Walk on

This so-called controversy about Sarah Palin's youngest son and her daughter's pregnancy can only be bad for the Obama campaign. Obama supporters need to focus on the issues, and John McCain's and Sarah Palin's positions on the issues, not on personal characteristics of Sarah Palin. I don't want to discuss the details and as a result add to the discussion of this issue. But it's just not a winning issue for the Democrats, except to the extent that it shows a policy flaw, and even then it's problematic. That is, to the extent that Sarah Palin opposes sex education and instead pushes abstinence only programs, it is perhaps relevant to that. But even then, discussions tend to get away from you, and mentioning it in the context of sex education would almost certainly bridge to a broader and certainly unhelpful discussion of issues we shouldn't touch. And it's an issue that we shouldn't care about, beyond the policy issues.

Sarah Palin's nomination as a Vice Presidential candidate has many issues, mostly wrapped up in her views on key issues (or her lack of views, as the case appears to be with respect to foreign policy), such as her belief that global warming is not man-made, her anti-choice views, her desire to open up ANWR to drilling, etc. We should be focused on the fact that the current talking points about Palin's positions and leadership are bogus - for instance, the nonsense idea that she has "stood up to big oil", where the only standing up has been her desire to get the state a bigger portion of the revenues and to push for more drilling than the oil companies wanted. She also comes into the game with her own real ethics scandal, which does deserve attention. This attention on the baby issues is a distraction, and is playing with fire.

Let's be smart, people.