Also, I’ve been looking for a way to make a pun on the word “palindrome.” Ideas?

Jill smartly sums up growing opinion about what if this were Obama’s daughter who’d gotten pregnant. She brings up an excellent, if upsetting, point about race-based double standards (emphasis mine):

Wow. Could not have said it better myself. There remains a stereotype
that African-Americans have poor morals. If Barack Obama’s
daughter were pregnant, you’d better believe that pundits would
be tsk-tsking the dysfunctional “black family” and there
would be plenty of b-roll of black pregnant teens in our public schools
with talk about the single black welfare queens & the national
burden they create. That’s the double standard — Palin is
permitted to individualize where Obama is not.

The white Palin is perceived as everymom and her own person at once; a black Palin would be tasked with answering for her entire race.

UPDATE: This bit from Daily Show shows the crazy and hysterical hypocrisy coming from Karl, Bill, Dick, and co.

Did I just see Cindy holding Trig? I mean: can we have it one way or
the other? Either the family is out of bounds or it is in the
spotlight. Brandishing a Down Syndrome child as a campaign statement is
daring the press to ask questions about him. And if you are going to
hold the baby in front of the cameras, how can you say that the details
of his birth cannot even be discussed?

I’ve been searching for the word to describe how this made me feel. And it’s “vulgar.” The use of Trig and the cynical pandering to middle America was just vulgar.

Expectations are so low for Palin, and the opportunity to connect
with the growing viewing audience so high – like a hit TV show that
lifts the ratings of the show that follows it, will McCain bask in the
afterglow of Palin’s success on Thursday night? Or will McCain be on
hand to provide the damage control for his own errant judgment?

It is too early to tell. But the mistake is to see the controversies
and questions around Sarah Palin as damaging, they may turn out that
way and John McCain may pay the price – but for now the interest they
are creating in Palin may actually be building the moment and the
opportunity John McCain and the GOP need to successfully turn the page.

My Democratic friends and I had a gleeful Labor Day weekend. We saw the McCain campaign deal with one piece of craziness after another (see TPM for a recap) and Obama’s poll numbers shot up.

But Palin could likely impress America when she’s unveiled later this week. Yes, expectations are low, she does have a folksy charm, and the only direction the GOP can go is up. So maybe we’l see a bit of a bounce, but I’m increasingly confident that, when viewed next to the McCain/Palin comedy troupe, Obama/Biden are looking pretty secure and serious to most Americans right now.