So, according to the Washington Post, Murdoch and Roger Ailes have personally lobbied Senator Obama to appear on Fox, making the argument that he would get better coverage (or less criminally hostile coverage) if he had some working relationship with them. What's really interesting is that it suggests that Murdoch and Ailes (if not their underlings who program Fox News day-to-day) have decided that they need a working relationship with Obama, and can't afford to be completely frozen out of an Obama administration. I've been wondering for some time what would happen to Fox News as the relationship between its editorial slant and the observed world became untenable. It looks like Murdoch and Ailes have been thinking about this, too, and are planning to keep their network viable in a changed political environment.

So, according to the Washington Post,  Murdoch and Roger Ailes have personally lobbied Senator Obama to appear on Fox, making the argument that he would get better coverage (or less criminally hostile coverage) if he had some working relationship with them.

What's really interesting is that it suggests that Murdoch and Ailes (if not their underlings who program Fox News day-to-day) have decided that they need a working relationship with Obama, and can't afford to be completely frozen out of an Obama administration.

I've been wondering for some time what would happen to Fox News as the relationship between its editorial slant and the observed world became untenable. It looks like Murdoch and Ailes have been thinking about this, too, and are planning to keep their network viable in a changed political environment.

Here's the thing: McCain is stuck with Palin.

If he throws her under the bus, his campaign is over anyway. The evangelical base would turn on him, and could not be placated without alienating nearly every other voter in the country. More importantly, McCain would have publicly admitted that his judgment had been unsound. It's bad enough that he's displayed poor judgment; he can't confirm that it was poor. The chief rationale for his candidacy would be gone.

And anyway, who in her or his right mind would step in to replace Palin? Who wants to go down in a losing campaign, and get tied to whatever debacle might be coming?  The only people willing to take such a gamble wouldn't be an asset to the ticket. No one with a bright future wants to tie their reputation to a campaign that's self-destructing. As it is, I suspect that some people have already proved unwilling to run with McCain.

Add to that the problem that anybody who replaces Palin, except perhaps an actual Evangelical clergyman, will earn the undying enmity of her admirers in the Republican base. If she's thrown off the ticket, she will become St. Joan of the Mooseburgers, a martyr in the eyes of the cultural conservatives, and while McCain will be painted as Judas whoever he picks as a replacement will be see seen as Barabbas, and there's no future in that.

So, now that the McCain-Palin people have announced that Palin's daughter is five months pregnant (on the first scheduled day of the Republican convention), and will shortly be marrying the father, lots of liberals are drawing the obvious conclusion: that abstinence-only sex-ed, of the kind that Governor Palin promotes, does not work.

This is a misunderstanding. Abstinence-only does exactly what it is intended to do, and does it superbly. It doesn't do what it is advertised as doing, but this is merely advertising. The public would never support a program dedicated to abstinence-only's real goals, and so it is presented as doing just the opposite of what it actually does.

Abstinence-only has never, ever been about preventing teen pregnancies. The people who back abstinence-only are not interested in reducing the number of teen pregnancies.

The goal of abstinence-only is, and has always been, to maximize teen pregnancy. This is what its backers really want. They believe that a woman's proper place is bearing and caring for children. They are interested in women becoming pregnant early and often, like Mayor Curley's voters.

They are not especially interested in women spending their prime childbearing years pursuing higher education, beginning careers, or competing on a level playing field with men. Those life choices strike them as unhealthy or unnatural, while a seventeen-year-old at home with a baby seems to them a sign that all is right and well with the world. That youthful pregnancies delay and defer and deny women's entrance to college and the workplace is actually viewed as a positive good by cultural conservatives. Eighteen-year-olds should have babies, as many babies as possible. If this keeps those women from going to law school, that's considered a bonus.

The governor of Alaska's teenaged daughter is having a baby. She has apparently been kept out of school for months. Another success for abstinence-only sex-ed.