'Cause you're sure acting like you don't. On purpose.

You're acting like a semi-reasonable person who doesn't live in the United States. What gives? How is it not evident to you that the incredible hypocrisy of Republican/fundamentalist "philosophy" and slime tactics of the last 25 years is coming home to roost in this poor teenager?

How is it that anyone, especially one of us, would have to re-hash this to you when clear-as-glass explanations of it are everywhere around us? Are you cloistered? On a remote farm? Without electronic media or newspapers? You're a hermit?

What's that condescending quip from decades past?

Here's a dollar, go buy a clue.

Feeding frenzy aside, if Bristol's mother wants to declare a right to privacy for her daughter, she shouldn't use her and her boyfriend like a prop to boost her candidacy. Frankly, I am concerned about this woman's willingness to set the dogs loose upon her daughter by even accepting McCain's nod. She seems to be a blatant histrionic willing to use everyone in the service of her goals. Frankly, I suspect that McCain knew nothing about her daughter's pregnancy when he offered her the job, indicating that she used him as well.

Such behavior is called bad faith and it is a pretty ugly human characteristic.

Add to that the fact that she wants to forbid abortions for victims of rape and incest, so in my opinion she has no right to holler about misogyny. She is a misogynist. Forcing young women to bear the children of their fathers and brothers and uncles just to satisfy he idealism about "life" is a form of completely despicable child abuse. In my opinion, any woman who supports McCain after his selection of Palin has lost her feminist creds. Palin can call herself a feminist if she likes but I call her a female-hating monster. Yes, a monster!

removed from her local library. What's next? Book burning?

There IS a contradiction between the request to leave the issue of Bristol's pregnancy out of the campaign, and now going so far as to summon the baby's father to the convention.

However, as I stated in a different thread, I think I know how to make sense of this contradiction. The request to leave the pregnancy alone was addressed to the irrelevant and bothersome group of Obama supporters and the media.

Levi Johnston is being required to show his (presumably friendly, white, clean-cut) face at the convention to appease a different, more relevant (to McCain and Palin) group: those socially and religiously conservative voters who may feel some misgivings about the morals at the Palin household. Levi Johnston's presence is a signal: he's a nice boy, we wouldn't let our daughter date anyone who wouldn't do the responsible thing, we have everything under control.

Wow! The age of consent in Alaska is 16! I get it- The Land of the Midnight Sun in the summer, , no sun in the winter, so what else to kids have to do? Oh, study, read, work at productive jobs, learn foreign languages, perform volunteer social services, prepare for responsible adulthood, that sort of stuff. Please! The Republicans have again humiliated the United States in the eyes of the world.

I do have to wonder if Mr. Johnston would be paraded around the convention if he weren't a good looking, good ol' boy athlete. If he were, for instance, an Alaskan native, or Asian, or some other minority. I'm sure it wouldn't make any difference at all. Who's with me?

What I don't wonder is whether Levi Johnston will come away with offers for a few plum sinecures after hobnobbing with party bigwigs. It seems clear that the True Believers love the VP nominee, and I'm sure more than a few will be willing to suck up by gainfully employing her soon-to-be son-in-law.

THIS is the issue. It is Palin's, and the party's choice to GLORIFY teen pregnancy as if it's something to be celebrated, to parade this poor girl and her dumb boyfriend around and applaud at how wonderful this walking argument against abstinence education is.

This speaks for itself and needs no other comment from me:

washington post

Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms

By Paul Kane

ST. PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”

Palin’s own daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and has plans to wed.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family,” Palin said in a statement released by the McCain campaign. “We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy, as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”

Earlier today the Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. “The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support,” she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.

Reporters asked McCain in November 2007 whether he supported grants for sex education in the United States, whether such programs should include directions for using contraceptives and whether he supports President Bush’s policy of promoting abstinence.

“Ahhh, I think I support the president’s policy,” McCain said.