Shocker: Palin’s 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant
The Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has announced that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.
Bristol Palin, one of Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said.
“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us,” the Palins’ statement said.
Did the McCain VP vetters know about this? When did the Palins tell McCain? When did Bristol tell her parents? Who knows, but we can bet that pregnancy tests for 17-year-olds aren’t part of the usual VP vetting process.
This certainly doesn’t reflect well on the Palins as parents. But, that being said, even the best of families can be faced with problems like this one. When kids reach near-adulthood you simply can’t be there for every decision they make. Bristol made a poor one, and unfortunately the normally bad consequences that go with that decision are going to be exacerbated by a bunch of partisan and scandal-hungry liberals and reporters (same thing) who are looking for any chink in her mother’s armor.
One would hope that Bristol’s poor judgment doesn’t become a campaign issue, but you know it will. The stakes are too high. The Dems desperately want the White House, their much-hyped candidate can’t pull away from McCain so they’ll take any kind of dirt on the squeaky-clean Palin they can get. Certainly this works out better than plan B which was to excoriate Palin for wearing a t-shirt with a boob joke on it in college.
It’s just sad to see Bristol get stuck in the middle of it all.
Discussion question: How long until the liberals are suggesting that Bristol is being forced to have the child, and marry the father, simply to whitewash the situation for the sake of her mother’s political career?
Not long, I’d warrant.
Update: Apparently the McCain camp did know about the pregnancy before picking Palin:
Senior McCain campaign officials said McCain knew of the daughter’s pregnancy when he selected Palin last week as his vice presidential running mate, deciding that it did not disqualify the 44-year-old governor in any way
A rather positive commentary on McCain, I think, if that’s true.
