According to The Hill, Susan Bruce, a campaign blogger for New Hampshire Representative Carol Shea-Porter, was recently forced to resign after she raised the legitimate concern about Sarah Palin’s abysmal public treatment of her children, including her down syndrome afflicted son, Trig:

“I don’t think that putting a scarlet letter on your own teenager and throwing her to the wolves in front of the whole world is something to be proud of [and] I don’t think that using a special needs baby as a prop on late night TV appearances is a value to crow about.”

Since being selected to the Republican Ticket, Sarah Palin has made a continuous spectacle of appearing at public speaking events with Trig. Likewise, Sarah Palin has cast her unwed, pregnant, teenage daughter Bristol into the spotlight in an attempt to emphasise her “traditional family” values.

There is a gratuitous example of misplaced outrage. The GOP’s complaint was that such comments wouldn’t be permissible against Barack Obama. And they’re right.

Complaints about Barack Obama aren’t permissible because Barack Obama is a responsible parent who keeps his children in school, where they belong.

The LAST thing that a pregnant teenager and a mentally challenged infant deserve is the agenda-driven overexposure to the stress of a political campaign. If the Palin Family was being investigated by Social Services, the Palin children would have been placed in protective custody by now.

Susan Bruce was forced to resign because, in the absence of social services, somebody had to raise these legitimate concerns about Sarah Palin’s parenting skills. And in the abscense of the GOPs family values, somebody had to be martyred for doing so.

Anybody who has tried to play the “family values” drinking game during televised McCain/Palin rallies has probably found themselves in a disappointing state of sobriety.

Why are they silent on this usually exciting buzz phrase? Because to repeat it would expose them to the media’s embarrassing spotlight and the hypocrisy it would reveal.

Let’s expose John McCain first. Carol, his devoted starter wife, was nearly killed in a car wreck on Christmas Eve, 1969. This near-death experience left her permanently scarred and crippled, despite the 3 years of agonizing surgery she had to endure. Her modelesque beauty destroyed, Carol nonetheless withheld the tragic news of her accident from John in order to help him survive his torturous internment in a Vietcong death camp.

Upon his return from Vietnam, John McCain was horrified to discover that his trophy wife had become a hideous gimp. He thanked Carol for her compassion by cheating on, and then abandoning, her and their three children for his new mistress, whose comparative beauty, youth, and ridiculous wealth he had somehow come to appreciate.

So yes, here are John McCain’s “family values”. And John McCain seems to share my bleak assessment of them. Or at least, he did when he wrote the following in his memoir: “my marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity…I cannot escape blame”.