Last night on the News Hour, and citing unnamed sources close to the McCain campaign, Mark Shields laid out this scenario for how the Palin nomination actually came down. It was Lieberman who was McCain’s first pick for Veep all along, but when the powers that be within the Republican Party learned McCain was actually daring to take that direction, he was told straight off. That’s not going to fly with us. So, ever the supposed maverick, McCain basically says, yeah? I can’t have Lieberman? Well try this one on for size.

Don't know if that's true or not, but one can rightfully ask, where was the maverick in McCain’s decision? Why didn’t he tell the party bosses to go ahead and shove it? Pick Lieberman like he wanted, or even Tom Ridge, a Republican with whom McCain is presumably cozy bedfellows? As with McCain’s pandering to the late Jerry Falwell, or his flip flop on the Bush tax cuts, wasn’t this Palin nomination one more display of a man who has no political courage? At the least it was some sort of Rovian ploy. After all, it’s certainly kept the Obama experience issue in play. That’s all you hear from the right wing anymore. You’re questioning Palin’s experience? Well, she’s got more executive experience than Barack Obama.

Still, the Palin choice is a gift that just keeps on giving…and giving…and giving. You got Troopergate, Preachergate, Bridgegate, Secessiongate, and lest we forget, Babygate in the oven. I love it. Don’t you? In the famous words of Lewis Carroll, things just keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Where will it stop? Who knows. I saw the betting line on recall was 18% this morning. It’s going to be hour by hour before the week is through.

But lost in all the kerfuffle, I suppose, is the question of what’s actually germane to our public discourse. Obama tells all his supporters on Monday. Just back off. Babygate is a private family matter, and under most circumstances I would tend to agree. Let’s take the high road. Certainly all the right wing pundits would gleefully go along. Yet a broader issue is at stake here that I suggest undercuts any attempt to dismiss this pregnancy out of hand.

Take Barack Obama’s genesis as an example. He was born out of wedlock to a white mother and African father, but as everyone generally agrees, a woman being pregnant out of wedlock is nobody’s business but her own. Also consider Barack Obama’s association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Rightly or wrongly, if Obama had ever espoused the same sort political views of America, he’d have been damned for saying it long ago. But apparently enough of the public could see through that ruse and decided it was not fair to hold a person accountable simply for sitting in the pews.

Conversely, Sarah Palin has demonstrated that she not only embraces her personal pastor’s end of the world revelations, but has taken to the pulpit and espoused virtually the same apocalyptic visions. And just as the Republican Party has preached to us endlessly on the matter of moral issues, laying themselves open to public scrutiny on the subject of moral rectitude, Ms. Palin’s intolerance on personal morality has laid her and her family open to a public scrubbing. When the seemingly placid façade of Sarah Palin’s home life is peeled back and we find it more resembles Desperate Housewives than Ozzie and Harriet, we have a right to inquire more thoroughly. This isn’t a matter of sleaze. This is a matter of holding people accountable to their own standards. And it that’s not possible, we can rightfully ask them to shut up.

So, the cry comes from all quarters to leave Bristol Palin alone. Her pregnancy is a personal family matter. Okay. I find that to be admirable, and even appropriate as a political standard. Your teenage daughter got knocked up out of wedlock and you want to keep it from the public domain? You want to railroad this unfortunate young father into a shotgun marriage? Go ahead. Knock yourself out. It’s no one’s business but your own.

Conversely, Ms. Palin, I’ll assume you to apply that
standard to all and every private decision. A woman gets pregnant and decides she
wants an abortion? Don’t come around telling us a woman’s right to choose is
any of your business. If one personal trial and tribulation warrants privacy,
so does the other. And if you don’t agree, then don’t be surprised to see us go
for the juggler on you. After all, we’re being gracious enough as a political
body to allow you to set the standard. Now please obey your own rules.