Bristol Palin.....Political pawn

      What a tawdry affair, this has become. A 17 year old is pregnant and rather than thinking of the consequences for her, she is exploited by religious and political expediency, robbed of the best years of her life, forced to grow up and raise a child, rather than preparing for graduation and the prom, probably giving up on her dreams of following her mother as a beauty queen and going to college,  Bristol Palin ,is the latest sacrificial lamb on the altar of bigotry, narrow-mindedness and ambition.

      Her mother, driven by the thouights  of high office, is using her child to accentuate her credentials as a conservative, Christian fundamentalist." Look at me ", she is saying," I taught my child that pre-marital sex is a sin, that sex out of marriage is a sin, that contraception is a sin, I do not believe in sex education, I believe in abstinence, but now that my 17 year old daughter is pregnant, I forgive her  and will stand by her and support her and her decision to marry the father of the child ". There is something very wrong here. Is any one thinking about the welfare of this child who is about to have a child?

      She has to face the feeding frenzy of the media and the blogs. The rumour mill is runnimg overtime. She is going to be subjected to all manner of direct scrutiny and indirect insinuations. Her pregnancy became public only after questions were raised about her mother's 4 month baby,.......that it was her baby and not her mother's. It was in order to squelch this, that it was disclosed that she is 5 months pregnant.

      Barak Obama, must be commended  for his forceful statement that " family is off limits", " children are off limits " and that he will immediately fire anyone on his staff who does not respect this.

      Let us hope that Bristol will be spared any extra grief. She has enough to deal with.