The Anchoress says:

I’m sitting here right now with my jaw on the floor. I cannot believe what I am reading on the forums of the far-left.

I’m not going to link to them - you know where to find them - or even bother quoting their incredible, insane prattle.

They’re in trouble over there. They’re in serious trouble of the mind, and trouble of the heart and trouble of the soul. They are so paranoid, and so full of hate, at this point, that they are clinging to an insane idea - one that betrays a sort of soul-sickness that leaves me feeling both incredulous and chilled.

How much do you have to love your hate in order to surrender your reason, and your humanity, to it?

Sarah Palin has been in the race for what, three days, four? In that very short time she has so deranged the left that they are revealing something truly awful within them.

It’s not just the thrill of creating a stupid conjecture for these people - that’s just normal campaign garbage. But now that it has clearly been debunked these folks have a need - and in some of these people it seems to be a truly deep need - to cling to the fantasy so that they can keep hating, so that they can continue to believe the absolute worst thing they can; because that’s what they want to believe…the absolute very worst.

How sick is this? It is meant, I guess, to shield them from any possibility that their worldview might be altered, or penetrated.

This seems like massive insecurity, to me. And I wonder if they even know what their worldview is, since…these same people who say women’s children and family lives should not affect their careers are the ones who (at their mildest) are demanding that Palin go home and stay out of politics until absolutely nothing is happening in her family.

These people are afraid; and their fear is making them mad and reckless. They sound like wild, rabid creatures, out of their heads, and they’re starting to worry me. I begin to think they have surpassed the madness of the right at its Clinton-hating worst. Hell, I think they’re surpassing the left at its Bush-hating worst. And I didn’t think that could be surpassed!

And there is a difference, too. Clinton and Bush “hate” grew over time to the insane levels. These people admit they knew nothing about Palin before John McCain announced her, yet their hate for her was immediate and electric. It is not sane.

There is some sanity to be found on the issue of Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin - and we need to find it, to get the stink of madness off of us - so let’s go.

In Time Magazine, there is a very good piece which, if the sad, sick people on those forums are interested - makes it pretty clear that Bristol’s pregnancy was known in Wasilla, Alaska where the Palins live, and pretty much a non-issue.

I just got off the phone with a longtime Wasilla resident. She had urged me to find time today to go up to Hatcher Pass—”the most beautiful place in the valley!”—when I mentioned that the story on Bristol’s baby is now national news. Her voice slowed. “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry. That’s so unfair.”

Wasilla seems at times to be utterly without guile. It’s a large part of the town’s charm, and it’s exactly the quality that could make an unorthodox pick like Palin pay off. Don’t get me wrong — she’s a tough politician with sharp enough elbows on her own. But still, she appears to be more steeped in the values of her hometown than any politician I’ve ever come across.
…
If you haven’t guessed yet, the people here are genuinely friendly…All weekend they had the decency not to pretend that they didn’t know the governor’s eldest daughter was pregnant. But they also expected decency in return, that I wouldn’t be the kind of person to make sport out of a young girl’s slip.

The fact is, regardless of what you will hear over the next few days, Bristol’s pregnancy is not a legitimate political issue. Sarah Palin is a longterm member of a group called Feminists for Life, which is not opposed to birth control. So you probably can’t tag her for consigning young people to unwanted pregnancies.