It has been an interesting week in Politics.  The Republicans finally nominated a woman to the Presidential ticket.   Gov. Palin looked great at first.  She attacks corruption (a full time job in Washington D.C.).  She hunts, she can shoot and gut her own moose.  If the Bubba vote will ever go to a women, Sarah Palin is the one.

Now many of the political pundits on the left are attacking Gov. Palin, claiming that she is a hypocrite.  The attacks, however, are likely to backfire.

First, the several pundits from the left assert that Gov. Palin abused her position by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired.  He is a state trooper in Alaska and allegedly threatened to kill one of her family members, drives while intoxicated and used a TASER on her 11 year old nephew.  (The officer apparently has a long history of misconduct).   If those facts are accurate, who is going to blame her even if she did intervene?  If a police officer threatened to kill a member of my family and used a TASER on another, you bet I would try to get them fired - no matter what my position was.  I just hope she would intervene likewise for a similar situation that did not involve her family.  I think "troopergate", as some on the left are calling it, puts a very human face on Gov. Palin and will make her more attractive to voters.  Of all of the candidates she appears to be willing to do the right thing regardless of how it may look politically.

Second, the media has revealed to the whole world that Gov. Palin's 17 year-old daughter is pregnant.  Like it is any of our business?  The news media will not even publish the names of most teenage criminals.  Would you rather know about Ms. Palin's pregnancy or that the 16 year old down the street has been convicted of rape?  Despite this, young Ms. Palin is now front page news.

Some of the pundits have argued that the unplanned pregnancy shows that her family values stand is phony and that she is not a good parent.  So now parents are responsible if their children make a mistake?  I did not hear any of these same people arguing that Hillary Clinton was unqualified because her husband keep his pants zipped.  She claims, after all, to be a feminist and made it clear when her husband ran the first time that the allegations of adultery were not true, because she would not stick around if they were.

Rather than showing Gov. Palin to be a hypocrite, I think that the situation actually bolsters her social conservative stance.  He daughter got pregnant - ok.  How did she handle it.  Did she take the easy way out and rush her daughter to an abortion clinic.  No, her daughter is planning on having the baby and marrying the father.  Add to that the birth of Gov. Palin's son, who has downs syndrome, and it looks like the Governor's family has faced the two most common reasons for abortion and voted for life both times.  It is pretty clear that the Gov. practices what she preaches - a rarity in politics these days.  (The position also contrasts pretty clearly to Senator Obama's statement that he wants abortion to be legal so his daughters would not be "punished with a baby" if they ""make a mistake".)  Gov. Palin's family did not take the easy way out.

Going after Gov. Palin on "troopergate" and her daughter's unplanned pregnancy is a dumb strategy for those who support Obama.  Many voters, women especially, are going to warm to a woman who will take a political risk to address domestic violence head on.  Likewise, a lot of voters will have had a wayward child and will not warm to the argument that they are bad parents because their children made a mistake.  If Obama is smart, he will come out and clearly state - this is none of our business and we should focus on Gov. Palin's record.   Otherwise, the negative statements of the leftist pundits will be attributed to his campaign.