Give me a break.

If she really wanted to spare Bristol, she would’ve left her at home. At 17, she’s clearly old enough to fend for herself. But no, Palin decided to stick her on stage, five-months pregnant with a baby on her hip. How dare the bloggers comment! How dare they question this preposterous sight!

With no explanation from Palin, the inquisitive mind was left to its own devices. Instead of asking why Palin chose to hide the fact that her daughter was pregnant, let’s blame voters for trying to put the pieces together themselves. It wasn’t the ideal way to get to the bottom of things. But what choice did they have? After the mainstream media dropped the ball on the Edwards affair, the Tabloid genre got a little credibility boost. And you can’t fault the bloggers entirely. They were in the baby ballpark.

And now Palin is using this whole baby-blogger-shenanigan to blast the media. As she said in her RNC speech, “Here’s a little news flash for those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.”

Here’s a news flash for Palin: Journalists are actually part of society. I know it’s shocking, but we vote, too. So you are seeking our good opinion, along with everyone one else’s. Why else would you fly in Bristol’s baby’s daddy for the RNC? He wasn’t a necessary part of the family for your introductory speech, but once the dirty little secret was out, suddenly he was needed. While Palin tells the media to back-off her family, there’s a photo-op for McCain and Levi on the tarmac.

Talk about mixed signals.

The most ironic part of this whole saga is not Palin’s support of abstinence-only education, (which comes in a close second in my book), but her statements about Bristol’s “decision” to have the baby. According to Palin, there shouldn’t be a choice to make. She’s for bringing babies into this world in the case of rape and incest. But please, give her daughter some privacy. If it were up to Palin, the government would unilaterally make that decision for women everywhere. Now that’s a parallel worth drawing.

Honestly, I’ll be happy if I never have to write about the mating habits of the Palins ever again. But the choice is hers. Stop sticking your pregnant daughter in my face and I’ll stop writing about it. Deal?

As much as Republicans like to paint Democrats as big-spenders, the latest numbers from the Bush Administration tell a different story. Sure, the wealthiest Americans may pay less taxes, but the $482 billion budget deficit isn’t what I’d call low government spending. Democrats will raise taxes. Someone has to.

I may not be an economist, but even little-old-English-major-me can see that as long we spend more money than we raise (ie taxes), we will be in debt. Say what you will about Clinton, but Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion and turned it into the biggest deficit we have ever seen. Granted, the population of the US has increased, and inflation has also taken a toll so percentage-wise it’s not as large as the raw dollars may seem. Nonetheless, our spending is out of control. The $150 million stimulus package, a mere drop in the bucket, makes a nice scapegoat, but it is far from the real problem.

Ross Perot has a great presentation on this subject with more charts and graphs than you can shake a stick at. The bottom line? Our healthcare and social security spending is increasing at a rate that we can’t maintain while fighting two wars and providing tax cuts for the super-rich. Not only do we need to reform healthcare and retirement benefits, we need to spend more wisely in Iraq and Afghanistan and let the Bush tax cuts expire.

No one likes to pay taxes, but our government has overspent its budget nearly 500 billion times. Someone has to take responsibility. When Obama takes office in November, and has to deal with this mess, remember it was the Republicans that got us into it, but it will take a Democrat to get us out.