Barack
says that Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy is off-limits:
MONROE, Michigan (CNN) – Barack Obama told reporters firmly that families are off-limits in this campaign, reacting to news that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant.
“Let me be as clear as possible,” said Obama, “I think people’s families are off-limits and 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 governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.”
Obama said reporters should “back off these kinds of stories” and noted that he was born to an 18 year-old mother.
“How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off-limits.”
The Illinois senator became aggravated when asked about rumors on liberal blogs speculating that Palin’s fifth child - Trig - is actually her daughter Bristol’s. A Reuters report Monday quotes a senior McCain aide saying that Obama’s name is in some of posts, “in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their 'campaign of change,’”
“I am offended by that statement,” Obama shot back, not letting the reporter finish his question. “There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us.”
“We don’t go after people’s families,” Obama said. “We don’t get them involved in the politics. It’s not appropriate and it’s not relevant. Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought that there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”
Although McCain's campaign
insists that they knew about this, I remain
skeptical, not the least reason being that
they're now sending an army of lawyers to Alaska to try to contain this...which is something they should've done beforehand.
Time magazine
asks whether McCain's pick was "bold or disastrous?" I think that answer is becoming more clear. Let's have a run-down of the woman's baggage:
- Late addition: She was a member of a fringe Alaskan political group that seeks its independence from the US, and was involved in their 2008 conference
- Late addition: It looks like independent voters are seeing through the nonsense
- She had a shotgun wedding as she got pregnant with her first kid out of wedlock
- Her husband was arrested on a DWI
- She's a staunch "abstinence-only" advocate whose teenage daughter got pregnant, the political fallout from which is still to be determined
- Troopergate: She used her authority as governor to try to have her sister's ex-husband fired, then fired his boss when the boss refused, then lied about it [apparently the ex-husband was a dickhead, but the last two points are more important here]
- She claimed in her first public appearance as VP candidate that she opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" but this turns out to be a lie, and a bad one, at that
- She claims to have opposed corruption in Alaska, but said that calling for Ted Stevens resignation would be "premature" after his arrest and received his endorsement, which she paid to run as an ad
- She directed Ted Stevens' 527 group on his behalf and appeared with him in July after his indictment to appeal for him politically
- A few months ago, she claims to have no idea what the VP does everyday
- In a 2006 gubenatorial questionaire, she said that she opposed abortions for incest and rape, only giving an exception if it could be proven that the mother might die from childbirth. The Religious Right loves her. Re-read that.
- From the same source, and many others, she claims that teaching creationism in science classes is the way to go, "teach both."
- On the same anti-science note, she is a global warming denialist
- She is to the right of McCain on drilling in ANWR, protecting polar bears and protecting the environment in general (yet another anti-science Republican)
- On the same line of reasoning, she semi-opposed the surge in Iraq, hailed as one of the only things that McCain has not failed at in the past decade or so
- There is zero national security experience involved in being governor, so quit repeating the "commander-in-chief of the national guard" line. Campbell Brown stumped Tucker Bounds today (H/T: Kos) who tried to equivocate on this -- she didn't command troops to go to Iraq. Not even close. I'm the "commander-in-chief" of my classroom, but that doesn't make me an education policy wonk.
- She is clearly and unequivocally unqualified to be president should something happen to McCain, the oldest presidential candidate ever nominated for a first term whose four bouts with cancer should make everyone think twice
Go Obama-Biden '08! (pic source)
