McCain Should Fire This Aide – Leave the Pregnant Teenager Alone

I just heard Mary Matalin praise Barack Obama. Shocked? I’m not as Obama is telling the press to leave the Palin family alone with respect to the fact that their 17-year old daughter is pregnant. Some things should not be politicized. Alas – Greg Sargent tells us that Reuters reported this:

A senior McCain campaign official said the McCain camp was appalled that these rumors had not only been spread around the blogs, but also were the subject of heightened interest from mainstream news media. “The despicable rumors that have been spread by liberal blogs, some even with Barack Obama’s name in them, is a real anchor around the Democratic ticket, pulling them down in the mud in a way that certainly juxtaposes themselves against their ‘campaign of change,'” a senior aide said. Speaking to reporters in Monroe, Michigan, Obama reacted strongly, saying he was offended by the McCain’s aide’s statement and that he considered people’s families off-limits.

I hope for the sake of Team McCain that this senior campaign official was doing this on his own. If he was – he should be fired. If he’s not, then Team McCain has reached a new low.

Update: Marc Ambinder has Obama’s reaction:

Jake Tapper: Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying that their 17 year old daughter Bristol who is unmarried is 5 months pregnant. Do you have a comment?

BO: I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics, it has no relevance to governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits.

Mary Matalin was right to praise this.