Is It Still A "Private Matter"?

Well, I've done my best to keep Bristol Palin and her boyfriend out of the political picture, rather more concentrating on the questionable judgment that John McCain and his advisers used to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and I agree with the folks on both sides who've said that her pregnancy is a private matter. But I'm getting the overwhelming impression that the Republicans and the McCain campaign are trying to have it both ways; demanding privacy for the Palin family, and then playing up the way the family is dealing with it for political advantage. I know; I'm shocked, SHOCKED to think that they would do such a thing. But it certainly looks like they're going to try.

Here's a video clip of the arrival in Minneapolis of Bristol Palin and her boyfriend, Levi Johnston, and being greeted warmly by Sen. McCain.


Isn't that special.

I'm curious, though; at the end of the convention, when all of the families gather on the stage for the big balloon drop and the confetti cannonades and the delegates going nuts and everybody's waving, will Bristol and Levi come out on stage too to celebrate this wonderful moment? After all, the Republicans are the ones who have preached forever and without end that abstinence-only education is the only way to teach sex ed, and parents who let their children run around and have sex are really bad parents and probably liberals. Dan Quayle got so worked up about it that he took off after Murphy Brown, a fictional character on TV for making "just another lifestyle choice" to be an unwed mother. Now it looks like they're going to be parading these kids out there in front of America as our next First and Second Families. Are they going to give Levi a sign to carry that says, "I'm the one who boinked Bristol!"?

I'm still of the opinion that Bristol Palin's life is her own and that she didn't ask for this national exposure, and that she and Levi had no idea -- in any way -- what they were getting into when they were finding paradise by the dashboard lights last winter. But as much as a lot of people have shown deference to them, it seems that it's the McCain campaign that's exploiting the issue, so to speak, and then turning around and blaming the media for all the attention they've been getting.