Obama says Palin family off limits. NYT:

Mr. Obama, in his first remarks on the matter, raised his voiced when asked whether his campaign or other Democratic operatives were working to advance rumors surrounding the Palin family.

“Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be,” Mr. Obama snapped. “And if I ever thought there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired, OK?”

Mr. Obama said the pregnancy “has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president.” He added that, “my mother had me when she was 18. How family deals with issues and teen-age children – that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics.”

“So,” he added, “I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories.”

More from Time. Alaska Daily News reports today that it asked Palin spokesman Saturday if Bristol Palin pregnant:

The Daily News had asked Palin's governor's-office press secretary, Bill McAllister, on Saturday if Bristol was pregnant.

"I don't know. I have no evidence that Bristol's pregnant," he said at the time.

Hmm. Doesn't this suggest that the McCain campaign may have had reason to think a media org was about to break this story, and that might have prompted it to announce it first -- while saying they were announcing it only to put to rest rumors on the Internet?

With Alaska Daily News reporting it was already asking Palin spokesman on Saturday directly if Palin pregnant, and Time reporting that it already knew and everybody in Wasilla considered it an "open secret," it seems plausible that the campaign knew a media org was about to report on BP's pregnancy. And that is in fact what prompted timing of their announcement- which overshadowed everything else coming out of first day of GOP convention except Gustav.

Posted by Laura at September 1, 2008 04:10 PM