McCain’s trying to play the president while politicizing the gulf coast hurricane preparations, New Orleans has been evacuated and coalition troops formally handed over security control of Iraq’s Anbar province on Monday.

These are all major stories and yet, in spite of it all what’s been the topic of conversation around the political water coolers for the last 3 days? Accusation that GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin either showed extremely poor judgment by flying back to Alaska after her water broke:

Maybe Palin’s actions can be written off as Alaskan grit, since she’s a macho hunting governor who jogs in freezing temperatures and dines on moose burgers. But as a parent myself, I think the Palins were extremely fortunate that their reckless stupidity did not end in tragedy. As middle-aged parents who already had four kids, the Palin’s had to be completely familiar with all the things that can go wrong in a pregnancy.

Even more ore strangely there are even rumors that she’s didn’t give birth to her 5th child based on nothing more than the fact she doesn’t look sufficiently pregnant in a photo:

It’s a nice shot, but according to at least once source it was taken on Super Tuesday. That’s in February. At that point, Palin should have been six months pregnant with her last child.

There’s only one problem with this “story”.  It’s all hearsay and speculation. It’s all rumor.  To be perfectly honest the circumstances of baby Trig’s birth, while interesting water-cooler rumor mongering, aren’t legitimate questions.  They’ll do one thing and one thing only: get liberals branded as sexist, anti-Down Syndrome, and/or just plain mean.  They’re not only unproductive questions, they’re counterproductive.

Sarah Palin is manifestly unfit to be President, Vice President, or (likely) even Governor of Alaska.  She used her position of power to carry out a personal vendetta and then lied about it on the national stage.  She knows nothing about foreign policy while claiming to be an expert on the matter because “Alaska’s right next to Russia”.  But come on people, neither her or her daughter’s pregnancy is any of our concern.  Steve Benen’s right: this is a non-issue, it’s gossip.

Sarah Palin apparently lied about abusing her powers as governor, firing a capable Public Safety Commissioner without cause. Campaign reporters find that mildly interesting, but during a lengthy interview between John McCain and Chris Wallace yesterday, the subject didn’t even come up.

But now that John McCain’s running mate’s teenage daughter is having a baby, now reporters are swarming around Steve Schmidt, demanding answers.

I suppose news outlets might justify their prurient interests, arguing that Palin’s family may have a Jerry Springer-like quality, but as the day as unfolded, I can’t help but find the whole thing ridiculous. Bristol Palin is not a candidate for public office. Her pregnancy is none of the political world’s business.

You want legitimate arguments against Palin’s readiness to be President to be drown out by cries of sexism?  Go right ahead, keep up the rediculous truther conspiracy arguments.

Update:  Obama’s official response to this “story”:

“Let me be a clear as possible:  I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits,” Obama said, “and people’s children are especially off limits.

“This shouldn’t be part of our politics,” he continued, “It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor, or her potential performance as a vice president.

“And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories,” he said. “You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits.”

You want to support your candidate and a different kind of politics?  Fine, do as he asks and back the hell off.  You’re making us all look like fools.