Sarah Palin's judgment is in focus, not Bristol Palin's

How much have you thought about John McCain in the last few days? How much has the average voter thought about John McCain in the last few days?

Not much, I would imagine. After all, "Sarah Palin" has been on everyone's mind, deflecting criticism away from McCain. Anything that deflects attention away from McCain is good for McCain.

The problem (or joyous occasion, depending on your vantage point) is that McCain's judgment showed in picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. So her questionable judgments reflect on his questionable judgment.

This has nothing to do with Bristol Palin and whether she is pregnant. This is about Sarah Palin and only Sarah Palin.

I really don't care if Trig is Bristol's child or Sarah's child or whether Bristol is currently pregnant by a boy who doesn't want kids. And for those on the right-wing who are using Bristol's situation to attack the left should know this has nothing to do with a teenage pregnancy.

To dispel the rumors of Bristol being the mother of Trig, it comes out that Bristol is pregnant now and is 5 months along. All Gov. Palin had to do was deny that Bristol is the mother of Trig, and prove she was the mother of the baby. But Palin didn't do that; she still hasn't shown any proof that she is the mother.

Palin could have put the focus on herself, and left Bristol out of the equation. But her judgment was to throw her 17-year-old daughter into the national spotlight. One way to take this is that Gov. Palin is being upfront about Bristol's pregnancy either for political reasons (to appeal to the anti-choice people) or to be honest for honesty's sake. But the media nor the left-wing exploited this pregnant teenager, Gov. Palin did so knowingly and willingly.

If Bristol Palin is 5 months pregnant, she would have given birth after the election. And she could have been hidden out of sight without question. So if the Republicans lost, nobody would have cared. And if the Republicans won, Palin might be criticized for not telling people her daughter was pregnant. But Palin could have responded that she didn't want to exploit her child for political purposes. And she would have been right.

So why do we even know that Bristol is pregnant? Nobody would have cared. The left-wing would have appreciated it in a "Juno" kind of way. The right-wing, who does get upset at teenage pregnancies, exempts right-wing politicians with pregnant teenage daughters (as clearly they have here) as long as the girls give birth.

The other possible reason for Gov. Palin exploiting Bristol is that Bristol really is the mother of Trig, and is trying to hide that fact. If Gov. Palin had said from the start (obviously way before she was a VP possibility) that the baby is Bristol's and that the family would raise it and take care of all concerned, the right-wing would have loved it and the left-wing would have nodded along. And this would have been a non-issue.

This is coupled with the unbelievable story of Gov. Palin giving a speech in Texas after her water broke, getting on a commercial airplane with a stopover, then going to a clinic outside Anchorage to give birth. If the story is true, it shows huge judgment issues, especially for a woman in her 40s giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome. If the story is false, it speaks greatly to Gov. Palin's character.

These stories aren't being hidden. Gov. Palin proudly tells the story of giving the speech and then flying to give birth. Gov. Palin proudly announces that she went back to work 3 days after giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome. She is not ashamed of these statements, whether true or not.

Barack Obama has it right: children should be off-limits. But we should take that one step further: candidates should not exploit their own children. Either way, no matter what the truth is, Gov. Sarah Palin exploited her own daughter for political gain. And that is a case of bad judgment when considering a vice president.