...about the deep schadenfreude strategy. I've seen 3 people quoted at the RNC already expressing their self-righteous indignation at how that poor Palin child has been crucified by the liberal press because of her untimely pregnancy. Granted, I don't monitor all the blogs, but as far as I can tell, no one has slammed this girl at all, no one has humiliated or even spoken at length about her pregnancy. This is, after all, one of the more common pecadillos our flesh is heir to, particularly in those long winter nights at high latitudes. I have a feeling premarital teen-age pregnancy is very common in Alaska, for reasons that are more geographical than political. And I bet the party breakdown is probably 50-50.

Other than that premarital pregnancy is no big deal, even for the governor's kid, and that it has nothing to do with poiitics, just what do we know? We know the girl is pregnant, and that her family must have know so for at least several months. They chose to keep it quiet, which is, of course, their right. However, Mom is heading for national prominence now, and intense media scrutiny., and Bristol will be about 7 months along come election time.
It will be impossible to hide it in November, and potentially embarassing, so the news has to be released in a controlled fashion, timed to do the least possible damage, and milked for any possible advantage. This has DC spinmeister, not North Star State politics writ all over it.

So the decision is made to release the news which had to be released anyway, and before anyone can even comment on it, a righteous counterattack is launched against the alleged slanderers of the poor girl. Poor Bristol and her baby are being exploited for political reasons all right, but it's not by the big bad liberal media, it's by her Mom's new friends.

Watching the Neocon political apparat at work is a little like reading about Hitler's Werhrmacht. You're repelled by the loathsome actions and the hideous consequences, but you have to grudgingly admire their ruthless efficiency and icy professionalism.