A husband whom she promised would quit his job to do so, but didn't.

And yes, there is a huge difference between taking care of an adult recovering from cancer (they do not need 24 hr. supervision or help wiping their ass) and taking care of a developmentally disabled infant.

And if you throw in the Edwards was taking care of a mistress and a newborn as well it's even more amazing how he could juggle it all!

Excuse me if this incoherent rambling doesn't make sense. I'm doped-up on cold medicine, and marshaling my thoughts right now is like herding cats.

The Republican party in general, and the religious right in particular, try to project an image of "holier-than-thou" moral superiority. So when a Republican politician has a little indiscretion, it appears to the rest of us as hypocrisy and laughably ironic. The Democratic party has never claimed to be superior when it comes to "family values" morality, so when a Democrat screws-up (sometimes literally) that hypocrisy and irony aren't there. They never claimed that moral superiority.

Everybody's human. Everybody fvcks up (I hate that filter thing). But, we also take a perverse pleasure in watching the mighty fall - especially if they fall in a way that highlights their hypocrisy.

McCain was very poor judgment. He picked a relative unknown for his VP without a thourough investigation in to her background. And now it's coming back to bite him on the ass.

Ooo.... Bacon!

Possibly, but these days I think you'd get one of the following:

1) simultaneous appeal to the center/right and the left by using the child's situation to call for the strengthening of our family and also for programs for the inner city because we have to stop babies having babies.

2) a long speech by Obama about teen sexuality, how we all remember what it felt like, and how our policies and attitudes should be more forgiving and how there should be more, not fewer resources for sex education and birth control.

Which Republican politician had a "little indiscrection" here.....I thought we were talking about a 17 year old girl who has never run for elected office?

McCain pulled this kind of crud against Romney...it was wrong then and it's wrong now. (Have I mentioned before how much I really dislike this guy and hate that I am going to have to vote for him?)

That being said; does anyone seriously think Obama intends to follow thru on his tax pledge?

I hope not.

Well her Mom still seems pretty set on teaching abstinence only to teens. Maybe not an indiscretion, but not very intelligent.

When Biden lost his wife and newborn in 1972 in the automobile accident (indeed a tragedy), was he encouraged to stay closer to home to raise his young sons, or did he go ahead and swear in as a Senator?

[I was no fan of Clinton. It's what made me bounce to voting for Bush in 2000.]

I think the point here is that the Republicans (or for my purpose here, "social conservatives") and Democrats ("social liberals") use two different measuring sticks for hypocrisy.

For social conservatives, it's hypocritical if a politician publicly denounces homosexuality but is found to be a closet gay. Or they have anonymous gay sex in airport bathroom stalls. Hypocrisy is when you are a huge Bible-thumping born-again Christian who espouses the importance of motherhood and abstinence... but who leaves nannies to tend to their six-month-old special needs baby with Down Syndrome or who ignores her own house and pays too little attention to a daughter who then goes on and gets pregnant while still in high school.

That's hypocrisy for social conservatives. Not living what you preach to others.

For Democrats, hypocrisy would be telling everyone they have to conserve natural resources... and then find out that the politician had a whole mountainside of pristine old growth oak cut down so he could get a new wooden house built. Or quietly supporting the tear-down of a homeless shelter so that he could help his friend build a high-class restaurant on the location.

The hypocrisy would not be on social things, but on things the liberals stand for. Protecting the environment, protecting natural resources, etc.