Is family on or off-limits?

I say it's off, unless there's something so obsene it can't be ignored. But you can't have it both ways, which is what McCain/Palin are trying to do. You can't say that your family is off-limits, then use the first 13 minutes of your speech to speak exclusively about your family in a way that Quincy described as "sounding like she's introducing herself to a 5th grade class." Then the baby... They passed the baby to six different people during the speech, clearly to draw attention to it. It was so obvious that they're using their baby. Maybe their arms got tired after 5 minutes? Okay, bullshit, but okay. Why was a baby in the audience at a political convention in the first place? He's four months old. Then the mention of him in the speech, not only as her baby, but as her "special needs child," should be offensive to any family in the same situation. You don't talk about them as if they are different. My family has three "special needs" members, and we are all bothered by this. Then when she claimed that Republicans will look out for special needs kids (implying Democrats wouldn't), I thought there's no way the country is going to buy this. We'll see.

And another mention of family found it's way into speech later. Family is off-limits? Then why this: "They loved their country in good times and bad, and they are always proud of America," Palin said an obvious dig at Michelle Obama, during her remarks about her small-town roots (courtesy of Chicago Sun Times). So, you can't attack one family by taking something out of context, but you can attack the other. My favorite blogger, Andrew Sullivan (who is conservative), has been the most critical of this. The mainstream media seems to have ignored this hypocrisy.

The Republican convention had an opportunity to show people why they should support them. Instead, they've only made a slanderous case for why you shouldn't like their opponents. I think this is going to be the first time in a while that this strategy will not work.