McCain's VP:

I promise you---if Obama's daughters were being maligned, I would be saying the same thing. I despised what the Dems did to Mary Cheney....attacking children is wrong. No matter who does it.

Soz is the Democrat I respect most for even-handedness. She gave it serious credence. I won't count the others for you....but there were many.

That's what the ****. You should have read a bit before you crammed your foot in your mouth.

Debra's source: The National Enquirer. Enough said.

straw... straight from the horse barn.

don't forget chelsea clinton and amy carter.

good evening ;8 > )-

Enough said? Tell us why the Enquirer's article is wrong; don't kill the messenger just yet.

if politicians are going to shove their kids on stage and argue that their parenting abilities shows that they are public servant material (see palin for example) then the kids are in the game. The using the kids to sell themselves and then when questions are asked about the kids lives saying "the kids are off limits" is hypocritical double standard BS. If the kids are off limits that means that the kids are off limits in the sales pitch....use the kids to pitch and they are no longer off limits. If the kids get hurt it is the parents fault, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

You got that right, and I agree! Some people want their cake and eat it too.

Don't be so fast to knock The National Enquirer, Lash.

Recently they gained new found respect for their investigative journalism. The Enquirer broke the story about John Edward's extra-marital affair--a story the main stream media missed, much to their admitted chagrin. They forced Edwards to go public with a confession. They brought Edwards political career to an abrupt halt.

And years ago, it was The National Enquirer that helped to convict O.J. Simpson in his civil trial by obtaining a photo of him wearing the shoes that left those bloody footprints at the murder scene.

So, at times, the Enquirer can track down a story with the best of them. And, I don't think they'd make damaging statements about Palin they weren't prepared to back up. They have their own lawyers look at stories like this before they print them. They'll do the vetting process McCain failed to do. And he better pray they got it wrong.

i think i agree with you...

the thing with chelsea and amy was that they were criticized for being ugly. i mean, what's that about ? calling little girls ugly?

i personally have no problem with palin's daughter having a kid... as long as it was her choice to have it.

i think the only reason it's being talked about is because palin is supposed to be a strict evangelical. that would mean that pre-marrital sex is a big no-no. and the thought that evangelicals would give a liberal's daughter sh*t seven ways from sunday, but gives palin's kid a pass and wriggles out of it by saying "aww, she chose to have the baby" is un-reconcilable with the rhetoric. and the actions for that matter.

the enquirer has become more respectable as the main line media companies have become less so, in the case of check-out isle mags much less so. The enquirer will pay for stories, which sucks, but journalism is dead and everything in life is for sale now. Just ask the boys on wall-street, they will do ANYTHING so long as they get paid. The Enquirer is a perfect fit for year 2008, journalism free and everything is properly bought and sold.

I don't remember those girls being criticized for being ugly, as if it were their fault. It was pointed out that they were not very attractive, which to my eyes seemed like a true statement. It is one of those things that we are not supposed to talk about. Those few in the press that did it were out of line, but the Clinton's were more out of line for how they went after the press. I don't remember much about how the Carter's acted so I don't have an opinion on that.

Tabloid posting on A2K.

Did you you read this piece of shite after you wrote it and before you hit the "reply" button?

Good God how ideology reduces some to the status of cretin.

The Enquirer did not pay for the story of John Edwards affair. They first began reporting the story in October 2007. At that time, Edwards dismissed the story as "completely untrue, ridiculous" and "false.". In July 2008, they physically confronted Edwards in the lobby of the woman's hotel at 3.a.m., after he had visited her (and their possible love-child), causing Edwards to run to the Men's Room to hide. His public confession of the affair occurred after the Enquirer printed that story.

They may sometimes pay for info, but, particularly in the case of high profile political figures, they generally try to get additional documented proof.

I just saw Palin's ex-brother-in-law (the state trooper she allegedly tried to get fired) on Anderson Cooper--I would imagine that lots of people in Alaska have stories they would like to reveal about her, even if they don't get paid. The people doing the vetting really didn't check out Alaska very well before they picked her, I think they sent someone to Alaska only one day before McCain asked her to join him. That may prove to have been a big mistake.

Here it is 9/5/08, several days after Palin revealed, thanks to the sick lies posted by the Daily Kos, that her daughter is pregnant, and Magginhag is still trying to make hay out of the Kos vomitus.

The "mysterious baby?"

Obviously there is no limits on the depth to which some of you will stoop in the name of...what? Democratic ideals? A better country and world? Advancement of the Obamessiah?

I remember Saturday Night Live, going at at both Amy Carter and Chelsea Clinton rather pitillesly, week after week, mocking both of them for their appearance, even though both were children at the time. It really was very insensitive and cruel. The media backed off Chelsea after her parents pleaded with them to stop because they were being so hurtful to their child.

In 1998 John McCain told the following joke at a Republican fundraiser:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain joked about the then-President's then-teenage daughter. "Because her father is Janet Reno."

''This is the bad boy,'' he told the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. "It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back. I could give you a whole bunch of excuses, but there are no excuses. I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?'"

Here's the whole "story" on McCain's joke from the Guardian:


The joke that should have sunk McCain



Imagine the stink that would erupt were David Cameron to stand up in front of a dinner of rich Conservative backers and make a "joke" that implied that Sarah Brown had had a lesbian affair with Jacqui Smith and produced a love child (and an ugly one to boot). Can you imagine British papers deciding to downplay the story because it was in such bad taste, allowing Cameron to carry on with his assault on Downing Street?

Cross the pond and that is exactly what happened to John McCain at a fundraising dinner in Arizona a decade ago. "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly?" he told a handful of big Republican funders. "Because Janet Reno is her father."

The remark packed into its 15 words several layers of misogyny. It disparaged the looks of Chelsea, then 18 and barely out of high school; it portrayed Reno as a man at a time when she was serving as the first female US attorney general; and it implied that Hillary Clinton was engaged in a lesbian affair while the Monica Lewinsky scandal was blazing. Not bad going, Senator McCain.

Any one of those elements would seem potentially terminal for a public figure. Yet here he is 10 years later presenting himself as a champion of feminism by appointing Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The puzzle is explained partly by the US press, which barely reported the story. The Washington Post broke it in June 1998 but declined to relate the joke on the grounds it was "too vile to repeat". Such coyness has long been ingrained in the US media, which has an annoying tendency to regard its readers as wayward children in need of moral protection. That's one important reason, incidentally, that blogs are doing so well in the US - they have no such scruples and behave in ways more akin to the British than the mainstream American media.

Think of presidential candidate John Edwards' affair and alleged love child. The refusal of most newspapers to touch the story was ridiculed in the blogosphere for weeks before Edwards himself "legitimised" it by confessing.

After his misogynist joke, McCain said sorry to Bill Clinton (though he made no direct apology to the three women involved) and the incident was all but forgotten. Should he win on November 4, his friends in the press might have some answering to do

A Dem talking point that sprang to life within minutes of Palin's speech.

"She didn't write it!"

Duhhh...

Democratic politicians write and have written all of their speeches?

Obama writes all of his speeches?

Points of fact:

Obama has, on at least one occassion, at worst, borrowed key lines from his pal the governor of Mass.

Biden had to withdraw from his bid for the presidency in 1987 because it was discovered that he plagiarized a speech by the UK's Neil Kinnock.

Why that sin was enough to disqualify him for the presidency in 1987 but is a mere trifle as respects his bid for the vice-presidency in 2008 is beyond me.

I suppose the reasoning goes that that was then and this is now. He learned from his mistake and won't repeat it.

Why do I have the feeling that Democrats will never forgive or forget the sins, real or connocted, of Sarah Palin?

By the way - Google "Biden Plagiarist" and you will find that Joe had some problems with proper attribution well before 1987.

There are no allegations that Palin plagiarized, just that she gave a speech that she didn't write.

What president, vice-president, or prominent politican wrote all of their own speeches?

Biden's kids seem to have turned out fine. One son is the Attorney General of Delaware, and the other is in the Delaware Army National Guard, serving in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and is soon to be deployed to Iraq. Biden's son made a very moving speech introducing his father at the convention, and his kids clearly seem to love him very much.

I'm not suggesting that Palin is a "failed mother". I'm saying that, despite the hockey mom hype, we have little idea of what kind of mother she is, mainly because both Palin and her husband seem to sidestep specific questions of how they manage child care duties or how their children fit into their very busy lives. They create the questions by failing to give very meaningful or specific answers. And that seems to have been going on for sometime, not just in this current campaign.