Meghan McCain published a recent blog about what it's like to be the daughter of a political candidate in the GOP and female. More to the point: she said what pretty much every single person with half a brain who isn't a FoxNews correspondent or pundit believes, and that is that Bristol Palin should step down as the self-anointed abstinence education spokesperson for America.

It's kind of like saying Rod Blagoyovich is perfect as the anti-corruption spokesperson because he's got that whole corruption experience. And while Bristol Palin's ex-boyfriend, who ditched out faster than Palin's speechwriting team the minute she started talking about foreign policy in the 2008 presidential campaign is probably citing the most important part of being daddy to the central figure in the current War On Unwed Baby Mammas to his hockey buds, you have to wonder why the hell Bristol Palin even matters.

After all, this is the daughter of a woman filled with hypocrisy and idiotic manuevers. She's "down-home" and "homey", but at the same time trying to run a large financial institution, and failing harder than Boss Hogg at a speed trap for the Duke boys. And poor Bristol never asked to be front-and-center in the debate over teenage pregnancy, family planning, and abstinence education, but she sure is stepping up to Mama's game and rolling with the punches.

That's the thing. Both Palins put themselves front-and-center into the controversy by simply walking forward. They could have done the classy thing and kept the personal lives of the Palins out of the spotlight, but instead they chose to highlight the Palin family as an all-American tribe. Unfortunately, it was an all-American tribe filled with high school dropouts, unwed mothers, and welfare recipients, and nothing plays worse against two men of deep education and passion than a corrupt family of hillbillies. McCain's worst mistake of the campaign in 2008 was bowing to the pressure of the GOP, and not bringing Joe Liebermann on board as his VP - and the crazy bimbo from Alaska is letting him know it, one stupid publicity stunt at a time.

The Palins have nearly surpassed the Spears' family - you know, that family of incredibly brainless, talentless singers and media moguls formed out of the bowels of Disney - as the new family to watch of How Not To Do It. Palin's new crusade against unwed motherhood comes just four months after her son was born - and if an 18-year old daughter whose passions included standing behind Mom in a photo op for the presidency for the last year isn't being led around by the nose of a handling crowd, I too am a marshmellow sandwich.

What deeply offends me the most about the Palins and their most recent hop-skip-and-jump into familal celebritism is that Palin (the governor) demands privacy of her family, but then flaunts them publicly when it suits her. Unfortunately Palin hasn't learned the game - you can't have the cake and eat it too. Her grandson cannot both be the apple of her eye and a cherished being while simultaneously being held up as the Worst Thing EVAH for a teenage mother.

The Palins are, in essence, using and abusing the child they have in order to score political points with the GOP cadre that hasn't dismissed them as the wacky hillbillies that tend to play Gomer Pyle to the rest of the GOP's Atticus Finch. The sheer volume of hypocrisy regarding family issues that has developed around Bristol Palin and her child is staggering, and on some level I just want to tell her to shut up, get a real job, go to college, get a degree, and raise that kid out of the spotlight.

Because one of these days that little boy will grow up and realize that for a good long time in his life, he was a symbol - the symbol, in point of fact, of all unwanted and unplanned children. Every political hack that speaks in favor of the Palin plan, every individual who listens to the Palins talk at any length on the subject increase the meaning of this child as a symbol of "I done messed up, don't you mess up too."

You cannot have cake and eat it too. I honestly don't care if GOP daughters are getting it on left and right; I couldn't care less if the Palins have twenty out-of-wedlock kids, I simply don't want those children being used as props in some misguided political stumping. When I see billboards declaiming that children are precious, I wonder how many dollars were spent putting billboards up instead of feeding young children in poor neighborhoods by self-righteous people intent on running other peoples' lives for them.

In short, the Palins are a circus of incredibly silly people, and I truly hope they stop and go back to the business of being just people again, instead of clamoring for media attention. They came on the scene as fast as they could - it's time for them to go back.