This election has become a well-cast reality show

For now, let's forget about Hillary' s journey from shoe-in Democrat dynasty queen to lowly railbird. Let's forget about the fact that Joe Biden's family was killed in a horrific car accident prior to his inauguration and forget about his daily commute to Delaware. Let's forget about Barack's rapid ascent from party newbie to party leader and forget his historic position as potentially the first black President. Let's forget about McCain's time as a POW and forget his bizarre second marriage circumstances. Let's focus this week's episode on Sarah Palin. Of all the craziness that is election 2008, Sarah Palin leads the pack in Maury-esque nuttiness.

The announcement of Palin as McCain's VP took the country by surprise. She was the unknown Governor of Alaska - a state with less of a population than Columbus, OH. So who is Sarah Palin and how did she end up in a position to possibly become the second most powerful person in America? For brevity's sake, I'm going to put this little history into bullet-point form:

• In 1982, she began her college days at Hawaii Pacific College in Honolulu majoring in Business Administration.
• In 1983, she transferred to North Idaho College. At some point thereafter, she transferred again to the University of Idaho.
• In 1984, she won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant and went on to take second place in the Miss Alaska competition.
  
• In 1987, she received her BS in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho. She minored in political science.
• Palin worked as a sports caster for KTUU-TV in Anchorage before being elected to the Wasilla city council in 1992.
  
• In 1996, she was elected Mayor of Wasilla, a town of about 6,000 people.
• Shortly after taking office, Palin fired the Wasilla police chief for not supporting her campaign for Mayor. Local residents formed a group called Concerned Citizens for Wasilla to organize a recall campaign, but it never came to fruition. The police chief sued for wrongful termination, but the court ruled that Palin had the right to fire him even if it was for her own political reasons.
• In 2002, when term limits forced her out of the mayor's office, she unsuccessfully ran for Lieutenant Governor of Alaska.
• She then went on to chair the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003 and 2004.
• During the same period she served as director of Ted Steven's 527 group, "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc." (Yes, that's the Ted Stevens recently indicted on 7 counts of corruption)
  
• In 2006, with Ted Steven's endorsement, Palin was elected Governor of Alaska.

So there you have it. That brings us up to the present. Now's let's run through the list of crazy.

1. Let's go back to her time as Mayor of Wasilla. She fired the police chief because he wouldn't support her political campaign. Sound familiar? She would fit in really well in Washington when it came time to fire US Attorneys for political reasons.

2. Troopergate. On July 11, 2008, Palin dismissed the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner, Walter Monegan. This wouldn't normally be news, but Monegan claimed that he was dismissed in retaliation for his reluctance to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten. Palin denied that there had been any pressure on Monegan to fire Wooten from her or anyone in her administration. Case closed then right? Who are we going to believe, the disgruntled former employee or the highest state official? She later disclosed that her staff had contacted Monegan or his staff about two dozen times regarding Wooten, including many from her chief of staff. Awesome. She's again proving that she would fit in with Washington's Republicans. She seems to have no problem lying through her teeth to her constituents. An investigation of the Monegan dismissal, currently being conducted by an independent investigator hired by the Republican Alaska Legislature, should be completed in October.

3. Babygate I. Palin has five children - Track (19), Bristol (17), Willow (14), Piper (7), and Trig (4 months). Trig is the child at the center of Babygate I. Shortly after Trig was born, (and still long before anyone considered Palin a VP contender) speculation began that Trig was actually Bristol's baby. This post was made to Reddit, the social news site, 4 months ago. Rumor has it that Bristol gave birth to Trig, but Sarah pretended to birth him herself in order to protect her. Pictures floated around showing Sarah Palin looking skinny while Bristol had a mysterious baby bump. Official Alaskan government websites were mysteriously wiped clean and pictures were deleted. There was obviously something going on, but it was all speculation, so let's turn to a more reliable source, the Anchorage Daily News.

The article says that Palin was in Texas for an energy conference of the National Governors Association when she experienced signs of early labor. "Palin said she felt fine but had leaked amniotic fluid and also felt some contractions. "

So she headed immediately for the hospital, right?

""I said I am going to stay for the day. I have a speech I was determined to give," Palin said. She gave the luncheon keynote address for the energy conference."

Are you kidding me? She was leaking amniotic fluid as she was delivering the keynote address? She went right to the hospital after the speech then, right?

"After the speech, Palin flew from Dallas to Anchorage, stopping in Seattle."

What?! She was leaking amniotic fluid, she was having contractions, and she was flying cross-country? Am I just overreacting or is that nuts?

"A Sacramento, CA obstetrician who is active in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said when a pregnant woman's water breaks, she should go right to the hospital because of the risk of infection. That's true even if the amniotic fluid simply leaks out, said Dr. Laurie Gregg."

So what does the airline think about all this?

""Palin was very pleasant to the gate agents and flight attendants, as always," [spokeswoman Caroline Boren] said. "The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress."

So she had been leaking fluids and having contractions for hours, she was about to give birth, and the airline couldn't even tell anything was out of the ordinary? "They landed in Anchorage around 10:30 p.m. Thursday and an hour later were at the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center in Wasilla." Why on earth did she delay for nearly 24 hours before she went to a hospital? "Palin said she wanted him born in Alaska."

No, this is just ridiculous. We have two options here. Option 1 is that her teenage daughter had an illegitimate child and Sarah Palin lied to pretty much everyone and plans to raise the child as her own. This would go against her uber-Christian values of abstinence before marriage, this would go against the Honor Thy Mother and Father commandment, and it would be seriously freaking crazy for an elected official to take part in such a ridiculous ruse, not to mention the fact that this poor child would never know his true mother.

Option 2 is that Trig really is Sarah Palin's child - Sarah Palin just doesn't seem to care about his well-being. She risked his (and her own life) by flying after her water broke. She wanted to deliver a keynote address rather than seek medical assistance. She wanted to fly across the country and delay medical attention by nearly a day so that Trig could be a native Alaskan. I'm not sure which option is worse. Either way though, this seems like a big deal.

4. Babygate II. In the midst of Babygate I, Palin announces that her daughter Bristol, famous from Babygate I, is 7 months pregnant. They say that she made the announcement to put an end to the rumors of Babygate I. Now we have to go through some more options.

Option 1. Bristol was really the mother of Trig. Bristol isn't really even pregnant right now. We have to wait and see if she "miscarries" in the next few weeks.

Option 2. Bristol was really the mother of Trig. Bristol is also really the mother of - let's call him /her Freedom Palin because they all have such stupid names and Freedom sounds like a name they'd give it. She's really pregnant with Freedom, but she's actually 2 or 3 months pregnant, not 5.

Option 3. The most likely scenario - Sarah really gave birth to Trig and Bristol is really pregnant with Freedom. In this case, Sarah Palin really is the negligent mother who risked her baby's health to deliver a speech in Texas. She really did go against conventional medical wisdom in order for Trig to be a native Alaskan. Bristol Palin is the 17 year-old, unwed mother who goes against much of what Sarah Palin and the Republican party believe in. Trig and Freedom are going to end up going to school together. It'll be cute when they sit next to each other on the first day of school...Freedom Palin and his uncle Trig can help each other with their math homework.

See how ridiculous this is? It doesn't matter what the truth is at this point because Sarah Palin is piling on the scandals. No one is disputing the fact that she supported the corrupt Ted Stevens, no one is disputing the fact that she's under investigation for an ethics violation as Governor, and no one is disputing the fact that she fired a police chief for political reasons. But since American voters don't seem to care about actual issues like this, they have a pair of baby scandals to hold their attention. Even in the Republican's best case scenario, Sarah Palin proved that she's a negligent mother. Sarah Palin has proven that her abstinence-only education idea doesn't work.

So what does the Republican base, the religious right, think about all this? Lucky for us, we can see what they said about Jamie Lynn Spears just a few months ago. It was basically the same situation, so they should be reacting in a similar fashion. The Voice magazine, a conservative Christian publication, called it a "breakdown of good role models for our nation’s teenage girls." One of their readers posted a comment saying that she would boycott Nickelodeon if they promoted tolerance towards teenage mothers. So then is she going to boycott John McCain's presidential bid? What about the right's beloved Bill O'Reilly? "On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet. Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her..." I'm sure he's blaming Sarah Palin for this then, right? I could go on, but you have google too. If you want more examples, there are hundreds of them out there.

What it comes down to is this. No, I don't think politicians' personal and family lives should be in the public eye. Ordinarily. In this case, however, Sarah Palin feels that the government should regulate our personal lives and our family lives. She's strictly anti-abortion, even in the case of incest and rape. She believes in abstinence-only education. If these policies don't even work for her own family, how are they going to work for the country as a whole? She claims that she represents family values, so let's see how her values work in her own home. And even if you just can't bring yourself to peer into someone's personal life, focus on her public scandals. There's too much here to ignore.