if it is result of a rape. She is for 'abstinence only' sex education in schools. Well, it seems that 'abstinence only' didn't work for her daughter. Sarah Palin should be put under microscope from now on till the election. There are too many skeletons in her closet.

Did we not learn anything from the discussions of sexism during Hillary's campaign? Here is the same sexist crap being hurled at Palin. Wow--listen to the mud being slung--she was so ambitious she harmed her own baby by traveling when she was 8 months pregnant. What medical science degree lets you impart that wisdom? Does the fact that Obama's mother traveled within days of his birth explain anything about Obama? Maybe that's why he became a drug user! Palin was so callously ambitious that she exposed her 17 year old daughter to this scrutiny?? Is it not possible that they talked about it as a family and Sarah agreed to go forward only with Brisol's blessing? I guess not in your world. And the funny thing is this attack is only valid because YOU are attacking. Obama said leave her alone--maybe you should listen. And I'm quite sure that if any of Palin's kids need anything while Mommy is in a meeting, DAD will be more than happy to help.

It is certainly sad to see from the comments here how judgmental our society has become. Most of us believe that moral standards are necessary for a properly functioning society, but - speaking to both sides - when did we get so hateful about pointing out other's short-comings? The villification of other groups with such broad brushstrokes isn't doing anything to advance discussion of the real issues.

Good luck to Bristol and the Palin family!

What exciting times these are!

Your love will carry you far. Never forget that! Babies are a miracle and a precious gift from heaven. :)

How did Palin find out that her baby would be developmentally impaired? Why would anyone test for those potential outcomes if under no circumstances would they abort? It seems to me that she was given a CHOICE and did what she felt was right. I wonder if her daughter is doing what she wants to do or what her mother wants her to do?

So her husband had a DWI arrest. The defense is that it was 24 years ago. That is fine; we all have faults and weaknesses. Wouldn't it be nice if Sarah wasn't such a self-righteous prig who would accept that people aren't perfect and make mistakes. She seems to relish firing people who probably need the check they are receiving for such travesties as not jumping when she commands.

Senator Obama has been a complete gentleman throughout this--a class act.

The only relevance to policy I see here is that Sarah Palin is against giving high school students information about how to prevent pregnancies besides abstinence. As so many have commented below, yes, abstinence does work, in theory. But in practice? Even Palin's own daughter couldn't abstain. We owe it to our teenagers to provide them with information about birth control!

Levi is Mama's gardener cultivating her daughter's bush. O poor us. What to do?

Selfish, selfish Sarah Palin. I don't even know another mother who would put her own aspirations ahead of the humiliation of her teenage daughter. Not to mention a mother of a newborn with special needs.

Take the high road, Sarah, and give your family the love, respect and undivided attention they deserve. We don't need you like they do.

The left wing bloggers on Palin's daughter's pregnancy show what real low-life individuals they are. Most of them believe in very little other than the politics of personal destruction and they worship at the alter of the greatest idiot in the world, Michael Moore. They are not totally worthless, though, they can always be used as bad examples of humanity.

We're neither crazy nor misogynistic--you've completely missed the point. Most families have baggage. So?
What we're all reacting to is the (to borrow your word) extreme hypocrisy on display by Palin...she's accepted the nomination as Vice President of the United States, after apparently knowingly condoning a relationship between her then-14-year-old CHILD and a 23-year-old MAN that has culminated in an underage teen pregnancy. (I truly hope this proves to be false information, but early reports aren't encouraging.) This also allegedly occurred during Palin's stint as Governor of Alaska, where she's tirelessly pushed...abstinence.
This isn't about Palin's poor daughter. It's about Palin's utter hypocrisy, and calls into sharp relief her judgment, which--as more revelations continue coming to light--looks thinner and thinner.
Call me a kook, call me crazy--this is anyone but the person I want a heartbeat away from the Presidency. I imagine our forefathers are spinning in their graves--what would Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt have to say about Palin at the helm? And...as a mother...it sounds like Palin's children need her far, far more than the United States does.
--
You left wing nuts and kooks are crazy, and more importantly, and unfortunately, sexist and misogynist to the extreme. So a very successful, accomplished, powerful woman shouldn't run for VP because she has a family?? You are all nuts. But I guess it makes sense---you would rather it be that only single and/or childless and self-loathing radical leftist women hold the reins of power in this country.

Posted by: Gator | September 1, 2008 6:06 PM

I can relate to the Palin family's situation, but this is politics and I think John McCain showed a complete lack of judgement in his choice of VP. If it is all about famiy values...what about a mother of a 4 month old special needs child, and a pregnant 17 year old daughter who simply is so ambitious she cannot take time for her family? McCain is definitely out of touch and so is Palin. I feel very, very sad for Palin's daughter and I am especially upset with her mother!

She has more experience that Mr. Obama. She connects to ordinary people who have to go to work everyday. Obama picked his vp so that he can get on the job training. Being president is not the streets of Chicago....

All said, the girl's husband (to be?), will leave the relationship within a handful of years- as will most others of his age.
He already feels the beginning of the end. Ask most men his age how they would feel, and what they would do. Go ahead, I dare you.
And I am sick of all of this racism. Can't anyone remember we all come from 'Lucy'?

It seems to me that if Palin had her family's best interests at heart, she would have turned down the VP nomination, stayed in Alaska, and helped her daughter with this tragic pregnancy which will be very hard for all involved. How does being in the spotlight 24/7 help her child?

Would we even be having this discussion if Sarah Palin was a male instead of female? Life happens and candidates running for VP are not immune to it.

wow i'm so glad that liberals favoring women's rights are screaming at Palin for not "staying home" with her kids. Shouldn't her husband be just as capable of taking care of her children? You're going to blame the Palin for her daughter's pregnancy because she didn't stay home enough? What about the father here? How come Edwards can run for president with a dying wife but Palin can't because one of her children needs extra care and another is about to really discover the meaning of "growing up"?Like Obama said, the fathers need to take responsibility too. Equality between the sexes mean one parent steps up on the homefront when the other needs to be out. In this case, the parenting responsibility will fall on Palin's husband.

I wonder how America would have responded if Barack and Michelle had a 17 year old daughter who was pregnant.

Not too well, I imagine.

Part two of this problem is that Sarah Palin support abstinence only education - she emphatically stated that she would with hold funding for explicit sex education in the schools.

Bristol Palin, like many other adolescents, could have benefitted greatly from education about safe sexual practices. But the Palin family, like many other American families, live with the naive illusion of childhood innocence.

Believe me, if you go to some of the comments posted online from articles about Ms. Palin's pregnancy, you will see that the problem you've noted has little to do with race sir, although I cannot and will not deny that there are those who will use race as their "reason" behind the statistics of teen pregnancy when responding.

Shame on Americans. This country is ailing not because of partisan politics, but because of an endemic intolerance of everything. Our political arena merely reflects on our society's reprehensible behavior. If the citizens of this country cannot find something "legitimate" to hate, they will create it from thin air. (Legitimate issues might be poverty, poor education, the transmission of diseases like HIV, war, terrorism, violations of human rights throughout the world - including a certain detention facility in Gitmo, etc., etc.)

When Mr. Obama talked about rural bitterness, he missed the mark. The entire society of this country is infected with the festering disease of bitterness and such a self-important sense of entitlement that they (we) cannot even recognize how vulture-like we have become. People talk about rising above past behaviors while at the same time responding with every bit as much hatred and intolerance for something different that perhaps they don't understand or worse, don't want to understand. We used to call that behavior paying "lip-service" to all the right PC notions. In businesses, it was easily seen in practice versus vision statement or "core values" which always looked good from the outside. The interior was the same old rotten apple full of worms.

Americans can cry change to the high heavens all they want, but as long as we have no compassion, no empathy, no understanding or desire to walk a mile in the shoes of someone we truly do not understand, nothing will improve. Oh, it will change... it's called "deterioration."

Charity begins at home. Ms. Palin is lucky to have a family that loves and supports her in spite of having the typical judgment of a teenager. She's certainly not going to get anything positive from the bottom-feeders we call average Americans.

Unfortunately, Sara Palin's personal life can and will interfere with her job performance. Its a fact of the matter that she will be raising more than one child. Any job in the oval office involves more time than an average 40 hours a week. Do the math, people. The entire familie's performance will be affected, its not a feminist issue!

(And abstinence is not working here...obviously. Because, excepting immaculate conception, her daughter was having sex! Unless the republicans want to claim that...hmmmmm....I don't think Americans are that stupid yet. Give us a few years.)

Everybody BACK OFF!

Bristol is a young woman being needing love and support, not a swiftboat job by some bloggers here who are the bottom feeders of humanity.

There should be no "us versus them" here. Everyone should be for this young woman. If you are not prepared to help - shut up and go away - back under the rock where you live. You are the ones humanity needs to get rid of if we are to survive.

Out here in eastern WA. Abstinence only has led to the highest s.t.d. levels around.

Much has been made about Sarah Palin's status as a pro-choice mother who upholds traditional values.

What we are learning about Sarah Palin's own choices as a mother should give us all pause. Within the past several months, she has given birth to a special needs child and has heard the news that her teenage daughter is herself to become a mother soon.

But with her family in crisis, Sarah's answer is to accept a nomination for the second most powerful position in the country. Who will be caring for her new baby, and who will have the time to help her daughter navigate the treacherous waters of teen motherhood?

I agree with Barack Obama and the Repulblicans: These are private matters. But whatever the outcome, it would be unseemly to continue to hold her up as a paragon of motherhood and the traditional family woman. Without that, what are we left with?

The Sarah Palin story is beginning to look more and more like the stories of so many poor families who live in trailer parks across the nation. Her sister tells some kind of marital horror-story (it takes two to tango). Palin uses her power as governor to try to get her ex-brother-in-law fired because of her sisters sorry marital problems. Now, it turns out that Palin has no control over her daughter who does not even follow one of her mother's principle directives, sexual abstinence. I bet a lot or Republicans actually think her daughter had sex only once and had only the one partner. Whatever! Do we really think that this person is qualified to be heartbeat away (a weak and elderly heartbeat at that) from being the leader of the free-world. Please!!!

America one more example of the leader of the party trying to tell us all what to do not doing it themselves. Do as we preach not as we do Republicans. We had been deluded into believing there was such a thing as a moral majority. When the mirror gets held up to the party of Larry Craig, Newt Gingrich etc. John Mc Cain is now kissing the ring of the evangelicals and Mrs Palin is supposed to strengthen his support with the holy rollers. Well America there is no moral majority and the Republicans do not own morals period. Might want to dig a big farther and see if the baby that was delivered in April also belonged to this daughter. Why should we believe what Pain tells us that she is five months pregnant? As to her executive experience let us not forget that George W.was a Governor of a state with an actual population and look what that got us. Barack Obama has been able to run an incredible campaign team and has received over 19 million votes to date and raised over 300 million that is executive experience. I sincerely hoe that the media will actually vet this candidate who will be one heartbeat away from leader of the free world. So much for her being mom of the century. We have a 17 year old daughter and she is still a virgin which in todays world is some real good parenting. Let us not forget that Mc Cain and Bush were smiling for the camera and eating cake in Phoenix after Katrina had hit. Great if they learned a lesson but the heck of a job Brownie boys wont be forgotten by those that have and are still suffering in NOL. OBAMA BIDEN Yes We Can. No Way No How No McCain.
Hillarious that they wont have George W. even attend his parties party. How ashamed are these folks of their leader? Very.

Elias- what experience does she have? 2 years as governor of a state with less people than Chicago has? And if you're going with the "executive level" argument, Bush had only executive level experience as governor of Texas and how has that worked out for all of us? Maybe being a governor is not all the experience one needs. Maybe one needs to have some intelligence and courage- and senators can have that.

The real "politics of personal destruction" started when Palin chose to fail to protect her pregnant child from what she had to know was going to be extreme scrutiny by the entire world. Apparently Palin's ambitions in shooting for the VP has taken precedence over all her children, including her latest four-month-old baby. Bad example of humanity, indeed. Those poor kids.
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The left wing bloggers on Palin's daughter's pregnancy show what real low-life individuals they are. Most of them believe in very little other than the politics of personal destruction and they worship at the alter of the greatest idiot in the world, Michael Moore. They are not totally worthless, though, they can always be used as bad examples of humanity.

Posted by: Tom | September 1, 2008 6:21 PM

The Republican argument is that Governor Palin has more
executive experience than Senator Obama. Now think about
this ... Senator McCain has NO executive experience. Neither,
does Senator Biden. So, according to the Republican
argument Palin is the most qualified candidate of all four:
Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin, which is patently absurd.
Hence, their argument is vacuous and ought to be pointed
out to the media as such.

It was right to go public with this, and it was commendable what Obama said about keeping it off-limits for attack.

I want to ask the people who are now criticizing Gov Palin for supposedly neglectful parenting (of her daughter and her youngest son), when Edwards was campaigning as his wife is fighting Stage 4 cancer, were you also complaining that what little time they have left together as a family is more important than winning an election?

How old is the father? Because in Ga. and a few other states he could GO TO JAIL...well except for he's probably white. Nevermind

So Pea Soup, you'd rather have as your President a "community organizer" and as your VP someone who has never held a real job?? No thank you, I will take the genuine war hero who has was a Naval Commander and who is not afraid to buck his own party on major issues, and the woman who is the embodiment of what makes America great, in both her professional life and her personal life. Not even a close call.

Thanks Mr. King for pointing out the obvious - you have made me think about my prejudiced "old" thought process.

Fact: 57.7% of black children live in one parent homes.

The problem exists, Mr. King, and trying to defuse this topic by saying that white people have the same problems does nothing to help the black community.

As Obama said to a jeering black audience, fathers need to be at home in black families.

It is a problem. It needs to be addressed and it isn't a racial thing. It is a fact. The amount of kids being raised, or for that matter, ignored in typical black families is sadly all too true. How many kids run the streets because their fathers have run off?

Yes black America, it's time to quit blaming whitey for your problems. It's time to quit having unintelligent kids being spawned by unintelligent parents.

You'll never break out of this vicious cycle as long as every problem in the black community is seen in terms of racial terms.It isn't because you are black that you are not getting the jobs and nice homes. You aren't educated and cannot even speak proper English.

Let's all pull together and break the ignorance of your community and face your problems head on.

After almost five decades since the speech of Martin Lurther King Jr., the cries of your failure to succeed in this country because of so-called racism falls on deaf ears.

Ignorance, dumb kids, dumb parents, and uneducated people are not the domain of any particular race, but it just so happens that the black community has the highest percentage of these problems.

If you can't read, write, or speak properly, just whose fault is it that you can't get a $50K a year job? Was there always a white man following you around to cause your failure?

Come on, let's get real. Self esteem in the black community is suspect when grown men refer to each other as "dog" or "n**ger" instead of friend. This inane subculture within the black community that looks down on educated or successful blacks as sell-outs is ridiculous.

You may take pride in being cool with your baggy pants,hip talk, and gangsta ways, but you'll never rise about it all to make a success of yourself as long as you insist that the image of being cool is more important then being educated or intelligent.

When are you going to get it?

"Read Bamaman's comments and his own history with his mother... he is right on target this is private. a non issue ..."

Posted by: DannyMIA | September 1, 2008 5:40 PM

That is the way that us liberals believe but the NeoCons want to make our personal choices (homosexual marriage, birth control, sex-ed, abortion, etc...matters of THEIR control and PUBLIC policy.

This is why we look at her and scratch our heads and delight at the sweet irony of it all. They want to restrict OUR choices and deny OUR access. Now they know how it feels to be up against a wall with NO choices.

Palin was the part-time mayor of town of 5,000 people 18 months ago. The fact that McCain picked someone so ridiculously unqualified for VP says more about McCain's incredibly poor judgment than it does about Palin. Palin seems like your run-of-the-mill right-wing evangelical PTA hockey mom. There is nothing wrong with that, but most people don't want your run-of-the-mill right-wing evangelical PTA hockey mom a heartbeat away from being the Commander-in-Chief of the United States.

McCain has handed Obama the election on a silver platter. Thanks!

I just wanted to say that many Republican and/or Independent Conservatives are making assumptions that if Dems are Pro-Choice then they would automatically have abortions in any all circumstances--these assumptions are idiotic and lack thoughtful intelligence. I am a Democrat who is Pro-Choice and that means I support a woman's right to choose to have her babay or a woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy; women have two choices, not just one. Personally I would not ever have an abortion, but I am not going to tell someone else what to do with her body. As for Palin, it is hypocritical to preach family values and espouse to conservative ideals when she obviously does not have a reign of her own household. If she can't manage her own family then how can she manage the VP job and potentially the POTUS if something were to happen to McCain given his age (72) and health. This only helps Obama!!! Go Obama/Biden 08/12

I'm very upset with Gov. Palin as a mother that she would put her daughter through this. I think it would be a much less selfish act to decline, and avoid putting her daughter through a public judgement session.

So according to the Palins, their daughter got pregnant at a time when she was recuperating at home with a 5-month case of mono. So where were mom and dad? According to the Palins, they "home-schooled" their daughter during her convalescence. Did that include any "abstinence-only" lessons?

what!!! the reason that the argument is falling on Palin is because McCain touted her as a hockey mom who could juggle a full-time job with being a mother. He fired the first shot- others are now questioning how well she did what McCain said she did...

I am absolutely amazed at the identical tone (if not content) being directed at Palin that was slung at Hilary, and by liberals, no less. She has beliefs and she has a life and therefore, by taking a stand and beng open and forthright she makes herself a target for those who, in no way, can match her character and integrity.

Whew. At least the air went out of the Trig story. Unfortunately the McCain campaign had to dump Bristol's pregnancy out in front of the nation because they failed to vet properly. They were unprepared because of McCain's hasty decision. Otherwise, they would have had a bead on the swirling Trig rumor with pregnant pictures of the Gov and would also have had her doctor on tap.

From the politico: "Responding to Internet rumors that Bristol Palin had given birth earlier this year, and that Sarah Palin had claimed the child was her son Trig, the McCain campaign released a statement saying that Bristol Palin is currently pregnant and plans to marry the father."

I think there is more to this story than is currently known, all she had to do was show pictures or sonograms of herself carrying the baby, why did Sarah Palin throw her daughter into the spotlight (and under the bus).

In the conservative/rural parts of Washington state where Abstinence is most popular, the s.t.d. rates are highest. That's why sex education is coming this year to the Okanogan schools- FINALLY. Also, I have never seen so many young girls with babies and no men in my life 'till I moved out here.

Oh, Elias...it must be cozy under your little rock!
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She has more experience that Mr. Obama.
Posted by: Elias | September 1, 2008 6:22 PM

this is far from a racial issue.
i'm caucasian and born in the midwest.
my mother had me when she was 17.
i don't ever recall her saying it was a tragic pregnancy.
thanks mom.

The real issue concerning the daughter is that
when the daughter was age 13, the VP candidate
Palin let her date a man who was 23!!!
The daughter is now 17 and the man is 26.
As they say, WTF.

do we really want a family of red neck moose hunter's in the white house. i mean come on. the world is in a very delicate situation that requires finesse and experience, intelligence and the capacity to inspire and lead. gov palin in one week is enmeshed in scandals that indicate she can't run her own state any better than she can her family. old john has cancer, is seriously old. is there anyone out there that would feel comfortable with sarah meeting with leaders of other countries to decide things that will affect the fate of the entire planet. this is not some low level soap opera, the whole world is watching and needing good solid leadership to come from america. this is beyond belief.

The most powerful W’s & H that we need to understand before we blame our neighbors.

1. How?
2. What?
3. Who?
4. Why?
5. When?
6. Where?

It is our responsibility to due a diligent search to answer all questions before we blame our neighbors. God has given each of us a life and mind that we will understand our own life in time. No one knows what God has plan for us. All of us have different life. One’s life might start at 10, 15, 18, or even later years. We set laws in this world for our security, safety and understanding our community. Life is not easy. Only we can set laws that can be revising. After your research that will maybe take you 4 to 8 years, you will understand why it is important not to blame your neighbor. I can only say that I will understand my neighbor by asking these questions first.

Pea Soup, the extreme scrutiny toward Bristol is coming from the sexist, misogynist freaks on your side of the political spectrum. Again, by your evaluation of potential political candidates, only single and/or childless women should bother to try to break down the barriers that have held them back for years. That's nuts. I have a 7 year old daughter who I am proud to have look upon Governor Palin as the embodiment of a strong, accomplished, successful, loving American.

If what we've all read since she was nominated is any example of her 'character' and 'integrity,' you can have her back with bells on!
--
by taking a stand and beng open and forthright she makes herself a target for those who, in no way, can match her character and integrity.

Posted by: Alaskan | September 1, 2008 6:29 PM

As a mother, I do not understand how a mother with 5 children one of them with special needs, is willing to take on the responsibility of being vice president. Granted a month ago, she did not know what being vice president meant so she might think she doesn't have to do anything. There is nothing wrong with being a working mom--but vice president--a position
that demands all your time? Also if I knew my daughter was five months pregnant I would not exploit her. If she truely loved her daughter she would not let her face the ridicule she is facing. Thus not only do I not feel that she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the president--having
no foreign policy experience or law degree,
but I don't think she is a very caring mother. That being said how can she sympathize with the plight of all the Americans who are now in trouble and need
leadership that puts them first. She doesn't even put her own children first.
Now I know you right wingers will argue and think I am being mean but those of you who are mothers have to think about this. Are you in your children's life on a daily basis and do they come before your career?

Well, nobody knows much about Sarah Palin and her Conservative Christian views on pre-marital sex and lying to authorities about Troopergate. I can't wait for 60 minutes to interview her former brother in law, that will ice the cake on the true Sarah Palin. Confirms to me, that this woman, after only meeting John Mccain TWICE, was not fully vetted. Such a waste. If Pawlenty or Romney was on his ticket, I would vote for Mccain in a minute. But not now.

love and support is always good...but in the case of palin amily it is troubelling..palin was forced to come forward and to tell her store ..after becoming VP candidate..but she did do so as a gov of alaska...

another problem is the claim of higher moral standard and family values of the republican and conservatives...

you can talk about pride of having more grand children but the fact to have a single unmarried pregnant daughter is shameful...

Palin failed to educated and to care about her family..too busy at work propably

the big question is if Palin cant be trusted with her own family..how can she betrusted as a VP or even as a President??

Amazing group of comments. BLAME? How do we blame someone for being 17 and having unprotected sex. I did it, got lucky and there probably are a bunch of the writers on here that escaped the "blame" and shame, too.
My 18 year old is voting for Obama and I am voting for McCain. Not because someone's child did something. In that case, can we not vote for Biden because of his past and his son lobbying for big business.
I don't think so, people need to vote for what they believe in and quit trying to influence the world with their less than brilliant attempts to destroy people. You won't get votes or fool anyone.

Back to the point for a moment:

>> "... the problem of teen pregnancy and the tragic impact it has had on so many aspects of life in the nation's capital"

Look a little deeper - this is only a "problem" with a "tragic impact" because of the kind of society we as a species have built, and nothing to do with human biology.
The former we can do something about, the later less so.
Wild and crazy idea - Perhaps we should work more on the former?
I propose the solution is to move the goalposts, not crucify young mothers on the existing missplaced ones.

What I told my (now 21) daughter about this kind of situation is that, of course, if you turned up unmarried and pregnant I would love you and love the baby as well. But, it's still trashy and you'll never get me to say it isn't so.

I guess the Republicans have noted the popularity of all the trashy reality shows on TV these days and decided to bring the "Real World" to the White House.

I could care less that her daughter is pregnant. I really hope the father takes responsibility and the child is raised in a loving family.

I wasn't a big Hillary fan, until about a month and a half before she suspended her campaign. I had gotten to the point where I was ready to back her if she became the nominee.

Having said that, I think the GOP's VP pick is scary in more ways than I can count. I don't believe anything that woman believes in, and if McCain happens to pass away in office, we'd be left with "That's My President!". Thursdays at 7:30 after "Scrubs".

Starting to look into my options in Canada or possibly New Zealand if I'm surprised in November :(

I've been reading some of the reader comments......is is just me or some idiots are actually sort of blaming Obama for Palin's daughter's woe?

ProParents,
I too am saddened at how quickly we label each other here on the Internet just to make it easier to attack and berate a person that we don't even know. I wanted to respond, but then I read your submission and decided that you said it better than I would have.
God is graceful to give life when and where He chooses, even to a 17 year old. Each breath is a gift from God to use to build others up or to tear others down. It is sad to see how some choose to use their blessings and how they fail to see them as gifts from God. Without that understanding, it is hard for people to confess their own mistakes and shortcomings, and even harder for them to forgive themselves, let alone to try to understand or forgive other people.
Thanks, Steve

elias-

"She has more experience that Mr. Obama."

In doing what??? The only time she's seen Washington DC was to organize lobbyists for earmark funds for Alaska. Last month, she said she didn't even know what VPs do!

And for the moralists mentioning John Edwards (who is a worm), we do remember, don't we, that McCain was adulterous in his first marriage....

ARGH! WHERE IS THE SHARE BUTTON!??!??! I WANT TO PUT THIS ON FACEBOOK!!!!

Gator, you must be kidding me. Are you condoning Palin apparently turning a blind eye to the repeated statutory rape of her daughter?!
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I have a 7 year old daughter who I am proud to have look upon Governor Palin as the embodiment of a strong, accomplished, successful, loving American.

Posted by: Gator | September 1, 2008 6:31 PM

A new drama every day.. this election has become a high powered sitcom. Sadly running for vice president,you do become public interest,impacting and influencing lives of all american families. Sarah Palin's proud acceptance of teen pragnancy at home by admission may not serve the best example among american parents facing growing teen pragnancies while advocating Christian values. An excellent candidate for VP looking forward to better lives of american people but but not a trophy holder as Mom with lives of those at home.

swmissouri: i read your post here SWMissouri | September 1, 2008 5:47 PM

and juxtaposed this interview http://www.bobandmark.com/palin_mccain_interview

the surprise in her voice makes me think we're in for a new ride, and the impact is being underestimated on both sides. this thing can swing as big as the dice mccain has rolled.

supposed obama supporters who have not yet internalized obama's person and message are gloating well prematurely, not recognizing that schadenfraude pays harsh final dividend. mccain supporters sticking with the choice still seem awkward in building reasonable case for support as they must build away from traditional qualifications platforms.

Wow...look at all the angry comments. Is this so unusual? Is this not middle America? These things happen. Sen. Obama's mother was 18 when she had him and un-married...raised by his grandparents. Has this some how caused him to be any less of a person?...Any less of an American? I think not. Is teen-age pregnancy a problem? Only in the context that for some reason it is surprising these days (100 yrs. ago Mrs. Palin's daughter should be on her second child). Petty anger towards candidates on petty subjects shows a serious lack of understanding of this nations issues. Does this pregnancy address the energy issues of the US? ....does it address the fact that 13 million children go hungry in the US every day?....does it address the threat of a resurgent Russia with USSR like tendencies?....does it address the immediate need of thousands of Americans in the gulf coast region?......or is this story really on par with Brittany Spears not wearing underwear or Janet Jackson showing some boob at a football game?
As Eleanor Roosevelt said:
Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.

Come on America let's get back to where we used to be...the Nation of ideas.

It seems to me that if Palin had her family's best interests at heart, she would have turned down the VP nomination, stayed in Alaska, and helped her daughter with this tragic pregnancy which will be very hard for all involved. How does being in the spotlight 24/7 help her child?

We all know Republicans are hypocrites.

What's worse - two adults having consensual oral sex or two teenagers having unprotected sex and getting pregnant?

Where's Dobson and his outrage?

Where's Ralph Reed and his indignation?

Q. Did Bristol Palin get thrown under the bus?

Being the proud grandfather of 8 grandchildren, while initially upset that the first three were born out of wedlock, we loved them no less. We counseled our children to not potentially make a mistake of marrying the father for the wrong reason...and the father we counseled likewise. The act of sex does not necessarily equate to an act of love. As it turned out, they all married their respective children's fathers...and with one exception, still live happily and are great parents. As for the grandchildren,they are all a gift from God and must be cherished and loved. Period.

many of you blame the republicans and their preaching of abstinance for this? that's rediculous. lets think the other way, have abortion legalized, that'll just allow the young women the ability to have as much sex with as many partners as they choose and not have to worry about having kids.. wouldn't that be a wonderful society.

"We need a real Vice President, not a soon to be mother of two, with one being of special needs"

Erik, maybe you should stop posting. You have failed to grasp the most basic facts about the Palins. Why keep misstating stuff that you clearly don't understand.

I can understand the rank sexism and misogynism perpetrated by unlightened men on here, but to see women trash Palin is a travesty. Of course, I'm sure those are the women that contiaully harp about how tought life is in America and who wallow in misery, or those very cold and frightening ultra pro-abortion women. Scary. Grow up ladies. Just think if you were born in Saudi Arabia or any other Middle Eastern country. This is America, the land of freedom, liberty, and opportunity. Let go of your anger, it will set you free, I guarantee it.

Make no mistake about it: racism is alive in America. To immediately assume that an article about teen pregnancy is about blacks simply because the story was written by a black man is the HEIGHT OF RACISM. (I'm not black, by the way, but being of Italian background I'm well aware of racism.)

Omaba's mother was 18 to deliver Obama.
So in 17 she was pregnant.

I want to comment on the following statement: Sarah Palin's personal life really doesn't have that much to do with her ability to lead.... Governor Palin has more collective experience running a government and managing a budget than does Senator Obama who has never even so much as run a lemonade stand. More power to her. She is just what is needed to shake things up in Washington.

It's from an earlier e-mail.

There are several comments like this one making the point that Obama has no executive experience: never even so much as run a lemonade stand. Excuse me, Obama was elected President of the Law Review at Harvard. That position requires decision making capabilities. He has taught school; that position requires decision making capabilities. If you read his book describing his community work, you will see that plenty of decisions needed to be made. He worked inside at least a couple of law offices. And he now has over 1,800 staff members on his campaign. Actually, I may be off on that number. It may be higher than that.

Traditionally, you can tell how a person will govern as President by watching how he or she runs their campaign. Obama and his senior staff have made some very astute decisions to be able to defeat Hillary Clinton who ran one heck of a campaign. We'll never know about Sarah Palin because all we have to go on is some rather small elections in Alaska. We do know that George Bush accused McCain of having fathered an illegitimate black child (his adopted daughter from Bangaladesh) and a host of other falsehoods when it looked like McCain would defeat him 8 years ago. And look what we got from Bush and Cheney.

You would almost believe that Obama dropped out of the sky and suddenly won the Democratic nomination for the office of President. Pleasssse. Let's be a bit more reasonable than that. If anyone has dropped out of the sky, plop, on to the national scene, potentially a heart beat away from being President, it would have to be Sarah Palin.

I've been to Alaska several times working there. It really is different from the "lower 48" as they refer to the rest of the U.S.

The best comment I have read to date about Sarah Palin, is that she has been made into a sacrificial goat by the Republicans in an attention to draw attention away from John McCain. That argument makes a lot of sense to me, and it would behoove all of us to focus on McCain. Let the media discuss Palin. They will, no doubt.

We are talking about the judgement of John McCain in making a selection of a person he met once and then proceeded to offer her the vice presidency of this country. His only concern was political gain and a way to take the spotlight off of his inadequacies as a presidential candidate. Instead, his choice finds the media and voters involved in soap opera of small town politics and values that belong at the level of a school board election and not an election for the leader of the free world. It's an embarrassment to read coverage of her unfolding state trooper scandal that again has no place in a race for national office. Maybe down the road, years from now, when Ms. Palin's experience has the breadth and depth of national and international issues that affect the lives of every American, should she be considered as a credible choice. For now, she serves to remind us of McCain's short-sighted limitations, desperation, and need for 'soulmate' in order to try and compete against Obama/Biden.

First of all, since when did law keepers ever do anything good for humanity or society? The desire to have sex has been hard wired into the human being on purpose. It is the strongest most irresistible desire that a human being will ever experience. You want to regulate that with laws? Are you people retarded? Might as well make it illegal for trees to grow while your at it.
This issue is a condition of humanity. It has nothing to do with morality, race, religion, or philosophy. This is natures way of forcing reproduction on the human species. To tell your 16 year old child to ignore the strongest feelings they will ever have in their life because it's "responsible" only shows how irresponsible you are, or should I say ignorant.
If you approach this problem from a realistic standpoint, instead of your religious, moralistic, and philosophical mentality, you will understand that the best you can hope for is prevention and protection through understanding and acceptance. Alienation and strict rules will only make the problem become a crisis. Saying that people are some how less than you because when they where young they abandoned all reason to chase after a feeling of love, only shows how undeserving you are of the title "human".Social issues are the responsibility of the family not the government. You can't regulate hormones and chemicals in the brain with words on paper. Nature will still win in the end.

It's so sad that when such problems as teen pregancy arise whether its in the black community our in rural Alaska, we can't just see Americans with a problem we should all be concerned about. How shallow of your readers to have no sympathy for teens getting pregnant regardless of race and socio-economic level. I suppose if you report on one of the myriad issues faced by the residents of our country's vast Apalachia, you might not get much in terms of a racial response. Sad.

Palin was not effective as mother, she is not effective as governor and she ain't gonna be effective with anybody as vice president. I have no idea, why John McCain did not choose for example Texas Governor Rick Perry as VP. This guy is waaay more qualified than Sarah Palin, I still have no idea why he chose her. It's mystery, but her daughter was mistery but not any more. I am sure McCain is smarter to pick better running mate, and I am sure "he" did not choose Palin to be his VP. There is something fishy here. Oh, Mr. King, you just stick to your guns as always and you always will come out on top. Don't change a bit, don't change!

Abstinence is the only answer to this only problem. Just because her daughter is pregnant, even after she taught this principle to her, doesn't prove that abstinence has failed. This girl made a choice - not to abstain until marriage - and thus she's in this position. Don't blame her pregnancy on the fact that Sarah believes in abstinence. Like I said; her daughter made a choice and it wasn't abstinence.

How many people would feel much more loved and secure by their spouses if they had both abstained? Thus, if we taught our teenagers abstinence, they would feel much more secure in who they are - feel more self-worth, and respect themselves. Giving yourself away to 10 different people (and that is all before marriage!) doesn't make you more secure and loving of yourself. It simply means you've given yourself away 10 times. It doesn't matter if it was "safe sex" or not. You've still given yourself away and 10 different people are walking around with part of your body in a way.

If we taught our teens to respect themselves and abstain - there would be a lot less teen pregnancy. Even still, that doesn't mean this message failed in the instance of Sarah and her daughter. It just means her daughter didn't choose to go this route. And now she is pregnant, and those around her should open up their arms to her and give her as much love as they can so that the mother and her child can grow through this experience.

I'm shocked at what I have read here. Attacking the mother because the daughter got pregnant? Attacking the daughter? Attacking republicans becuase they did not discriminate? What would be worse, being a newly married daughter of the VP, or being a teen that aborted her baby for her and her mothers reputation, or the person who's slip in judgement caused her mother to give up the VP office. I personally would tell my mother to move forward and win. Another thing I'm glad about; the people around Bristol are supportive of her, including Obama, and that there is no way she will ever read your hatefilled comments.

Alaskan,

Let's talk about BHO's integrity, experience and competence.

Ooops: There is none. Short conversation ;-)

Game over: thank God. It's hard to imagine a worse disaster.

And did y'all hear Michael Moore thanked God that Gustav hit during the RNC? What a scumbag.

Could not agree more with poster mbrane.

I would add that if a teenage daughter gets pregnant is probably because the parents were not looking after her. Maybe her mother did not want her to take birth control pills.

Palin is probably too busy with her career and so his her father. They have 5 children, I'm pretty sure they have a full time nanny.

And yes, with their fortune, i'm sure it won't be a problem for the underpaid nanny to take care of one more.

>>> Bristol was raised by conservative parents who are very well off and educated. Her mother is a governor and father is an OIL executive. I support her decision to keep the baby. It is even easier that she is probably going to marry the father and the parents are supportive and very well-off. But, imagine a teenager who is living on food stamp or at minimum wage without health insurance with little or no education probably duped and raped and become pregnant but does not know how to protect her rights and does not have her parents/community/society supporting her. For her it is so important that she has the choice for abortion. The mother will be subjected to serious health risks due to lack of care and under age and the child who will most likely born with some birth defect due to mother age, physical conditions and lack of health care. A birth would actually end two lives. A choice will actually save two lives. Let’s be rational, practical and reasonable in 21st century.

Saving life is not just life at conception …. It is beyond birth …. How our kids are raised, educated cared for ….. With no education, health care and at minimum wage, life is a worse punishment than death itself. Let’s ensure every one is guaranteed of education, health care and respectable wage …. that’s what will make life worth saving. That will enable every Bristol to keep the child, even if she is not governor's daughter. Pro-choice is the choice to SAVE life ….. that is truly pro-life. Causing 100000 Iraqis and 5000 innocent brave soldiers die for no reason is not pro-life.

I agree the Palin family's problems should be off limits. I am more concerned about McCain's monumental lack of judgment and monumental hypocrisy in selecting a running mate with no foriegn policy experience during war time. This after months of attacking Obama for lack of experience. McCain wanted Lieberman but was afraid and succumbed to Dobson. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of pandering to right wing envangelicals in the future. The surrogates I have heard the first 48 hours of this mess should all be held accountable for celebrating a decision which potentially places the United States at grave risk. These seem to be many of the same people who sold us an unnecessary war. Lindsey Graham, Pawlenty, Guiliani et al have no shame it seems. Credibility needs to mean something again. These surrogates from Saturday and Sunday should be haunted by their words. I admire Obama's magnanimity, but swift boaters take this as weakness. Turnabout is fair play (but yes, leave the kids out of it).

"if Palin had her family's best interests at heart, she would have turned down the VP nomination, stayed in Alaska, and helped her daughter with this tragic pregnancy which will be very hard for all involved."

In the first place, this pregnancy isn't tragic. What a ridiculous idea. In the second place, in educated, professional families, people don't depend on Grandma to help out with child care.

I wonder what she would think of that pregnant man in Oregon.

I wanna hear from the boyfriend

"Abstinence only didn't work" How convenient to attack Sarah Palin with your liberal venom. When I was in school (1970s) we were not taught abstinence but that condoms should be used. Guess what? That didn't work all that well either judging by the number of teen pregnancies in my high school. Maybe the problem is a little more complex.

These people need our prayers and support,not our criticism."He who is without sin,let him cast the first stone."
Gary Franklin

Mr. King,

You have done service highlight this issue. Teen pregnancy is not limited to everyone who's not white. It's an issue for us all. We need to come together on this problem.

To those calling on Mrs. Palin to step down, would you do the same if the young lady was Chelsea Clinton? I have my doubts.

It is a shame that a young girl has to go through this embarasment under the national Spotlight. It speaks volumes about her parents that knowing this would have to come out, and the pain and embarasment it would surly cause their daughter, that they would put their own ambitions ahead of protecting their child. Mrs. & Mr Palin could be forgiven, claiming ignorance of the pressure they were about to step into, but the McCain camp can not be forgiven. Mr. McCain is a vetran of many campagnes, and he knew full well what was going to happen to that poor girl when this hit the fan. He knew and still he was willing to sacrafice the name and reputation of a 17 year old girl to get the VP pick he wanted. Shame on you Mr. McCain. I may vote for you, but I don't think I like you very much any more.

Could not agree more with poster mbrane.

I would add that if a teenage daughter gets pregnant is probably because the parents were not looking after her. Maybe her mother did not want her to take birth control pills.

Palin is probably too busy with her career and so his her father. They have 5 children, I'm pretty sure they have a full time nanny.

And yes, with their fortune, i'm sure it won't be a problem for the underpaid nanny to take care of one more.

>>> Bristol was raised by conservative parents who are very well off and educated. Her mother is a governor and father is an OIL executive. I support her decision to keep the baby. It is even easier that she is probably going to marry the father and the parents are supportive and very well-off. But, imagine a teenager who is living on food stamp or at minimum wage without health insurance with little or no education probably duped and raped and become pregnant but does not know how to protect her rights and does not have her parents/community/society supporting her. For her it is so important that she has the choice for abortion. The mother will be subjected to serious health risks due to lack of care and under age and the child who will most likely born with some birth defect due to mother age, physical conditions and lack of health care. A birth would actually end two lives. A choice will actually save two lives. Let’s be rational, practical and reasonable in 21st century.

Saving life is not just life at conception …. It is beyond birth …. How our kids are raised, educated cared for ….. With no education, health care and at minimum wage, life is a worse punishment than death itself. Let’s ensure every one is guaranteed of education, health care and respectable wage …. that’s what will make life worth saving. That will enable every Bristol to keep the child, even if she is not governor's daughter. Pro-choice is the choice to SAVE life ….. that is truly pro-life. Causing 100000 Iraqis and 5000 innocent brave soldiers die for no reason is not pro-life.

As a mother, I do not understand how a mother with 5 children one of them with special needs, is willing to take on the responsibility of being vice president. Granted a month ago, she did not know what being vice president meant so she might think she doesn't have to do anything. There is nothing wrong with being a working mom--but vice president--a position
that demands all your time? Also if I knew my daughter was five months pregnant I would not exploit her. If she truely loved her daughter she would not let her face the ridicule she is facing. Thus not only do I not feel that she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the president--having
no foreign policy experience or law degree,
but I don't think she is a very caring mother. That being said how can she sympathize with the plight of all the Americans who are now in trouble and need
leadership that puts them first. She doesn't even put her own children first.
Now I know you right wingers will argue and think I am being mean but those of you who are mothers have to think about this. Are you in your children's life on a daily basis and do they come before your career?

Posted by: Nan

Nan, perhaps you just don't have what it takes to juggle it all like Palin can. But I bet if even you put your mind to it you can accomplish great things.

Independent Alaskan

Don't be shocked. They're (the socialists) on their heels and showing their true colors.

Go to Russia you losers!

I wish there was some way for people in our country to swallow their pride and really desire to make things better. the fact is that both parties have some serious flaws. I am a conservative and a minister. Some of the comments made by some Christians on this website disturb me, especially concerning the daughter;s pregnancy. When it comes to personal matters we need to extend a little grace. We want someone to be perfect when in office while we sit back and continue life with no moral code. I am not asking my government leader to be the pillar of religion. but I am asking for some intelligence and change. To Obama supporters, please do not desire change so much that you do not research for yourselves whether he is qualified or not. Speeches don't do it. Besides for a man desiring change, he sure picked a constant in a running mate.

I like Palin, Her kid gettin pregnant just shows that she has to deal with the same stuff as the rest of us. There are other scandals with her that hold more wieght you can see them at http://www.veeppeek.com

Wiseman:
awesome point.

As a member of this generation, i can definitely tell you that abstinence only sex education fails miserably. I go to a mix-use technical school for half of my regular school day and half of the females there (actually, 80% of the girls there)are pregnant. HELLO! DUMB KIDS THESE DAYS HAVE SEX! Big surprise people!!! When every aspect of your society glorifies sex, what are you going to expect? And with parents these days too darn focused on their own lives then their family, why do you expect any different? Again, what do you expect when the parents of these kids are just as immoral as their kids are. What are kids going to do when they themselves were born when their parents were teens? Dont just tell me to keep my male hormones under control or tell my girlfriend to keep her legs shut, it takes a STRONG MORAL COMPASS, and a STEADY SOCIO-RELIGIOUS FOUNDATION initialized by the PARENTS (something I am proud to say i have been instilled with) that prevents teen pregnancy, as well as easy access to CONDOMS and BIRTH CONTROL (hey, there is always that prodigal son/daughter) that will prevent this epidemic from further worsening. Get off your soapbox people. and before the comments begin flying, i am a DEMOCRAT, so dont go there. this isnt a partisan issue its a MORAL issue.

I can't wait until full disclosure is made available on the FACT that this is her daughter's SECOND pregnancy in less than a year. This is a VERY troubled family. It's one thing to slip up once, but twice in such a short period of time? That's a travesty. I do agree that Britney Spears baby sister and "abstenence-only" Palin's children are examples that this is NOT a black/white issue.

It is a fact of life that teenage pregnancies happen and it is unfortunate. I take issue with Gov. Palin's (and the Evangelical right) hardline about abstinance-only sex education when such a plan clearly does not work - it did not work for her daughter and does not work for thousands of other teens every year. I would have much more respect for Gov. Palin if she were to acknowledge that fact and encourage real sex education in the home and at school. If she admitted, in light of her own family's experience and reality, that abstinance-only was not effective, she would give herself a great deal of credibility. Also, if her daughter considered giving the baby up for adoption as opposed to marrying at scuh a young age, she again would give her stance on being anti-abortion more credibility. Her statement notes that her daughter will have the entire family's support - lucky for them that they are in a position to be able to afford additional hired help as may be needed. Most people in their situation do not have that luxury.

Sarah Palin and McCain are supposed to stand for "values", which normally includes appropriate parenting and instilling wisdom in your kids. Maybe the Palins should build a web site (how about contraceptives411.com?) and make sure their kids and others learn the rudiments of Not Getting Pregnant. It's obvious Just Say No ain't working in the Palin family, but then, it ain't working anywhere in the U.S. or the rest of the globe. Get real, Republicans! Teach contraception!

It is disheartening that these 2 young people have been forced to 'share' their error in judgement in the limelight of the media. However, the real "mistake" here is that a "supposedly" dedicated mother who supports the rights of children chose her own political ambitions over the needs of her daughter. Makes one wonder what Gov Palin was thinking to subject her daughter to such painful publicity? I strongly believe a mother has a right to a career; however, not at the expense of her children. Unfortunately, sometimes one has to make a difficult choice and this time Sarah Palin made the wrong choice.

Nice to see that the hard-line conservatives have taken sex out of the men's rooms and into the bedrooms of underage children where it belongs.

Families should be off-limits, but the bald, shameless, and delusional hypocrisy of hard-line conservatives shouldn't be. Play ball!

Being a far right-wing on every issue is what Sarah is. On Sunday August 31, 2008 Pat Buchanan told Chris Matthews that Palin and her husband were his brigadiers in his 1996 presidential campaign. “They attended my fundraiser event in Alaska. She is a terrific gal, she's a rebel reformer." But Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida lashed out on Saturday at John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, accusing her of supporting "Nazi sympathizer" Pat Buchanan, and branding the move an "affront to all Jewish Americans." The National Jewish Democratic Council also issued a statement Saturday saying that McCain's judgment appears "lacking" in choosing Palin.

Faye Palin, Sarah's mother in-law says that the entire family is shocked. "I'm not sure what she brings to the ticket other than she's a woman and a right-wing conservative. Well, she's a better speaker than McCain," Faye Palin said with a laugh. "We don't agree on everything but I respect her passion," she said.

'chuck' said "Condoms fail once in 1000 times, abstinence fails 990 out of 1000 times"

Last time I checked, sexual abstinence involved refraining from having sexual intercourse. If you don't have sexual intercourse at all, you don't get pregnant, unless the usual laws of nature are somehow circumvented and parthenogenesis occurs — not exactly a common occurrence. If you fail to abstain from having sexual intercourse, then it is not 'abstinence' per se that has failed, but rather, self-restraint. Duh. Your illogic = epic fail.

We love getting you all worked up over the idea of Democracy, when in fact, the "American People" haven't really known who counts their votes since we installed "punch card machines" after we assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

You're just slaves to us now; The Help America Vote Act has now sealed our victories by ensuring that the votes cannot be recounted... and we will enslave you forever.

If it comes to pass that the daughter was in a three year relationship--culminating in an underaged pregnancy--beginning when she was just a 14-year-old CHILD, with a 26-year-old man...her mother deserves to be not only "attacked," but jailed! God almighty!
--
'm shocked at what I have read here. Attacking the mother because the daughter got pregnant?

Posted by: Independent Alaskan | September 1, 2008 6:37 PM

I am with OBama---but if you get your wish maybe we can hear for OBama's mother and father as well:

"I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits," Obama declared after attending a Labor Day picnic here. "People's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories."

Awwwwww, when republicans trash somebody its called straight talk, shows they are tough!... When it comes back at them full steam UNFAIR!!! Scum who say such things... Its Barack Obama
.... These people are hypocrites to every degree.. Just say it... the new Republican slogan... dont worry about doing it....

"And yes, with their fortune, i'm sure it won't be a problem for the underpaid nanny to take care of one more."

Tell us, Education, where we can read more about this fortune they have, and explain how you can be so sure that their nanny -- assuming they have one -- is underpaid.

I wish Palin's daughter the best. Certainly she may be considered responsible for getting pregnant ... but she is pretty innocent in her mother's choice to run as vp. What could have been a private family matter extending to the most into Alaska is now national fodder. I assume they did not know ... Anyway, if you were hoping to promote compassion - perhaps posting those comments that were understanding might have been powerful. Having said that - this IS an area where I thought the Hillary momentum could have touched making a compelling discussion ...

This teen pregnancy should serve as a warning: the abstinence-only approach to sex education is a failure. We must teach our sons and daughters about birth control.

I support Obama because he will protect women's rights, keep abortion safe and legal, work to improve sex education in order to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and support equal pay for equal work for women.

Those of you who are saying abstinence does work are correct. It works when one practices it! Palin's daughter chose not to go in that direction.

I can not imagine why any mother would choose to put her child in such a harsh spotlight, even if it means being a VP. It shows us where her priorities lie.

Those who are saying the "liberal" media are hypocrites are wagging their fingers at the wrong people. You should be wagging your fingers at yourselves. You, the conservatives, are the ones who preach family values. Rather than forcing your outdated belief on the rest of us, maybe you should take a good look at your own lives.

Obama/Biden for me.

HEY "Independent Alaskan"!!!!

We don't care if Sarah Palin reads this or not, all we care that smart people don't make mistake and vote for her and the old guy. So far we are good, scale is not tipping on McCain's side. We are also sure that she is actualy happy that we talk anything about them, becasue they need publicity, they need papparzzis and they need money for baby photos. Sound familiar?

I don't care if Sarah's daughter is going to be an unwed mother. I do care that Sarah would put her daughter in this spot. I do care that John McCain would put Sarah's daughter and Sarah in this spot. If Cindy finds out that John thinks of Sarah as his "Little Eskimo," she is going to cut of his allowance. (I stole "Little Eskimo" from www.thedailyjohnmccain.com).

You're all nuts....none of the candidates are good candidates...including Hillary and all the rest.....they all want to get into our pockets, our beds, our habits, etc. etc......partisan as hell and not solving any problems as far as I can see....they spend only about 50% of the time working than anyone I know and get paid 4X the median family income.....that's 8X per hour!!

I'm sure glad the Washington gun law was repealed.....the locals may need to do us all a favor!!

The people who bash on abstinence as a failed policy are doing so to justify their promiscuous lifestyles. For those of you who claim it does not work, maybe you should try it. Just because societal views have changed over the years does not mean that morals and ethics have. A society where men and women are sleeping with people who are not their husbands and wives is not an ideal situation. Even if not religious, we have seen scientifically, through the rampant spread of STDs, and socially, through the vast numbers of children having only a young, unwed parent to raise them, that abstinence would solve many problems we face today. We are not animals. We are human beings, and as humans, we should be able to control ourselves when it comes to sex.

Yes the Democrats have some vitro pent up and who wonder why this is. Well it is because the hypocritical right is always preaching their moral at us and never living up to them themselves. We are all human so I wish nothing but a safe and successful birth to Palins daughter. It is interesting if that special needs baby is really her mothers since the pictures of the same months show no belly at all? Hmmm I am certainly hopeful that the media look into all of this. No problem being human lady just stop preaching the abstinence only policy and the intelligent design and the no abortion rules at us. You are entitled to your views but not to put them on us. Mc Ain the vet voted worked to stop the GI Bill and myself and my flellow veterans including my two sons currently in Iraq are not going to forget nor forgive him for that. No Way No How No Mc Cain.

It sure proves abstence education, even from a ardent supporter of abstence education, just does not work.

How wonderful they are ready to be grandparents, and their daughter is just so ready to give up a collage education and settle down to start a life of being barefoot and pregnant at the sweet age of 17.

Plain has been very vocal against any type of the use of birth control. Now her daughter is in a jamb.

Her daughter probably did not tell her mother for months, being too scared, and now some poor boy is going to be shanghaied into marrying the stupid girl, who's mother would not allow her to use birth control.

Good example for the nation, get your daughters pregnant before graduation, insist on them having the child, and then see if they can make a salvage a working marriage from their juvenile mistake.

Most sensible politicians, who have run on an abstinence platform, would have realized that it's real egg on their face, and stepped down, not up.

I am just so happy that the child is conceived out of wedlock but to rich grandparents. After all, we know that's all a baby needs, a silver spoon in it's mouth.

To all U people.

If someone was drowning all you would do is yell you should have learned how to swim.

Judge not yet we be Judged.

Right to life? How about right to a normal life? Why choose to have another baby at 44 when you already have 4 and the incidence for Down Syndrome is 1 in 19 by the time a woman is 45? Is she opposed to birth control, too? Why is she a hero amongst right-to-lifers for not aborting when anyone could have told her the odds were against her before she even got pregnant? I'm sorry, but I don't see what's so noble about that.

Two minor points... Her husband does not have a manager position with the oil company. He works up on the north slope.

And as far as the experience thing...
She is currently the commander in chief of the 4000 strong Alaska National Guard, some of which are currently serving in Iraq,
Alaska has 3 army bases, 3 airforce bases, 2 coast guard air stations, 3 coast guard marine offices, totalling over 24,000 military personnel in Alaska,
Alaska is 2.5 miles away from Russia, Alaska is 1/3 the size of the ENTIRE continental US, and larger then all but 18 sovereign nations, Alaska has one of the top 20 national security site (NSA will not say what or where it is on the list, [I figure Alyeska pipeline, top 10]), Alaska has more tidal coastline then the entire rest of the United States, nearly 34,000 miles, Annually Alaska deals with Forest fires, floods, earthquakes, and temps ranging from -60 to +90 degrees. None of which you hear about because we deal with them all internally. Alaska has 22 indigenous languages, not to include Russian, Spanish, multiple asian languages, oh yeah, english. Alaska has the lowest individual tax burden in the United States, with no state income tax or state sales tax. Additionally, Alaska produces 20 percent of America’s energy.

Sarah Palin has been in an elected administration position for 12 years, taking on the big oil companies and government corruption. She took on the most powerful senator in the US House, who happens to be in her own party, and from Alaska.

She is the ONLY person in this race that has administrative experience, the only one who has commanded the military, the only one who has taken on Exxon Mobil, ConnocoPhillips, and BP and won each and every time.

At 2 a.m. when the phone rings, she'll do fine.

(and hw did I answer this so quick... honestly, you're not the first to ask.)

It's easy to judge and criticize...the hard thing is to love a child coming into this world. The child doesn't care about the circumstances with which it's born. Either a family is there to embrace the child or there is an entire spectrum of love that is not experienced. Gov. Palin's daughter is lucky as many children will not be grow up with such fortune.

I'm a teacher in Southern California and I see all races of teens who find themselves pregnant at young ages. I'm appalled at the comments by your readers and I hope that it brings them pause now that they see a well-to-do middle class family with the same problems.

How much do you wanna bet if Karl Rove was running Obama's campaign, like he currently is for John McCain, we'd instantly see push pulls as follows "would you vote for Sarah Palin if you knew her daughter was pregnant with an illegitimate black child?" Oh, that's right, he did do that, to McSame when he was running against GWB in 2000. I believe the wording was "would you vote for McCain if you knew he had an illegitimate black child?" WOW, AND YET HE STILL HIRED ROVE TO REPRESENT HIS CAMPAIGN!!! Karma is a funny thing......

The more we hear about this Palin individual the more I find her unsuited and unsuitable to be VP let alone possibly President.
Bridge: She approves a Bridge to nowhere for $200 million,and only when they find out it goes nowhere and swould serve 12 people she withdraws her support.
Hunting: She stands over a full grown elk and takes pride in having killed it.No doubt,like her it had a Family too.She could care less,as long as she can put a bullet in its head.
Baby: Some think she is so wonderful in having a baby that has down syndrone,but one must also consider there are millions of people who believe in abortion and that
to have a baby who will have a life of suffering may not be in its best interest.
Daughter: We would hope that a possible President can say that they have high morals and are able to instill those standards in their Family let alone anyone else.The fact that her daughter at just 17 is having a baby out of wed-lock is not something to be thrilled about but something to accept with reservation and understanding...it is not just anything goes/..she has to have standards which she can impart to the Nation.
Husband: I had no idea her husband is in the oil business...can we ever get away from this Republican reference.
Personally,the only time I think she will see the White House is on tour,as I feel the Nation wants a change, and they want Obama in seeing him as a person of change.

Holy Moly!!! I didn't believe the rumor that Trig was not Sarah's child but it ain't rumor after all. See the video taken by Feb 2008 and she supposed to show signs of pregnancy at the time when the child is 4 months old now.

http://alaskapodshow.com/index.php/2008/02/20/my-visit-to-juneau-alaska/

Convince yourself...

All this chatter about Sarah Palin having 5 children, one with Downs, and how that affects her ability to serve as VP. Would everyone be having this fervant debate about duties as a father vs. duties as VP if she were a MAN?? I think not. We pay lip-service to gender equality, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty turn around and judge a woman by a different standard. Still. Today. Which jsut means that women have to be twice as tough and twice as smart as their male counterparts. I have every confidence that SARAH PALIN IS JUST THAT.

You guys are disgusting. Feeling all sorry for Palin and her family. This woman has more gwebos than almost all of you men in this blog. When's the last time you guys shot a moose? She's no pushover or a wallflower. When you make comments like oh the media is gonna eat her for lunch blah blah blah...PISH POSH! She's smart, and I get a feeling she'd probably kick some of your under 6 feet tall wimpy assed men! And I'd personally pay to see it and laugh at the "wusses" that the Democrats are producing these days. It's the party of whimpy ass men!

I love the talk about the "public judgement session". Having sex IS an adult decision. She chose not to be abstinent and as a result got pregnant. If she would have never have had sex she could never have become pregnant. I don't see how teaching abstinence is bad, when it is the only 100% solution. Palins daughter made an adult decision and she should be treated like one. If she's 'smart' or 'talented' or 'mature' enough to have sex, she can deal with a little press.

You make an excellent point here, but what are you expecting from a mother who would knowingly place her teenage daughter's pregnancy in the national spotlight? To me, this was the actual failing of Sarah Palin as a mother, not the fact that she could not prevent her daughter from getting pregnant.

What else is a kid to do in backwoods Alaska. We are human. I quit going to church when they started showing abortion films in sunday school. Most of the kids in that class were having sex. Wakeup people you can't force kids or anyone else to follow your so called beliefs.

Obama O8 for gods sake

I think I will sit out this election

It's time we brought Sarah Palin's daughter out of the shadows and into the spotlight. This family belongs on the Jerry Springer Show!

Ms. Palin's family is none of our business.

And the personal decisions made by everyone else's family are none of hers.

I would hope that the love, forgiveness, best wishes, care and understanding, privacy, etc. would also be extended to the many thousands of families and young girls who go through the same tragedy.

Palin's daughter is fortunate to have parents with money and wherewithall to take care of her. Without that family support, just what a disaster, in most cases, it would be for a 17 year old girl to find herself pregnant, a perhaps very reluctant father to accept responsibility, and parents without means to help.

This story should make all so much more sympathetic to the most difficult position and decision any young girl must have to face. And the unfortunate truth is that most of these girls who choose to try and raise and care for their child raises a child who duplicates exactly the same pattern.

Wake Up, America! You're ALL wrong!

Abstinence does work. It works every single time two teenagers don't have sex. I personally know lots of people who haven't had sex with each other even though they wanted to, so the babies that they didn't have are non-living proof that Abstinence is the most perfect form of Contraception!

Something the Pope said worries me, though. I'm not Catholic, but I do pay attention to things and think about stuff. The Pope says that he doesn't like Contraception because it's just pre-Conception Abortion. That is, Contraception interferes with God's Will by preventing a Life from starting - it ends a Life even before it has a chance to begin. If that's true, then isn't Abstinence just Contraception in sheep's clothing, and therefore just another way of interfering with God's Will?

I remember being 17 quite clearly. I wanted to have sex pretty much all of the time. I am convinced that I would have had a LOT of sex if I'd actually gotten up the nerve to ask anyone to have sex with me (and they'd said yes). I was, in effect, Abstinence Personified.

My real concern is this: doesn't my Abstinence qualify as pre-Conception Abortion? Does my failure to ask anyone to have sex in the face of constantly wanting to have sex constitute interference with God's Will? If I'm guilty of Abortion (Murder), doesn't that make me a Mortal Sinner?

Maybe I should send this to Dear Abby instead. She always knows what to do.

Tom Davis- please read up on MCCAIN and the GI BILL.... you either are ignorant or prefer to spread half truths. MCCAIN noted the bill was loaded up with pork.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/mccain-now-supp.html

I presume that all of you have been waiting for me to throw my grain of sand on the pile. Obama is right. The daughter's pregnancy should not be politicized. Now everybody to home.

I think it is more likely that Mr. King has fabricated these quotes in response to a teenage republican white girl stealing the liberal heart string pulling lime light away from a worthy African American Presidential candidate.

While the quotes are mostly filled with bigotry and ignorance he quietly sneaks subtle self felt truths about any your that gets "knocked up"... ie: "The girls have so little self-love they long for getting knocked up or just believing they're being loved."

Very few bigots have the higher level of thinking to fabricate this statement.

Mr. King is false. Good Day. Obama '08.

Mr. King,

Thank you for your insightful article. I am surprised as you are that some would turn this into a racial topic. Maybe we could all focus on the courage of those young ladies who choose to keep their children, facing an early adulthood which will be much more difficult than one without a child to care for. These young women will have to work long hours at jobs that don't pay very much, trying to better themselves by taking classes when they can. I think these young ladies deserve much more recognition than they are given.

To Wow

Too dumb to use a condom, or other birth control....too dumb to understand abstinence....and likewise if so, it will not work.

How about sticking a cork in it?

It's depressing, though expected, you and the rest of the media would latch onto a story that has NO BEARING on the election. You are a small man and one of the herd. Thank God, the Internet is marginalizing you and your ilk.

'sally' fumed: "Teach contraception!" and that's why the US is now aborting over 1.5 million preborn Americans each year — over 40 million since Roe vs. Wade. Mother Teresa lamented: "If a mother can kill her unborn child, what is left of the West to save?"

See http://tinyurl.com/2g8up

This story is simple B.S.... It is a cover for a lie that they could not spin. That Bristol is the mother of the little specail needs kid.. To bad its a result of diet pills not Down syndrome... Come on alittle to conveinant when all of alaska knows your lying.... John
McCain picked a winner

I can't believe how you have candy coated the issue of teenage pregnancy, and glossed over the real issue here. Abstinence education does not work, condoms do, but you need to know how and when to use the thing.

Most (and I stress most) unmarried 17 year old girls simply do not have the ability to responsibly raise a baby. By the way, that is a period at the end of the last sentence because that is a fact and I am not going to justify why because you’re intelligent and you know a fact when it is a fact. In fact, if that fact was not true then this is an issue we would not be discussing here.

Get real Republicans and pull your heads out of the sand. You can’t tell me that Sarah Palin jumped for joy when her daughter broke the news. Her worst nightmare came true. Sarah Palin has also literally lied about the threat of Polar Bear extinction to attract more revenue for Alaska (using research from ExxonMobil), she abused power of office to have her brother in law fired, she lied about her position on the Bridge to Nowhere to get herself elected Governor (which obviously worked), she kills animals for fun, and she believes in Creationism (what a joke, go read the bible people because she hasn’t, and more than likely neither have the majority of you folks, at least word for word, cover to cover). Our country is heading down the wrong path and 8 years with McPalin will put us so deep, Palins daughters, childrens, children will still be paying for the mistakes the Republicans have made the last 8 years. Take off your blinders people and get bloody real.

If a man had an infant would that make HIM ineligible to serve in office?Holy molies, liberals are big sexist pigs!

Asbee:
That story by Nathan was...not so good. The statement "so a little teenage pregnancy is not such a bad thing" is pure head-in-the-sand ignorance. Yes, the story was a sweet narrative on life in a very small town up in the boonies, but everyone in it has such a fairy tale perspective. I thought the story strange.

This story is simple B.S.... It is a cover for a lie that they could not spin. That Bristol is the mother of the little specail needs kid.. To bad its a result of diet pills not Down syndrome... Come on alittle to conveinant when all of alaska knows your lying.... John
McCain picked a winner

"WOW"

I'm a virgin. Justifying a lifestyle i dont support or participate in? quess who's wrong here. not me......

consider all sides of this issue, and try evaluating some other facts. that abstinence is 200% less effective then a condom or birth control.

quoting a very knowledgable author:

Thought without information does not produce understanding. It is the quality and accuracy of that information coupled with original thought that produces understanding, unlocks meaning and provides potential answers to difficult problems.

oh.. and to Happy White Man, If I saw someone drowning I would try to save him, but I would not hire him to be a lifeguard.

The short of this story is that a seventeen year old girl in a serious relationship is going to be sexually active. It is the parents responsibility to educate their daughter in birth control and make sure she is practicing it. Anything less and they are totally irresponsible parents!

Joyce ..you are just down right ill. Yes mean people suck ...therefore you suck

Mr. King, I didn't see your first column, but I can tell you as a white woman that when I began to read this one, it never occured to me to view teen pregnancy as a racial problem. Maybe that's because I know many white moms in their 30's who are already grandmas. I agree with you that teen moms-to-be should be loved unconditionally and treated with respect. The horrors of abortion didn't come about because women wanted to be able to kill their babies. Those horrors came about because young, unmarried, pregnant women were so stigmatized in our society that they would rather die than give birth to human life. Like you, I hope Palin will use the opportunity to create a code of integrity instead of pandering to the stale code of "morality" that no one can live up to.

Teenage prgenancy of Palin's daughter makes me think that Palin is proving her being 100% pro-life. People in high value offices are supposed to be the role model for the society. What type of culture Palin wants to bring in the White House? She is not suitable to hold the post of VP of one of the biggest democracy in the World.

Swift-boat the religious right hardliners. If it were Senator Obama's daughter they would burn her at the stake. No mercy for McCain. For once Democrats go for the jugular. Richard

Posted by: Richard
Please clean your crystal ball Richard, it misreads other people and their intent too much.

Here are some words you can think about regarding this issue.

*Obama's mama
*Edwards
*Glass houses and burning Hillary for being a woman
*Chapaquitic

As a staunch Democrat, I can tell you that your attitude towards a 17 year old girl is why I will vote Palin this year.

Palin brings children with disabilities to the forefront also. This Country could use awareness about the truth.

Women with children are not disabled or foreign,they are smarter.
Congratulations to the Palin's on their first grandchild.
Everyone should celebrate babies.

This at once call into question McCain’s judgment and Palin’s priority. McCain, with Palin’s pick, showed us that he is a gambler. Palin with her acceptance put her priority in the wrong place. I am afraid the combination of the two will be a disaster to our nation. There are many great leaders who refused to run fur the presidency because they had family issues that they felt shouldn’t be scrutinized in public. They wanted to protect their loved ones. These leaders are trustworthy and they server our country in whatever capacity they could. My question regarding Palin is that if she is not willing to protect her own daughter from this extreme exposure, how can I trust her with my children. As far as McCain is concerned, a gambler always looses and I don’t want the future our nation to be in the hand of a gambler.

Tom

This IS A LIE and Making everyone Look Like fools!!!!!

This IS A LIE and Making everyone Look Like fools!!!!!

Obama was super nice about this Palin pregnancy today seen mentioning that his mother was eighteen(18) when he was born. Difference Barack Obama is that your mother was actually dare we say it married to your mother. These we are holier than thou Republicans will fall on their own sword every time. Let us not forget that their convention is being held in the bathroom enthusiast Republican Larry Craig favorite city. LOL..

YES WE CAN! Peel back the Onion and the Republicans and their evangelical base wont look so holy..

I'm not a Christian. I raised my daughter to be honest with me and to know how to behave in society. I taught her that her body was hers alone and the decisions she makes regarding who she is intimate with are serious decisions. My daughter just turned 21 and she is still a virgin, has never used drugs or smoked cigarettes and only had her first glass of wine on her birthday. She didn't like the taste...

Sarah Palin should spend more time at home - being a "pro-family" mother to her children who obviously need her guidance - and give up her quest for power. It's unbecoming of a lady.

Thank you for a great article. I too wonder what happened to common civility let alone decency.

Been married 39 years and I am 57, my wife is 56 you do the math. Why? Well you figure it out.

Was it my moms fault? Nope.

Would I have listen to mom and dad? Nope.

Should it have reflected upon my parents or their field of endeavor?

Raised our children. They are doing fine. We are doing fine.

Those were choices we made. How would those choices reflect upon my parents?

Since I don't abide by the new "nothing is sacred, not even the children," approach to politics and as I am here today testifying my sins to all those here today, I feel that I'm not about to cast the first stone.

I am troubled by the breaking of the unwritten rule of leaving the kids out of it, will this cause a tit for tat response? I hope not.

I think Obama said it best.... "...it is nobody's business."

Lie101 Why do you feel a need to lie? You appear to be a tool, down deep you know that is the only truth about you.

Where's the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE??

GO HOME SARA PALIN.. YOUR FAMILY NEEDS YOU YOUR FIRST DUTY IS TO YOUR FAMILY YOU ARE ACTING LIKE A VERY SELFISH SPOILED PERSON IM A LITTLE OLD FASHION BUT I BELIEVE IF PARENTS ARENT THERE THE FAMILY STRUCTURE SUFFERS GREATELY SORRY MCCAIN YOU MADE A BIG BO BO WITH THIS ONE THANKS SORRY YOU CANT GET MY VOTE...

Talking about abstinence-only is all well and fine but let's get real: millions upon millions of dollars have been wasted on Abstinence-Only UNTIL MARRIAGE programs. This is what's required to apply for and receive this type of funding:

THE FEDERAL DEFINITION OF ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION

According to federal law, an eligible abstinence education program:

A) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;

B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;

C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;

D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;

E) teaches that sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;

F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;

G) teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances; and

H) teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

Source: U.S. Social Security Act, §510(b)(2).

-----------
Lovely, this is the kind of sex ed a huge number of youth in schools are getting.

I am the parent of an 18 year old daughter and new grandparent of an 8 month old grandson who was born with optic nerve hypoplasia. He will be visually impaired his entire life.
I can sympathize with Gov. Palin from both the perspective of a child who became pregnant as a teen and the perspective of having a special needs child in the family.
In light of my daughters decision to keep the child and go to work directly after her high school graduation, I refuse to look at the situation as the commonly referred to "mistake".
I look at it as an adult decision (taking on responsibility) born out of necessity.
Teen pregnancy knows no color, ethnic, religious or political boundaries.
Roe vs. Wade and the "pro-choice" movement should mean that if a woman, whether she is 44 as Gov. Palin or a teen as my daughter and Gov. Palin's daughter, should have the right to keep that child without ridicule from any social or political ridicule/humiliation.
If they are willing to be mothers, we should let them.
After all, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

I cannot believe what I am reading. Are some of you actually suggesting that a child would be better of dead than with down syndrome? That's borderline Hitler talk.

This girl is having a baby,she's getting married,things happen.
Her parents are standing by her,regardless of who they are.

Its not like somebody is driving her over a bridge.

Goodbye McCain, Bush and Palin. McCain could have been a contender, he choose poorly.

I am what they term a republican 'values voter' from PA that strongly identifies with Mrs. Palin. However, when I heard the news of her daughter's 'blessing' and her husband's DUI - I can no longer support such hypocrisy. McCain must have known and is only using these as divisive issues rather than attempting to deal with the difficult economic issues our country faces (particularly here in central PA).

I am absolutely ASHAMED that I thought he might be good for the country.

Hey, ContinentalUSAindependent

All that matters is that BO does NOT get elected.

There are no good candidates, but there are definitely bad ones.

BO is a train wreck HOPEing to happen.

He will, if elected:

ruin our economy;
raise your taxes;
ruin our health care system; and;
get us attacked.

Go to Russia you stupid Socialist.

America does NOT need to be like the rest of the World. In fact, that's why we exist.

Wake up before we're China.

I hope it works out well for the kids having kids...my issue is that they went into this (likely) as 2 informed people choosing to have a baby, or minimally, at least to risk having a baby. But now, it's 1 person's choice to decide what to do. That's OK, but I'm not sure the dad should be on the hook for that. This couple may choose otherwise, and that's fine, but why doesn't the dad get the choice as to whether to bring this child into the world. 50/50. Today's law is completely one sided and unfair to the father.

I think its hot that homeboy boned that chick "rawdog" and she took it inside her!

independent Alaskan: The only thing your comment illustrates you are independent from is reality. Your encyclopedic facts and figures about Alaska can't disguise the fact that your governor is a lying hypocrite.

Regarding the teen pregnancy issue, the hypocrisy is even worse. I read in the New York Times that the women at the Republican National Convention were embracing news of Bristol Palin's pregnancy. How warmly and openly do you think those same women would react to the news if the unwed teenager was Barack Obama's daughter instead?

Compassion and civility have never gone out of style; Senator Obama's comments about Bristol Palin's pregnancy were those of a gentleman. Senator McCain's choice of Gov. Palin as a running mate while knowing of her family situation is also the act of a gentleman. let's all try a little harder. Mr. King has to be a big man to do his job.

Thanks for this column about teen pregnancy. Too many times the teen or the baby, are the supposed 'problems'. The 'problem', from what my perspective, is how we as people view other people. Mistakes should be forgiven then learned from, not things which arbitrarily make people 'bad'. These past three generations of humans, have embraced a me first mentality. Sexuality, marriage, politics, work, etc., have become things we do for ourselves. When we put ourselves first in these categories, then we miss a huge part of our Humanness. If we look out for others more than ourselves we would realize what is real in life, and not be condemning of peoples mistakes or choices in life. It's not about just getting along, it's about looking out for others and NOT number one.

After reading comments here,and other sites,I find that the tolerant liberal left are pretty intolerant,haters.Since when is it suprising that a teenage girl gets pregnant then gets married,or not.Happens all the time and has for years,I am 52 and my mother was pregnant at 17 then married my dad and were married till she died in 1985.Teen pregnancy is nothing new.Unless you keep your children locked up 24hrs a day and never let them out of your sight chances are they,re going to something you told them not to do,all these comments about Palin being a bad parent or withdrawing because she has kids are just BS from scared DEMS.

The reason people took what you sais in "racial terms" is because everything you write in in racial terms. You are the worlds biggest bigot ever.

First I'd like to start off by saying that I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I am forced by our antiquated political system to pick one or the other at the beginning of an election process. I try to pick the best person for the job. He/She may be a Democrat or a Republican, or God forbid even an independant.

Now first, the teen pregancy issue that Mr. king wrote about, isn't an issue that Palin should tell about. It is an issue that Americans should tell about white or black, yellow or red. This is an American issue.

Second, if you want to know what's wrong with American politics, just go back and look at the rantings the previous folks posted. They have to be rantings because they're not at all well thought out. just like some to think that only Demorats can run America or that only Republicans can run America. Believe me folks it take good people of all parties, races, and religions, to build a good government. And if it's being done right, it's our fault for not making informed decisions in the voting booth.

Right now our government is saturated with politicians that are at best self-serving. And if you are a Democrat that thinks its all screwed up because the Republicans are in office then you have another thought coming. And vice-versa. Just think of the important issues that have been ignored by the congress when contolled by either party. Neither party is capable of understanding the meaning of the word concensus. Oh well I'm off my soap box, I'm finding myself ranting.

The Washington Post really needs some screening for its posters. Some of these comments are totally ridiculous and extremely inappropriate.

Sarah & Todd Palin need to stop being so selfish and concentrate on their family right now- their baby and pregnant teen daughter need them. Where's the family values? Walk the walk!! Do they really think it is in the best interest of their family to uproot and haul them all around this country and, possibly, relocate them from Alaska to Washington DC??? The fact that Palin would sacrifice her family for her own power and fame speaks volumes about who she really is. Not to mention that she didn't nip this in the bud from the get go by telling McCain "Thanks, but I am in NO WAY qualified to run this country ..." The American people will say it for her ... "Thanks, but no thanks." McCain & Palin just handed this election to Obama.

'The Sarcasticator' wrote: "Something the Pope said worries me, though. I'm not Catholic, but I do pay attention to things and think about stuff. The Pope says that he doesn't like Contraception because it's just pre-Conception Abortion. That is, Contraception interferes with God's Will by preventing a Life from starting - it ends a Life even before it has a chance to begin. If that's true, then isn't Abstinence just Contraception in sheep's clothing, and therefore just another way of interfering with God's Will?"

See http://tinyurl.com/2g8up

As a Canadian, I am apalled how the religious nuts have taken over south of the border.

The biggest nut of all is in the White House and claims to talk to god.

And what is with the Inquisition interview a couple of weeks ago of the candidates?

Canada and Europe would not put up with this nonsense.

This is 2008, not 1608!

HELLO AGAIN "Independent Alaskan"!!!

You forgot to mentioned that whole Alaska as the biggest state of USA has only 670,000 people. That is less than one Chicago neighborhood. You also forgot to mentioned that Alaska has less than 1 person on Square Mile. You forgot to mentioned that Palin was mayor of town that has less than 7000 people and that same as some small rathole in Arizona or Texas where high school drop out or felon can be mayor. Welcome to continental USA, Sarah Palin's resume is garbage. You need to tell us, how many black people your great land of Alaska has?

The question is: will she make it to Wednesday as the presumptive nominee? Judging by the volume of reaction and strength of feeling following the publication of this column hardly two hours ago, I doubt it. CNN and others have investigative teams in Anchorage and if this doesn't do her in, the Troopergate affair will. At some point she'll call McCain and say maybe it would be better if she just backed out. Or maybe the call will be in the other direction...

I am flabbergasted that in 2008, we have to have a national debate about whether a woman can hold an office AND have children.
We want to claim that fathers play a big role, yet I doubt this discussion would even be happening were it Palin's HUSBAND running for office. We'd expect that the little woman would be handling all the "family stuff" in order to allow the man to do the job.

The fact that this discussion is even happening is evidence of America's enduring sexism against women. How many centuries of hard work and stellar performance will it take for us to get equal footing???

Bigotry abound. I think Palin is on the right track. She wouldn't trade her flesh off for anything, nor her daughters.

Society needs to jump on THAT band wagon.

I've read alot here... double standards. Mrs. Palin obviously is not abandoning her children, nor her new baby. I'm sure her husband is doing a great job.

Where are all of the feminists that should be standing up for her - she has her husband by her side - Mr. MOM. How much more feminist can you get? A man that stays at home - and she can pay the bill. HA!
The libs assume that the only way that is acceptable, is if she had a short-clippered cut 'partner' that could do the job.... not her husband. (I don't have a problem with that either... but come on.)

Well she chooses to LET HER DAUGHTER SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCE. THIS is something that Democrats should learn more about. Consequences not based on taxpayers dollars.

I'm sick of everyone passing the buck, or hitting the abortion button just because it's easier. Take some responsibility.

American needs healing. Family, whatever one chooses but Not death.

Sarah Palin obviously markets herself very well and is very ambitious. Bristol's pregnancy is a private matter. However, Sarah Palin has a family who needs her very much right now...a child with Down's Syndrome and now a pregnant teenager. Her priorities are skewed when she forgets that responsibility begins at home ... not with a demanding job. Are the other conservatives not seeing this as an issue? Does family not come first?

This is so disappointing.
Maybe I'll just sit this one out. McCain has made a choice that I just cannot identify with. And, he too is not the man he was up until recent months...he's changed, and it is for the worse imo.

Does this mean the Republican National Convention has been changed to a baby shower? Gift ideas? Stuffed polar bear (real)...

That was really disenginuous of the McLame campaign to play the Juno card on the first day of the RNC while a major hurricane hits the gulf coast-again.I had heard of some republicans praying for rain,oh, wrong convention.Apparently McLame forgot to check all the baggage/skeletons that comes with this lady.Hecka of job Brownie!

Did we ask Kennedy to resign when Jackie had a baby in the White House? Did we ask Kennedy to resign when Jackie Kennedy lost Her Baby? If Palin's husband was running would we suggest he should be replaced? Might be hard to accept, but Mr Palin is the stay at home Mom. Men today do choose to be the care giver. It is OK.

Hey Lisa,

Just like a Marxist: presume to know what someone else thinks.

You never made a mistake? Right. Who's the hypocrite?

Wow. You people never fail to amaze.

This women fights for what she genuinely believes in.

Far too many member of congress support the war but would not send their children over to fight OR are pro-life but are they?

This is a women that PRACTICES WHAT SHE PREACHES. She's strong, has legislative experience, and executive experience.

I would rather have an inexperienced vp than an inexperienced president.

We live in a world that is constantly blaring at us to do the wrong thing. And when we do we're damned. We have very little that tells us the right things. The voices of evil seems a lot louder than the voices of good. But if we listen there is a "still small voice," and that is the voice of the good Lord. We make choices one at a time. Sex outside marriage is always a bad choice. Get married. Make the best of it. Raise the baby in a loving, forgiving home family relationship. God bless us all.

Teenage pregnancy is not a racial issue. There are plenty of white, hispanic, asian, black, etc. young girls who get pregnant everyday. We are completely influenced by the media. The mainstream media (powered by large corporations) has been given entirely too much leverage by this administration achieving the goal of increasing capitalism. We now find ourselves in a situation where role models for our nations youth are young girls who present themselves like they are in their early twenties even though they are just teenagers.

Media is a form of education and the education that these young girls are recieving at home (tv, movies, internet)is to be seductive, sexy, to be focused on boys when they have no idea how that will effect their "non-celebrity" lives. It is normal to mimic what you see and that is exactly what is happening. Young girls and boys simply aren't ready, are uneducated and easily follow what they see. Thorough sexual education and a comprehensive program is needed. Reform in the media is a must. Parents need to take an active role with their children as well, and this definitely is not a racial issue, this is absolutely across the board.

How about a Red Ryder BB Gun with a compass in the stock?

We all KNOW if she were MALE this thread would be shorter than OBAMAs list of accomplishments.

I'm ashamed of Gov. Palin for putting her daughter in such a harsh limelight. Most teenage girls who become pregnant wouldn't appreciate having the whole town know about her condition, let alone the whole world. How could Palin choose her own ambition over her daughter's needs? I feel sorry for her children.

This woman has lied about her ties to fire her ex-brother in law, lied about her ties to the bridge to nowhere, is facing impeachment in the house of Alaska, doesn't support sex education or abortion but accepts the fact that her 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant and says its OK. I think John McCain lied about knowing this. What else are they going to lie to us about if they become President and VP. I think Barrack Obama will now be the next president cause we cant trust McCain.

It is sad. When it happens to blacks or poor or a "liberal" person it is a shame and it is condemned. When it happens to "conservative" repugnants, holier than thou people, then we should all understand!! Pardon me, if this was Obama's household....we will all be singing a different tune. Gimme a break, this is plain hypocrisy I want none of it.It is a "personal" issue now...it would have been political football had it happened to others.

While an unwed pregancy is hardly news today, I am very troubled that McCain chose Palin as his running mate after finding out about this situation. It is very tough today to raise children and explain the very important reasons why they should defer sex in their teenage years (and my reasons have nothing to do with religion). I am not pleased at all to have the Palin daughter's pregnancy thrust front and center during this election. Worse, this family condones a seventeen year old getting married. Another mistake. Poor judgement by McCain to choose her and an even poorer decision by Palin to accept the VP nomination. She's all about "me, me, me". And, I was an independent leaning toward McCain.

So is this an indictment on Palin's love for abstinence-only education? Teenagers will always have sex no matter what you tell them, and I wonder how many of them want to marry all the people they have sex with. Does Bristol really want to marry the father or is she being forced to in order for it to appear in line with her mom's family values? I also feel so sorry for Bristol, seeing as now the whole world is focused on her 17-year-old belly.

It's really no ones business but the parents and daughter and boyfriend. If Democrats had brains they would be Republicans.

My problem is not with the bad judgement and mistake made by the 17 year old daughter and more with the parents. First, this proves once again that abstinence only education doesn't work. Second, the parents proudly announce a 17 year old is getting married--a recipe for failure. Thirdly, it is inconceivable to me that a mother with a newborn, special needs baby and a pregnant 17 year old child would consider hopping on a campaign bus for 2 months and then assume a job that could include long hours, including weekends, not to mention she is totally unqualified for the position. I also find it appalling that the parents would disregard the privacy of the child and expose her to the entire country. Children that age are very sensitive and I think Sarah Palin has placed her ambition over the immediate needs of her children. I feel for Bristol; she must feel humiliated and embarrassed the whole world knows about her personal problems. Sad.

The most important thing is to have a VP who is openminded, willing to listen to a wide range of opinions, and then make tough decisions. I think Palin could do that. She also does not tolerate vested interests.

To be honest, America's quite lucky with the candidates this time around. Obama, Biden, McCain, Palin...
All four are good, honourable people.

What a change after 8 years of the dishonorable Bush/Cheney gang!

SWMissouri,
Palin could have turned down the job. Anyway, we are told that the Council for National Policy is the one who vetted Palin; that Council includes various Republican luminaries.

RNC BECOMES A BABY SHOWER!!! PALIN'S REGISTERED AT WALMART. How about a barrel of oil for the new baby? Real stuffed polar bear is good though too.

Really, would you be saying that Palin should be going home to raise her infant and support her daughter if it was MR. instead of MS.? Shame on you psuedo libs who are all about party lines and NOTHING about the reality of how things are. If any of you wrote that Ms. Palin cannot be a good VP because she is the mother of an infant and an expectant grandmother, YOU ARE A HYPOCRATIC PENDEJO!!!! look it up, that's you! A woman is just as capable of being a mother and holding office as a man. At least the Republicans recognize that.

Anyone out there who knows what the Palen family is going through...take a look at what Dems really think of you.

Anyone who has a family member of friend who has been mentally injured... just think...there are many(mostly Dems) who wish you were never born. That is very evident in these posts and in the DNC platform. They do wish you dead.

Teen age pregnancy knows no race or economic boundaries and defiantly no political boundaries. As a society we have allowed kids to think there are no real consequences for there actions. And in the case of the Palins, they had to tell the world if Gov. Palin is running for office. you cannot hide a pregnancy when the world is watching. At least they are not hiding her under the rug like most politicians do during elections. (Has any one seen the Democratic VP nominee's son who who has many scrapes with the law?)

As to the comments that traveling in 8th month of pregnancy could have caused Trig's Downs Syndrome...that is a genetic abnormality that is present not long after conception. Read a high school science text book.

Greetings "True American"!!!

Thanks a lot for your insults on another 32,000,000 people. You are the one that think USA that doesn't have to be like the rest of the world. Well we got news for you fools, THE REST OF THE WORLD DOESN'T WANT TO BE LIKE USA. Think about it, if we mind our business nobody will atack us, so far you and your friends Bush and Dick, got us attacked and killed. We do not need another 4 - 8 years of NAZZIS in White House and that is what McCain is. Same crap.

John McCain appears to have a history of making hasty decisions. "I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can," Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, "Worth the Fighting For." "Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint." The President of the United States should not be inclined to make hasty decisions.

WOW. I feel like I'm watching my country self-destruct in slow motion. Sarah (who?) Palin should be promoted from hockey mom from rural Alaska to the world's most powerful leader? Are you serious?? What is going on??!! This is beyond scary. McCain cares so much about winning an election that he would put our country in such danger? Clearly he is not thinking of the good of our nation -- he has lost my vote. These are truly sad times.

wait palins teen daughter is pregnant? so she cant even manage her own family, i guess she want around for the birds and bees talk with her daughter....so if shes to busy to know what the hell is going on with her own familly how in the hell would she become a good vice president??answer? rebuttal?? i think she should get out of politics and tend to that retard baby she just had? oh and it doesnt seem responsible to me when you know that having children at a later age can have a birth defect...more good judgement!! stay the hockey mom you are and forever will be.Good thing im voting for obama!

Hey Seistmediaanddemoctats,
You wrote "NOONE VEETTED THE NO EXPRIENCE MALE PRESIDENT CANDIDATE OBAMA! HE HAS NO EXPERIENCE!"
Excuse Me! McCain has been spending MILLIONS of dollars on ads with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as celebrities touting Obama as a celebrity without experience. You must have Rush KoolAid for breakfast.

WOW!!! Republicans preaching compassion for teenage mothers instead of condemning them as welfare queens? Wow, between this and the hurricane, maybe it's.... the Apocolypse!!!

We live in a society that encourages teen pregnancies -- Doesn't matter if you're black / white... I am white, raised in VERY christian environment, I pledged that I would get married a Virgin, and sadly I didn't make it. This is when I was a teen back in the '80s; it was hard then, and it's even harder today. Thank you Hollywood / Nashville I lay the blame on you, Sex is what you sell, not quality programming, and if you don't believe me look at those who represent your craft such as Brittany Spears, or Lindsey Lohan

Sara Palin did what EVERY parent should do in this situation, and she handled it remarkably well. Love and support our children when they fall into situations like this. I know a lot of conservative parents that would have handled this MUCH differently!!

CFX,

There is no way abstinence is 200$ less effective than birth control. That doesn't make sense. Sorry.

Brian,

Because someone is too dumb to practice abstinence does not make it ineffective.

Again, we are talking about people here, not animals. People can control sexual urges.

I keep wondering why the young parents to be are not married now. As I understand it, the candidate's daughter is several months into her pregnancy. What on earth are they waiting for!

I greatly admire Obama for saying that families are off limits. Were it not for the constant hypocrisy of conservatives, I would agree with him. Plain and simple: when you make political points out of dictating that others should be legally bound to follow your moral dictates, you should damn well be ready to have your morals, and those of the people closest to you, publically examined.

I quess "just say NO" doesn't work at any level of the socioeconomic spectrum. The Republicans are always good to solve complex problems with simple slogans and solutions. Palen is an expert at it.

Don't BECOME brain damaged or else it is VERY EVIDENT Dems want YOU GONE Do you not see it?

So much for the least among us

Anonymous,

The only thing more scary than a McCain presidency is a BO presidency.

At least we can survive the former.

Cheers,

I wonder if the boyfriend's willingness to marry has anything to do with Governor Palin being a card carrying member of the NRA

I'm tired of conservatives blaming "liberals" for bringing this issue up. When someone comes out trying to legislate morals I think it's completely fair to ask that the person proposing these issues follow them. I also think it's fair to point out that her views are flawed and she should look no further than to her 17-year-old daughter.

Wow. Things really look hopeless for us. Maybe we need to try something we've never really tried before. How's about trying to love one another? How would things be if we tried to live this passage:

Love is patient,
love is kind;
love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.

I think any person of good will can agree with that definition regardless of his religion or lack of religion. We won't get it perfect, but we'll get better with practice, and the world will get better as we get better. That's guarenteed.

Let's try each one of us, and see what effect it has.

Mr King. Please continue your thoughtful articles.

being a father of 4 daughters my heart goes out mrs palin but at the same time
we need somebody who has the ducks in a row
not somebody who has a full plate we need
true change not more headaches

When did teen pregnancy become acceptable?

,It seems to me that if Palin had her family's best interests at heart, she would have turned down the VP nomination, stayed in Alaska, and helped her daughter with this tragic pregnancy which will be very hard for all involved. How does being in the spotlight 24/7 help her child?

Posted by: Independent in KY

Have you ever heard of this word?
Father

The baby's mother and "father" have supportive family.

I would worry more about who candidates associate with, and choose for friends than what their children do.

Ann Dunham was only 17 when she was pregnant with Barak and unwed. With the right support these situations don't always turn out bad. We need to remember who raised Barak, if your prone to blame Sarah Palin for her daughters pregnancy, it was Ann's parents.

What most people seem to not realize is that life does not begin with sex. Life begins with the breath of God. Every person was planned by God and He does not make mistakes. So, whether or not children are being born in or out of marriage, God is the author of life (Genesis 2:7, Psalm 139:13-18). As a community, we need to offer the Palin family a little more grace. Let us give thanks to God for each life He has created(Proverbs 1:7). Let's focus our energy on making the life great for each gift from God (Psalm 127:3). This statement is from an infertile, new adoptive Mom.

Nancy Pelosi, the darling of the left, is also the mother of 5 children. Where's the criticism of her child rearing skills?

Sam,

If you actually made a point (no substance at all) I might have listened.

More liberal blah, blah, blah.

Useless, as usual.

I think many people's comments are driven by emotion rather than education. Because you feel it does not make it necessarily accurate. It is OK to teach our children a since of shame. It is ok to tell them you screwed up. Palin is not necessarily putting her family through worse torture. every family is different.As far as sex education goes, last time I checked abstinence only was not being taught by the school systems. Also, if you educated yourself on the latest stats, you would see that teen sex has increased dramatically despite attempts at the "right" education. Obviously, public education emphasis approaches is not the answer. It is not just about right and wrong. It is about teaching why one way causes the fewest repercussions.I know it is easy to make comments via a computer. I just ask that you educate yourself before criticizing someone or something.

Mr. King,

You speak of the hypocrisy in the responses to your piece. However, I wonder if the greatest piece of hypocrisy of all is the Palins' statement.

Do you think they would have been offering "unconditional love and support" to Bristol if Mrs. Palin wasn't a candidate for the second-highest office in the land? If her (and by default, her family's) every move wasn't under constant scrutiny by a scoop-hungry media?

If that wasn't the case, do you really think things in the Palin household would be so rosy? No shouting matches? No tears?

Do Mr. and Mrs. Palin really think that, at 17, their daughter is physically and emotionally ready to take on the demands of motherhood? (Or is Mrs. Palin counting on a McCain win and a Secret Service nanny for her grandchild?)

If Mrs. Palin was so steadfast in her "religious right" beliefs, why was there not a line in the family's statement saying something along the lines of, "While we feel it is unfortunate that our daughter has engaged in premarital sex at such a young age..."?

Yes, the true hypocrisy here is that for the sake of "family unity" in the midst of a public campaign, Mr. and Mrs. Palin are whole-heartedly throwing their support behind a teenage pregnancy that should be shaking them to the core, both as parents and as religious conservatives.

i knew that mccain should have chosen hillary!

It became acceptable when it happened to a Republican. Republicans denounce it everywhere else, but now that its one of them its a beautiful thing. Hypocrites.

I really do think that the Christian-right are crazy and dillusional. There we are, this country with it's illigal war and it's 2 term idiot. Nixon looks good from here...then my goodness look what has emerged people in the running that are not white silver haired suits. If the people are starting to look different then perhaps we are starting to think differently about what America is (?)
As far as prganacy is concerned...every child should be wanted...we have not even looked after our orphaned children...if the anti-abortionists are that concerned,
please visit the orphanages, take in foster chilren and keep your over blown ego's out of the painful "real life" decisions other women have to make!

Only in America would a trivial issue such as this bring forth a tirade of opinions from all sides of the fence. Grow up America, there are far more pressing issues to debate than a teen girl's pregnancy.

There is no hypocrisy here unless you know what her daughter's beliefs are. You know you are just another tool...I got a drawer of tools ..i need no more

I am the baby in a family with two older sisters.
I am an unashamed pro-lifer. What really cemented it for me was when my 18-yr old sister got pregnant.
Now I don't go out to protests or anything like that, but in my heart I feel abortion is wrong. Adoption is such a better option but that's not why I am writing this.
On hearing the news that my sister got pregnant, my father was outraged, embarrassed, and ashamed. He shunned my sister for nearly two years. He was insistent that she abort the baby and refused to speak to her about anything. No holidays. No birthdays. Nothing. He didn't want to have anything to do with his problem middle child's teenage pregnancy. He couldn't believe this was happening to his family! Shock! Horrors! Gimme a break. I though it was cool that I was going to be an uncle.
My mother, from whom he divorced when I was three, had to fight tooth and nail in family court to get my father to pay the costs of my sisters health insurance.
He was so focused on his own feelings and petty selfishness that he forgot he had a daughter who was in need of his support whatever decision she made about her baby. He was also making things very uncomfortable for the rest of us.
Long story short, my niece is a very healthy 18. She's a freshman in college now and we're all proud of her. She has no idea how close she came to never even being born.
We are not allowed to even mention the above story to my niece or it would be the end of any relationship, superficial or not, with my father and the perpetrator.
I can't wait to see where he comes down on Palin's daughter's pregnancy.
He typifies the meaning of hypocrisy. I believe he secretly envies those men amongst us who've dodged a bullet through abortions.
I am 100% convinced that if abortion were legal in 1966 when my unmarried, 18 year old mother was pregnant for our oldest sister, none of us would be alive today.
Now my oldest sister's 19 year old son is with a girl who is pregnant with his baby due in November.
According to my math, if my oldest sister were aborted; Including everyone spawned from that pregnancy in 1966: 9 lives would have been snuffed.
I am thankful that abortion was illegal and my parents didn't have access to so-called back alley abortions. They married, things didn't work out, but we still have our shot.

Speaks to just how straight talking is Governor Palin.
Other than that it's young people making poor choices related to sex.

I get so tired of people saying that Obama has no accomplishments:

EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE: President of the Harvard Law Review, running his masterful campaign - think of his campaign as his "start-up" - almost $400 in revenue from 2 million donors, hiring people who are discipled and work as a team, not for individual glory. He has not had to fire people and shake up his campaign like McCain has. Good grief - as a relative unknown, he toppled the premier democratic machine of the Clintons. If his campaign was a start-up business, he'd be a very successful businessman.

Just google "Obama" and "legislative accomplishments" - see what you find. He has reached across the aisle many times:

Lugar-ObamaLugar-Obama Bill to Keep Weapons Out of Terrorists' Hands:

http://obama.senate.gov/press/060523-lugar-obama_bil/

Coburn-Obama Bill to create Internet database of Federal Spending (www.usaspending.gov):

http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=LatestNews.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=8dcb8c35-802a-23ad-4d37-9c8ea9c43460

Other:
1)In the US Senate, Barack Obama has served on the
FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE,
HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE,
VETERANS AFFAIRS COMMITTEE,
HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOUR & PENSION COMMITTEE.

2)Before getting to the US Senate Obama served more than 7 years in the Illinois State Senate(A Big state).

3)Barack Obama is a graduate TOP of his class at Harvard Law School and earned Doctor of Law degree.

4)Barack Obama has a degree in Political science specializing in International Relations from Columbia University.

5) Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Law Review - Only the brightest student with highest intellect from Harvard gets to serve this position.
-Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Law Review with a circulation of 8,000 is an executive experience more prestigious than a mayor from a small city of 5k.

6)Barack Obama worked as a Civil Rights lawyer for 9 years.

7)Barack Obama was a University of Chicago Constitutional Law Professor for 12 years.

8)In the State Senate Obama has written 890 pieces of legislation, and co-sponsored 1096 pieces of legislation.

9)Barack Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for a community organizing institute.

10)Barack Obama worked in Chicago, Illinois as the director of the Developing Communities Project.
-Community Organizing projects have staffs and annual budgets and have to be managed and run. So, for those who quite falsely say that Barack has never "run" anything, it should be known that, when he joined the Developing Communities Project, it had a staff membership of one person and an annual budget of $70,000, but when he left it three years later, it had 13 staff members and an annual budget of $400,000. Republicans like to talk about making businesses successful, the measure of success being that they produce, amass capital, and increase the wealth of the owners and stockholders and so on. But Barack turned a public service organization that prepared people for education, jobs and serviced their struggling neighborhoods into a solid success.

11)Obama has been campaigning for the same if not even more time than Palin has been Governor .. & Obama's staff nation-wide .. is immensely larger than the population of Alaska

-Finally Obama's intellectual talent is at the level of Abraham Lincoln/JFK if not more. This type of leader comes once in a life time.

Anyone who says Obama has no executive experience is wrong. He headed up his own presidential campaign, which was a massive enterprise. And he did a very good job.

Mr King,

I absolutely empathize with your sentiments on this issue. Perhaps it's the sign of the times but the mindless racists are beginning to raise their ugly heads.

Teen pregnancy is an issue that cut's across all racial, cultural, religious and political boundaries but those mired in their own self-loathing and hatred no longer are able to accept substance over shadows. They are more interested in spreading their bile than solving a problem.

Those bereft of conscience, driven by their own profane morality, will always (unfortunately) be among us.

Good Luck and God Speed

We can only assume that the pressure on Palin's daughter to practice abstinance was as great as could be brought to bear on any teenager. How well did abstinance work for Palin's own children, obviously not well. That Palin would continue to preach her absurdly conservative views to America in light of those ideas failing in her own family, is just additional evidence of how out of touch she is with reality.

Speaking of being out of touch, I am beginning to wonder whether or not McCain actually knew that Palin's daughter was pregnant. In fact I am wondering if even Palin knew her daughter was pregnant. It just doesn't add up. Both McCain and Palin would have to know that the pregnancy would be uncovered by the press fairly quickly. McCain's whole campaign is built on "Straight Talk", and he can't pretend that voters wouldn't have been curious about the daughter's pregnancy. Now it looks fairly obvious that if McCain actually did know, that he was trying to hide the pregnancy for at least some time before admitting the news. It is clear to anyone that it would have been much better for McCain to have come out with it immediately if he knew, so why didn't he? I say it was because McCain didn't know, and very likely neither did Palin.

Some additional facts; Palin has proven to be seriously out of touch with reality in the past. Once she boarded a 10 hour flight after her water broke, was she just praying that everything would be OK. After her last child was born, with Down's syndrom, she felt that she had enough time left in her child care schedule to campaign for McCain as VP. The McCain campaign now say that the daughter always planned to marry the boy who fathered the child, then what are they waiting for, do they think it will be easier to plan a wedding after the child is born? Clearly Palin's life is spinning out of control, is this really a good time for her to run for VP? Parhaps someone like McCain thinks so, but I think the more realistic scenario is that McCain just didn't know.

ANONYMOUS SAID: "It became acceptable when it happened to a Republican. Republicans denounce it everywhere else, but now that its one of them its a beautiful thing. Hypocrites."

Who said it was no acceptable???
You tools kill me

hay everybody,
Can we please admit that there are elements of hypocrisy in both parties. Obviously the right and the left are so against each other I really think that both are having trouble prioritizing what truly is best for the united States. I think everyone should be weighing there voting decision with the lesser of the two evils approach

Obama is making statements about how we shouldn't talk about her family. If he really didn't want people talking about it he could start by not talking about it. No seriously, I'm sure he doesn't want to get into family issues and talk about his siblings. Oh wait, now I'm talking about it.

Richard Winger ..you have got to be kidding me. Spin on. You lefties kill me. So bought and paid for.... it is funny ...she is more experienced than OBAMA yet you are so bought YOU cannot even admit.. very friggin hilarious

If McCain knew this before he chose Palin, then he made a poor decision, as did Palin's daughter.

@ dave - if you would have directed your words to both sides - I would have been with you. So I have to say you are no different.
For the matter at hand - while it is an incident that no parent wants to see - it is a reality that has to be dealt with.
Cynicism as the camouflaged Obama opponent uses, to suggest abortion is not helping, neither is tearing this private issue into politics and the public. While I think that Palin is not a good choice for VP - in this issue she and her family deserve to be left alone. It is no ones business.

bad deal

It's not that white middle-class girls don't get pregnant, it's that their families usually find a way to help support them and their child and make sure they and their children get an education and don't become a burden on society. I have to question the judgment of a woman who gets pregnant at 44, when there's a high risk of birth defects and can't seem to inform her own children about the birds and the bees and thinks abstinence education actually works.

The only thing I have to say is I still would rather have her and McVain than a couple hacks like Joe Biden, the plagiarist and Barack Obama, the lawyer who allegedly gave up a Wall Street job to go become a political apparatchnik for the Chicago Democratic Machine and who hobnobs with terrorists and bigots.

How long would the truth not have come out if left to the McCain people to provide the truth to the American people?

Teens getting pregnant happens all the time, but not in the framing of a person running for the position of vp, who holds the position that children should be abstinent.

Sad yes, but we don't need more lamebrain Republicans getting away with abuse of power and office, stretching the truth to fit their needs and so on, and so on, simply more of the Same from John McSame.

I think in choosing Sarah Palin John McCain showed us just how selfish he is. There are at least 6 qualified and experienced Republican women (Kay Bailey Hutchison, Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Elizabeth Dole to name a couple) who would make women proud. Instead the "adults" in this drama, McCain and the Palins, thought nothing about how difficult, embarrassing, not to mention humiliating for the child, Bristol, to have her life an open book for political gain. That she chose to keep the child is not our decision to make or criticize, but she should not be a poster child for her mother or McCain's political ambition.To put her in the spotlight as they knew this reality eventually would, is an unforgivable thing to do to a child.

very insightful column!
sometimes common sense
seems to get lost,
generalities
do little to draw
us together,
in that one,
defining,
thing,
we are all human,
and we need to drop our
hatred,
and embrace that common thread.
Thanks Mr. King

Please explain to me how someone who has been a mayor and a governor of a state with fewer than a million people is more qualified than someone who has been in the senate dealing with global issues every day. Obama has been out of the country, Palin got her first passport 17 months ago.

Maybe if you weren't such a racist on every single issue, you would get less angry mail.

The selection of Palin is obviously only to try to capture Hillary supporters. Ha! Palin is the polar opposite of Clinton. I am sure that this will cause Hillary supporters to run (not walk) to the Obama camp. As they should.

The fact is, regardless of what you will hear over the next few days, Bristol's pregnancy is not a legitimate political issue. Sarah Palin is a longterm member of a group called Feminists for Life, which is not opposed to birth control. So you probably can't tag her for consigning young people to unwanted pregnancies.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837862,00.html

She walks the walk and talks the talk - which must be absolutely infuriating to you lefties whose 'beliefs' twist in the wind based on what's is most politically expedient.

I'm sure that I'll get negative response from "my opinion" but for crying out loud.. Would you people just stop and listen to yourselves... Some of you talk about the black/white issue - some talk about being pregnant and working til the 8th month is such a bad thing- she should focus on her children not politics... Do you even read what you've typed before you hit the submit button?? I'm a 43 year old woman that raised 2 beautiful children for the last few years on my own. I worked long hours, had no government assistance and both of my children graduated high school. One is now serving our Country & the other is in college. Just because I am a woman.. no one told me that I couldn't run a business or that I had to stay home. Some of you talk like Palin has no business trying to have a carreer or the fact that being a mother will somehow disrupt from her VP duties should she be elected. How many of you are married?? That your WIFE works and handles most of the family affairs. Women have worked hard to establish ourselves in the "corporate world" and most of us didn't miss a meeting and still were able to attend school functions. How is it any different than "the man"?
Name a politician in our history that was PERFECT... Let's see NONE! It also is comical how soon we forget about Mr. Clinton's TOTAL DISREPECT to the Presidency by having his "friend" provide him a service right in the oval office- then LIED about it, but all was forgiven.. Why is there such a double standard? Women juggle half a dozen things a day, and still manage to succeed... so why all the fuss about her possibly being the next VP.
This election needs to be about OUR COUNTRY we as a nation have so many issues that need resolved, we should focus our concerns about that.. but we'll all vote for the one that seems to have the fewest empty promises.. Instead of focusing the ads on how bad the other candidate is.. Why not focus the ads on what YOU will do to fix the issues we are facing?

YOU AMERICANS ALL SUCK ,RATE SOMEONE BECAUSE SHE HAS KIDS

JB - YOU know Obama has less EXECUTIVE experience than the GOPs VP candidate. You do spin well...gotta hand it to you.

Please tell me about all those VOTES Obama missed.....OH I KNOW you forgot.

You lefties are truly insane...and WE ALL KNOW . Palen is scaring the living crap out of ya as one of Hillary's top supports just switched his support to MCCAIN and FERRARO is considering it WATCH OUT.

sam,

Unfortunate that you had to resort to that. Typical when someone has nothing intelligent to say, they resort with "suck a d.." Are you in high school?

Sarah Palin has many views that are not shared by other American Women. However, her story is not unfamilar to us. This latest challenge of a pregnant daughter is something that all women should consider thoughtfully.

It is time to stop the woman bashing by the media, the Democrats, the Republicans, the men and the women. It is time for all women to unite for the purpose of getting the respect and the equal opportunity they all deserve.

I am voting for a candidate who did more than pay lip service to equal opportunity - he actually is living equal opportunity. That weighs more than rhetoric.

McCain/Palin 08

with a little organizing, the kid can use the flexibility, which university allows her, to spend time on the grand child. When she (daughter palin) will be 30, the kid will be 13, and she can go full steam ahead for her career. No need to interrupt a career to raise a kid!

Hopefully this will encourage palin to lobby to make special kind of education schemes available for other teenage kids.

For Palin, it is her business of course. If you can handle a presidency, this is a walk over.

If the number of citizens establishes experience, we might as well hang a chinese flag over the whitehouse. Deversity of constituants is more important then number of constituants.

And I will not dignify your question about the number of blacks in alaska. I don't divide people by color or race. Look it up if you want to know.

Palin does not believe in birth control but maybe if she did her 17 daughter would not be pregnant. It use to be you get married first then you have kids. Just because the boy say he is going to marry you does not mean it's going to happen and if it does being that she is only 17 the odds are against her that the marriage will work. If it was my child I would be furious because I would want more for her, I would want her to futher her education and not be tied down to a baby at 17.

A woman who does not support abortion after rape has never been raped. But 1 in 4 women in this country is. How dare she pass judgment?

Wow

u must assume a certain level of intelligence to get the point of birth control of any kind...having or not having sex or contraceptives....so if u assume a median of intelligence leaves one using one of the aforementioned methods 50% of the time....you have a whole lot of pregnant teens that someone pays for. And proof is in the pudding....with GWs abstinence only funding.....teen pregs are up in the last 8 years.

RE: I am sure that this will cause Hillary supporters to run (not walk) to the Obama camp. As they should.

Posted by: Anonymous | September 1, 2008 7:16 PM
=====
Read and weep my previous post. Damn some of you are truly in denial.

I AM SURE SARAH PALIN AND JOHN McCAIN AT THIS MOMENT ARE WORRIED ABOUT THOSE POOR HURICANE VICTIMS. THEY HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT!!!!

The issue here is one of looking at problems and finding the better solutions. Teen-age pregnancy will continue at unnaceptable numbers as long as people put their head in the ground and say abstanance is the only answer. While it is one answer, it is not the only answer. To take a holier-than-though attitude, in the big picture, results in preganacies such as Bristol's. I wonder if Ms. Palin felt comfortable talking with her Mom about birth control or even that she was having sex. Dogma closes two-way avenues of communication. While the Palins demonstrate unconditional love for their daughter and soon-to-be grandchild, is this the life they hoped for Bristol and or had they been more open to other ideas, would the results have been different?

Palin's right wing views of not permitting a woman the right to manage her own pregnancy decisions are identical to McCain's: no right to choose, no sex education, and no birth control. It is unbelievable these people would talking about freedom, when they don't believe in an individual's right to control their own reproduction.

It has been shown that women who are able to delay child bearing until they are financially, socially, and emotionally ready for a family, that these women contribute more to a society and its well being by dint of their education applied to community efforts, and that they have less children, who are wanted. It is also shown that this is better not just for the individuals involved, who participate in a loving family of wanted children, but for society as a whole, which benefits from better educated, and more fulfilled women who partcipate.

We all know the statistics on children who have children-- and how unrewarding it is from every point of view: the child/parent who has nothing to give and is still growing herself, raising a child on charity as children often have no source of income themselves, not able to give the care or resources an average middle class child deserves-- and repeating the pattern of teen pregenancy in a cycle of poverty and want.

Shame on McCain and Palin for daring to tell women-- complete strangers-- how, when and if to have children.

oops, kids=mothers

with a little organizing, the kid can use the flexibility, which university allows her, to spend time on the grand child. When she (daughter palin) will be 30, the kid will be 13, and she can go full steam ahead for her career. No need to interrupt a career to raise a kid!

Hopefully this will encourage palin to lobby to make special kind of education schemes available for other teenage mothers.

For Palin, it is her business of course. If you can handle a presidency, this is a walk over.

What a sad day it is when people forget that to error is human. Another old saying "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones," and "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
We have a go-getter who is a running mate for the president. If elected, she will acquire the necessary credentials to eventually run for presidency. Until then, remember, she is a running mate for vice presidency, not the presidency. Why condemn her?

Obama has been to the middle east and taken positions on critical issues.

Palen got her first passport 17 months ago. First passport. Never left the country. 44 years old. Potential VP stepping into the fire of terrorist threats. If she became VP this country would be a sitting duck.

I could bet a million dollars that if this was a man running for V.P. with a teenage pregnant daughter it wouldn't be as big of an issue. I have read so many comments about Palin being a mother and how her family needs her. HELLO she had a husband!!! People act as though she is a single mother.She has help with her down syndrome son, her husband. If this were a man there would be no worries about any of these issues. I don't support her as V.P. because I think she is just a sacrificial lamb to woo Clinton supporters but I think it is unfair and unjust to rake her over the coals because of the choices her teenage daughter made.

Okay, sad enough that the daughter got pregnant. But now the Palins are endorsing the marriage of their high school aged daughter? Isn't ONE mistake enough? What does this say about the Palins' judgement? What does choosing Palin say about McCain's judgement?

This is a big clue, folks. We're a pretty slow country, but let's GET IT this time around!!!

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know who the father of Bristol's new baby is? I haven't heard a word about him except that he is going to marry Bristol. Is this something he wants to do, or is it something the family is making him do?
A second question... Does Bristol know who the father is? With how many guys did she not abstain?

How long before the spotlight falls on the fact that less than 8 months after Sarah Palin and her husband eloped, they gave birth to their first child?

http://scootmandubious.blogspot.com/2008/09/like-mother-like-daughter.html

Posted by: Rob Greene:
You have 5 children to look after,three children in crisis (a-teenage pregnancy, b-serving time in iraq, c-a child with downs syndrome) you won't be interupted ONCE by any of them during an important meeting?

Regarding her son - deploying in the military is not the same as 'doing time' (in prison?). He volunteered to join the Army, and has received training and the equipment necessary to perform his tasks. While deployment is difficult on a soldier and his family, it's not a 'crisis'.

SWMissouri

I think you are 100% on target - she is a sacrafice - the idea is for her to draw fire (as much as can be generated) so that McCain can stand back and say "It is simply because she is a woman - he did the same thing to H R Clinton - join me former Clinton suporters and together we can over come the male dominering ideals of this 1950'ish America" - The problem is - the American people are not that easy to fool - many of us see that he has brought someone on board who has no experience and no real back ground for the position he has moved her towards. Can any of you honestly see putting Palin behind McCain - who himself is far older than one would safely say will be of solid, good health through out an elected presidency (god help us) - and Palin as his #2 back up - in the wings with no background and no legal knowledge base to work from? Folks - she was a sportscaster - who used name recognition to get a seat at the table.

I cannot believe that you and your people would stoop so low as to attack innocent bystanders. Osama Obama's OWN father was a drunken derelict that impregnated women hither and you and his mother was a hippie and all you can come up with is attacking someone who is not even a part of the actual candidacy? I mean really, can't your people just stand up on their own record, state their policy, state the actions they will undertake as President and get on with the elections instead of SLAMMING everyone that opposes their run for election? JUst tell Barry Osama to do his own work, be compensated for his own decisions and run his campaign as cleanly as he can? You are a slug and should not be featured as a journalist when in fact you are an attack artist and are put up to this by some sleazy campaign manager that got fired from Billary's failed bid to run for PRESIDENTA?

I don't blame Sarah Palin for her daughter's pregnancy. Presumably she knew where babies come from, and the risks she was taking. The reason I am disgusted is Palin's decision to sacrifice her children for her own ambition.

A) Down's syndrome children have suppressed immune systems, but here she is, out on the campaign trail with a 4 month old baby.

B) Her daughter is being humiliated on the national stage.

C) She disclosed her son's military plans, including where he was going and the day that he was leaving. That is dangerous and stupid.

This woman did NOT think about what she was doing, nor did the Republicans.

Sarah Palin not only has no foreign policy or legislative experience, she has truly poor judgment.

If you think pro-choice women who supported Hillary will vote for McCain you are truly an idiot.

God inspired the writing of the Bible. It is the inerrant word of God. Not one place can I find that it says anything about abortion being a sin. Remember now, this is coming from an all knowing God. Surely he would really have an interest in the abortin issue. He certainly has an interest in infidelity and divorce--something about "What God has joined, Let no man put asunder."

Secondly, evidently the current belief is that life begins at conception. If so, two things--isn't abortion then murder and shouldn't the proper punishment be paid. Not only murder, but first degree murder since the intention to abort has to be planned in advance.

Finally, if life begins at conception, if abortion occurs, doesn't that baby go directly to heaven?? If so, isn't that the choice that most of us would want. To be in the presence of the Lord instantly upon conception. No suffering, no struggles to make a living, no concerns about whether we will forever suffer in hell fire and brimstone.

So, maybe abortion is a major sin and crime for that person who commits it, but so much better for their unborn child. Why would any prospective parent want to take the chance that their child that they love beyond words could suffer for eternity in the event they did not find salvation?

So, Bristol Palin "will" marry the father of her "love child". Well, I wonder if the Social Conservatives have given any thought to the possibility that the father will not want to marry Bristol. Of course, since Bristol is not due to give birth until after the election, this really doesn't matter to a lying bunch of hypocritical right-wing nut jobs. The G.O.P. spin machine is running on high right now pumping out lie after lie for consumption by the American people. There are so many lies that are flooding the Internet from Republicans that I'll bet people around the world are laughing their heads off at us, and wondering if we will buy this pile of G.O.P. feces. I won't. But, I don't know how many of my fellow citizens I can count on to do the same thing. The Founding Fathers concept of an "educated electorate" flew out the window long ago in this country. Obama/Biden 08!!!

As I always said: "It is about moral character, family value, experience and good judgment".

Sarah Palin is the best VP that fit with this criteria. She has a good moral character, really experience, has a good judgment and for most of all is the mother of five that against abortion"

I agree with Barack about putting the family off this election.

We The Republican are very proud that Bristol will carry her pregancy and marry her sweetheart. It is the best model for all the American Family that carry Christian Value.

God bless you Bristol.

God bless you too Sarah.

Republican love you.

You are a good model citizen.

Good job.

"in educated, professional families, people don't depend on Grandma to help out with child care"

Educated? She's 17 years old and has missed most of her senior year of high school with a questionable 5-8 month (depending on your source) bout of mono! Please explain to us how she is supposed to care for her child without ANY help from Gov Mom?

1. I've been reading all about how Palin having children is going to hamper her ability to be VP.

Thats sexism. No one said that about Kennedy and his young children. No one is saying it about Obama's children. Bush wasn't crucified for his daughters partying days in college. Its just an ugly tactic used to gain points in the polls.

All the yipping I hear from the left about her being a woman was never uttered about Hillary... Political opportunism.

2. Her daughter becoming president doesn't indict failure as a parent. How many of you followed everything your parents ever taught? How many of you made mistakes? How many of you ever had an unplanned pregnancy? How many of you kept the child, realizing later in life how much of a blessing that child was in your own life? How many of you wish you had the support of your parents through hard times?

3. Anyone pulling the race card in here, in my opinion, is showing their own true colors as someone who looks at color first and character second.

4. I see this as moot politically. Cheney's daughter is a lesbian, but he was still against gay marraige, and it didn't sink the Bush/Cheney ticket. Bill Clinton stained some dresses, but it didn't hurt Hillary's campaign. Obama's brother lives in abject poverty in Africa, but that will never stick. This story will fizzle, and I think any media source that tries to run with it will find it backfiring hard on them.

5. Abstinence is a far-out periphery issue for this election. For all you hoping that this is the torpedo that sinks the McCain campaign, I think you'll be disappointed...

Well said.

Ya gotta love the "Chant of the Libbies"

Let me get this straight-- The fact that Palin's duaghter is pregnant casts a HUGE question mark over her mother's fitness to serve as Veep? Okay, got it. Check.

However, the same conclusion cannot be drawn when the married President of the United States has sex (that's adultery) with an intern who works in the White House (that's using your power and position to take advantage of a subordinate), and then lies to the American people (that's being a liar), and then lies to a Grand Jury (that's perjury). And remember the hue and cry from the libs? "This is a personal issue between the President and his family..." Got it. Check.

The REAL lesson we all should have absorbed back in '98 is that to the libs, the ends always justify the means-- so long as you are a Democrat.

Much to Senator Obama's credit, he has placed this topic off-limits. I'm not going to vote for him, but I take my hat off to "Barry's" judgement in this scenario-- it shows some class.

The liberals need to REALLY be careful how they handle this situation...if they aren't careful, many of them will be exposed for what they really are: corooked party hacks obsessed with taking whatever steps are needed to "cook" elections.

Why don't the Dems try this two step process to winning:

1. Get decent ideas that don't punish working Americans
2. Offer a plan that involves something other than massive government give away programs

Maybe you'll be able to compete on a more level palying field (it will never be level, since the mainstream media is COMPLETELY liberal, and reports every story that way under the gise of being "objective").

K.

This smells like a coverup to me. Sarah Palin was definitely NOT pregnant in the photographs taken of her supposedly at 7 months preggers.

I disagree that the Palin's are well suited to tell us about the teen pregnancy issue. The time to tell is not when you are in the middle of it...I think Mr. King knows that. This is another salvo in a continual attempt to smear the presumpive VP nominee. Mr. King has no sympathy for the Palins nor their daughter. I can think of other candidates who are perfectly suited to tell stories about straying off of the straight and narrow with unsavory freindships and questionable mortgage loans. But Mr. King doesn't really want to hear those stories. Instead, he stoops low to hurl political dirt while standing behind pregnanat teens for cover. Sad and cheap.

White middle class girls do something that poor minorities and poor whites don't do because they don't get the support. Plain and simple, THEY CHEAT! They often cheat life itself with abortions and thats OK because no one knows but the girl and whomever else she decides on telling!

But lets not make Sarah Palin and her daughter heroes. The fact is, is that she had unprotected sex (risking STDs that could kill her, let alone pregnancy) and let a man impregnate her. And she wasn't raped or an incest victim. This is a man who is probably having a shotgun wedding with this girl for political convenience. Just because her daughter is beautiful and white, and the governors daughter, she's not really that much different than poorer Americans who are also horny teenage girls.

Governor Palin's extreme platform of abstinence only education clearly doesn't work. Hell, it doesn't work in her own FAMILY! The first family of Alaska!

Still, it should not be a subject of discussion for Obama/Biden. It will be discussed enough for them by people throughout the country.

This may be the anchor that sinks or the lifeboat the floats the Republican campaign for President in 2008.

Teenage pregnancy is the number one job for any parent to be on top of. And it's offensive for Republicans to tell us Americans that this Jerry Springer reject family the Palins is just like us. It's not. The rest of us are decent parents with decent kids leading decent lives.

It is a FUNDAMENTAL failure in parenting if your teenage daughter gets pregnant. FUNDAMENTAL. That's the measure of a father... and a mother. It's rule #1.

What is even more disappointing about Sarah Palin is that she's as of now blaming her daughter for it, saying her daughter will have to grow up fast... and taking absolutely no responsibility on herself. She makes no mention of taking any responsibility whatsoever in her public statements, and she won't either until we demand it of her like I'm doing.

That's not being a good parent. Not even close.

Furthermore, it's offensive to the majority of healthy families out there with good kids and good parents who keep their teenagers from getting pregnant... for Republicans to now claim that the Palins are as American as apple pie.

It's not normal for teenagers to get pregnant. It's not acceptable, and in no way should Republicans get away with saying that the family of their nominee is anywhere near as good as ours when we see the reality before our own eyes.

It's offensive to equate Sarah Palin's failure with the majority of decent families that raise good kids with good heads on their shoulders.

But we shouldn't forget either... like mother like daughter. Sarah Palin eloped with her high school boyfriend after college and 8 months later had her first kid. Her parents weren't invited. They had to get two residents from a retirement home down the street (strangers I might add) to be witnesses for their civil union. That's not honorable. That's trying to hide a pregnancy by eloping.

Evidently she couldn't face up to her premarital pregnancy and panicked. And now her own daughter has made the same mistake wrt family planning.

Are the Palin family's rightwing religious views responsible? They certainly didn't help... but only led to shame and irresponsibility... and an attempt to cover up both pregnancies. That's the real American story, if there is one. The shame Evangelicals impose on their kids... the shame that leads to ignorance and mistakes wrt sexual education.

Shameful.

A shameful failure for the Palins as parents.

And it's offensive for Republicans grasping at straws to now tell us that the rest of us are just like this Jerry Springer family.

Well, I've got news for Republicans.

American families aren't Jerry Springer rejects, and if they keep telling us we are, we're going to tell them to stuff it in November.

Sarah Palin, take some responsibility for your failure as a mother. Your response was pathetic and offensive.

RE- HUMOR ME...how about GOVERNOR DAD?

If Palin were male , or at least a DEM male...you would never have made such a post. You are sexist and i am betting a hypocrite.

I see one thing in all the responses here...Personal Prejudice is alive and well, and permeating the greater percentage of Americans.

So if Sarah Palin's daughter were raped she'd still want her to have the baby, end of story? Puleez

It's interesting how Evangelicals are always ready to point their finger at someone else, yet, here you have a prime example of not living properly. Yes, it is her daughter who is pregnant, and not married. People are also wondering about the origins of the young boy who may also be the daughters child.

Apparently their daughter does not confide in her parents and feels distanced from them, independently making her decisions some of which have not been too wise. This does bring the daughter attention though, which may be what she needed from her parents all along., but did not receive.

Now, the religious ones minimize it for themselves, but if it had been anyone else it would be a big event. They always put a minimalist spin on things that do not go their way. I haven't read yet that the daughter has repented for her sins. Maybe they don't consider it a sin anymore so long as it is done within a family that belongs to an acceptable church.

What hyprocisy! It's just like what you see with these so-called ministers and their indiscretions.
Give them 30 days counseling and they are "born again".

Let's put reality into BS - read on:

I get so tired of people saying that Obama has no accomplishments:

EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE: President of the Harvard Law Review, running his masterful campaign - think of his campaign as his "start-up" - almost $400 in revenue from 2 million donors, hiring people who are discipled and work as a team, not for individual glory. He has not had to fire people and shake up his campaign like McCain has. Good grief - as a relative unknown, he toppled the premier democratic machine of the Clintons. If his campaign was a start-up business, he'd be a very successful businessman.

>but it isn't. And he's not. And he did not run it. Axelrod did. BO is a puppet; nothing more.

Just google "Obama" and "legislative accomplishments" - see what you find. He has reached across the aisle many times:

Lugar-ObamaLugar-Obama Bill to Keep Weapons Out of Terrorists' Hands:

He's an appeaser. This is smoke.

http://obama.senate.gov/press/060523-lugar-obama_bil/

Coburn-Obama Bill to create Internet database of Federal Spending (www.usaspending.gov):

>He's one of the most outrageous pork-barrel spending officials ever. Check into his dealing with Refko.

http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=LatestNews.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=8dcb8c35-802a-23ad-4d37-9c8ea9c43460

Other:
1)In the US Senate, Barack Obama has served on the
FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE,
HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE,
VETERANS AFFAIRS COMMITTEE,
HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOUR & PENSION COMMITTEE.

2)Before getting to the US Senate Obama served more than 7 years in the Illinois State Senate(A Big state).

And did nothing except ensure that babies could be born live and left to die in a closest.

3)Barack Obama is a graduate TOP of his class at Harvard Law School and earned Doctor of Law degree.

An elitist, yes.

4)Barack Obama has a degree in Political science specializing in International Relations from Columbia University.

I have two degrees in computer science requiring 4+ years of advanced math. Wanna go?

5) Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Law Review - Only the brightest student with highest intellect from Harvard gets to serve this position.
-Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Law Review with a circulation of 8,000 is an executive experience more prestigious than a mayor from a small city of 5k.

Only the most liberal; not the most smart.

6)Barack Obama worked as a Civil Rights lawyer for 9 years.

That's an indictment, not a plus.

7)Barack Obama was a University of Chicago Constitutional Law Professor for 12 years.

So what?

8)In the State Senate Obama has written 890 pieces of legislation, and co-sponsored 1096 pieces of legislation.

Prove it.

9)Barack Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for a community organizing institute.

How anonymous can that statement be made? Don't waste my time.

10)Barack Obama worked in Chicago, Illinois as the director of the Developing Communities Project.
-Community Organizing projects have staffs and annual budgets and have to be managed and run. So, for those who quite falsely say that Barack has never "run" anything, it should be known that, when he joined the Developing Communities Project, it had a staff membership of one person and an annual budget of $70,000, but when he left it three years later, it had 13 staff members and an annual budget of $400,000. Republicans like to talk about making businesses successful, the measure of success being that they produce, amass capital, and increase the wealth of the owners and stockholders and so on. But Barack turned a public service organization that prepared people for education, jobs and serviced their struggling neighborhoods into a solid success.

11)Obama has been campaigning for the same if not even more time than Palin has been Governor .. & Obama's staff nation-wide .. is immensely larger than the population of Alaska

-Finally Obama's intellectual talent is at the level of Abraham Lincoln/JFK if not more. This type of leader comes once in a life time.

He has shown nothing close to what you claim. In fact, the evidence is that he hangs out with racists and terrorists.

Not my president. Not ever. No way.

JB -- You compiled an exceptional list the Barak Obama's accomplishments. I just have one question for you... does he wear blue and red underware with a big "S" on it?

Seriously, all of the candidates (and almost all of the people in the public eye) have some fault looming in their background; and yet, we must not concentrate on the shortcomings of all of these people.

On election day, Just vote for the person who you believe is the best candidate. Its just that easy.

An airhead with five idiot children has no chance to get my vote.

Does anyone hear think it is possible for an adult American to sit down and consider really where he or she stands. Or are we so opinionated that our own political agenda like that of our leaders will outweigh what we really think is best for our country. Dems will use the pregnancy issue fro leverage despite what they really think. Reps will use the inexperience issue as leverage despite what they really think.We want change right. Last time I had significant change in my life, was when i was able to recognize what I was doing wrong and strive to be better.this will not happen amongst our political leaders on either side. They will just continue to point out the flaws of others.So despite who is elected, I am in concerned that there will still be no change. We must change from the ground up. not from the top down. As a christian , I am truly embarrassed by Christians who want to judge. Please read and understand what Jesus meant by his grace. If we would just apply this one concept the nation would be a much better place. As for now, we are a house divided. You know what they say about that.

I agree sir... a story she should tell... in alaska where she belongs thousands of miles from the white house

Statistics of teen pregnancy: overall, teen pregnancy is down substantially from 10 years ago. While it is true that African-Americans have a higher percentage of teen pregnancies than do whites, like white, Latino, and Asian populations, their rate has fallen steadily over the past 10 years. However, that rate has recently begun to rise again for all groups.

What seems to cause changes in the teen pregnancy rate is not race, family structure, religion or even types of sex education programs available. What makes the difference is economic outlook. When the economy is good, teen pregnancy rates decrease, when the economy is bad, they increase.

In economic terms this can be explained by the theory of opportunity cost. If a young girl can imagine her future as containing something bright, useful and economically satisfying,then she will ensure that pregnancy will not interfere with her future, either through abstinence or birth control. If she cannot, then she will become indifferent to the outcome. This will hold across racial, economic, social, and geographical variances.

So, all of the emotional, off-the-cuff theories I've seen here are just that, made up and unfounded. Teen pregnancy rates are largely an economically driven phenomena. Other factors may also be coefficients but not primary ones. If there are less teen pregnancies in more secure economic households it is because those household offer more economic choice to young women, not because they teach birth control.

However, Sarah Palin has allowed her teenage daughter to be exposed to international media attention at a very vulnerable time in her life. I find this level of ambition and lack of regard for the feelings of her child to be a bad indicator of her character.

Of course I would not have voted for her in any case since I am a liberal, a feminist and a Democrat. But I do find that lately, John McCain, whom I once admired, has become a real, creepy, clueless, panderer to a public opinion that he does not, in any way understand.

Levi, Bristol's boyfriend, is known to the family. She has been pregnant for 5 months. How can you figure that this is a big suprise to the father? I'm sure this has been discussed in detail long before McCain picked Sarah.

I also do not agree that Governor Palin is being supportive of her daughter, or the rest of her family for that matter. Being a mother of 5 children is a full time job. Being a mother of 5 children, one an infant with Down Syndrome and one a pregnant teenager, who is still legally a child, is more than a full time job. Being Vice President and even possibly the President of the United States is an extremely full time job. Something's gotta give, and as a mother, when my kids are in trouble, I know who and what is going to get priority...my KIDS!! We need a vice president, (and a possible president) who is in a situation to give his or her full attention to the job. McCain has shown very poor judgement in choosing Mrs. Palin. He has too many health concerns to submit our country to the risk of having a half-brained president. We've already had 8 years of that and we don't need any more.

Down's Syndrome is the presence of an extra chromosome and is usually found in the children of mother's who are over 30 when they give birth, not likely in a 16 year old mother. The likelihood of Down syndrome continues to increase as a woman ages, so that by age 42, the chance is 1 in 60 that a pregnant woman will have a baby with Down syndrome, and by age 49, the chance is 1 in 12. Check out the whole story of the cause of Down's syndrome here: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/birthdefects/f/down_syn_causes.htm

"I keep wondering why the young parents to be are not married now. As I understand it, the candidate's daughter is several months into her pregnancy. What on earth are they waiting for!"
---
The announcement made today was not because of her daughter being pregnant. It is a response to what is being written on many blogs.
Many blogs are speculating the 4 month old son is Bristol's... and not Sarah's. They do have some compelling evidence to make make people (including myself) wonder. Bristol missed school for around 5 to 8 months for mono? Based on Sarah's announcement today, Bristol must have become pregnant while she was on her "mono" leave from school. Too sick to go to high school... but not too sick to get herself pregnant? Who is sick from mono for 8 months? How about Sarah's speech and her 3,000 mile journey after her water broke?? Nobody knew Sarah was pregnant until her 7th month?? Interesting indeed. We will probably hear more about this issue.

Afraid Obama going to lose so you make Palin look bad...?

Re: Jen's POST

Hey AMERICA. yeh you the ones with children who became pregnant...YOU are FAILURES.... JEN SAYS SO

It's interesting how Evangelicals are always ready to point their finger at someone else, yet, here you have a prime example of not living properly. Yes, it is her daughter who is pregnant, and not married. People are also wondering about the origins of the young boy who may also be the daughters child.

Apparently their daughter does not confide in her parents and feels distanced from them, independently making her decisions some of which have not been too wise. This does bring the daughter attention though, which may be what she needed from her parents all along., but did not receive.

Now, the religious ones minimize it for themselves, but if it had been anyone else it would be a big event. They always put a minimalist spin on things that do not go their way. I haven't read yet that the daughter has repented for her sins. Maybe they don't consider it a sin anymore so long as it is done within a family that belongs to an acceptable church.

What hyprocisy! It's just like what you see with these so-called ministers and their indiscretions.
Give them 30 days counseling and they are "born again".

Was it rape or incest?

Buddy wrote:

"This just shows that we have to be honest and adopt science in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies. Abstinence alone, as preached by the republican party does not work. It is time to provide responsible comprehensive sex education to our youth."

This is a patently absurd and completely ignorant partisan statement. It is a SCIENTIFIC FACT that abstinence prevents unwanted pregnancies 100% of the time. I'm all for comprehensive education programs but abstinence has to be a significant part of any such program. It's the ONLY absolute solution.

Just do it.

Why some of you are trying to tie Obama's mother to this Jerry Springer scandal. We are not in 70's, we are in 21st century where we teach every damn day about safe sex. They practice it even in adult movies for god's sake. Example, the law in Canada doesn't allow the sale of adult movies where viewers can't see use of condoms. Her daughter is under spot light and I am sure we are gonna get some party pictures pretty soon.

This election will prove an opportunity to see who we really are. Life is much too complicated to be good verses bad as we've been preached for the last 24 years or so.

to wow:

YES!!!! yes someone would be better off dead that with down syndrome. if it were just a variation like hair color, it wouldn't be a disease you MORON! do you want down syndrome? if we can trade the baby's down syndrome for your "normal" lif