Republican Failure Week

Coming off the high of the announcement of McCain's VP pick, it seems that Republicans have a tough week ahead of them. Most important is Hurricane Gustav, which has thankfully been handled very well. Unfortunately, it took the near destruction of New Orleans three years ago to get this kind of response. Gustav is also causing problems for the Republican Convention. Most first day activities were canceled and speeches by Bush, Cheney, and Schwarzenegger have been canceled. There's also some speculation that McCain will give his acceptance speech in New Orleans instead of Minneapolis. This seems to be a huge blow to loyal party members that have already made plans to be in Minneapolis.

Also, a rumor that I never expected to gain traction has led to an interesting conclusion. Basically there was a rumor that Palin's most recent son was actually the son of her teenage daughter due to the fact that seven months into the pregnancy, Palin did not appear pregnant. Well it turns out that it couldn't be her daughter's child because her daughter is currently pregnant.

A big deal has been made that this shouldn't be an issue, but I think it's important because it highlights both the hypocrisy and failure of Republican policies. Palin is an advocate of abstinence-only education, but the fact that her own daughter couldn't even hold to that gives little hope of it working as a national policy. It was also brought up on fivethirtyeight.com that it took a rather absurd rumor to bring this to light. Now the Republican Party is trying to spin this as showing what a supportive mother Palin is, but if the rumor had never surfaced, were they just hoping that no one would find out?

In another bit of irony, Focus on the Family had asked its members to pray for torrential rain to begin during Obama's acceptance speech as a sign that God doesn't want him to be president. Looks like God decided to rain on someone else's parade. Of course, Focus on the Family will say this isn't a sign that God doesn't want McCain to be president, God is just testing him. Isn't great when you can have your cake and eat it too?