Yankah on Palin

My friend Ekow Yankah has a thoughtful post on the pregnancy of Palin's daughter here. The post includes the following:

As Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has, in keeping with her party, steadfastly denied support for comprehensive sex education. (She has publically said she refused to support “explicit” sex education.) . . . Now the world thrusts an example of a young woman from an educated family of faith who has an apparently unplanned pregnancy. Nor is this a case of my using anecdote as data; the current best evidence available shows that abstinence-based programs and the lack of comprehensive sex-education is an absolute failure, at best delaying sexual activity for a short period but greatly increasing unsafe sex practices. . . . It is fair enough for us to inspect Governor Palin’s record on this issue specifically as well as worry about the general disdain that Republicans have shown in recent years for using the best evidence available to guide our policies.

I would go even further: exposing the immediate results of Palin's failed policies is not only "fair", it is imperative. However, I disagree that the Obama campaign or anyone close to it should do that by using the pregnancy of Governor Palin's daughter. This girl is in many ways a victim (including of the machinations of her own mother) and to use her in these circumstances to make a perfectly valid point strikes me as inappropriate. Obviously, the same reticence should not apply to anything regarding Palin herself...