Bristol Palin: Facing single motherhood

“Here’s probably the least surprising news we'll hear this week,” said Frank James in the Chicago Tribune. Bristol Palin and fiancé Levi Johnston, the father of her 2-month-old son, have split up, according to People magazine. Regardless of your politics, you should wish the daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin well. It’s hard enough to be a single mother, but being one in the glare of the national political spotlight will be even more difficult.

“I’m not surprised that this future marriage was a fiction,” said conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel in her blog. It was cooked up to make conservatives see Sarah Palin as a more suitable Republican vice president. What galls me is that so-called conservatives are still praising Sarah Palin, even though she clearly let her family go astray while she chased her ambitions. Some family values.

The Palins do seem to have a “strong family,” said Lisa Schiffren in National Review. Yes, the baby, Tripp, would have better odds if his parents were married. But the Palin family appears to have “many hands willing to pitch in and care for all the children. That is more than most young women have, and it is a great blessing.”

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