Yes, yes, thanks to the zillions of tipsters who have helpfully pointed out DailyKos's totally not vitriolic and poorly sourced rumor about the parentage of Sarah Palin's disabled infant son, Trig. Also, congrats on not mentioning how the anonymous diarist also body-snarked on Sarah Palin's 16-year-old daughter by magnifying and pointing out her belly. God knows a woman, let alone a teenager, would never have a bit of a pooch down there without being pregnant! God knows I don't (and didn't in high school when I weighed less than 110 pounds). By the way, if you haven't heard, Sarah Palin also smoked marijuana! She wore sully T-shirts in college! Well, to all the liberals and progressives out there who have spent the weekend rooting through Sarah Palin's closet and forwarding along this ugly (and probably untrue rumor), I have something to say.When we waste our time and energy rooting around in someone's personal life for John McCain's next black baby, we are conceding to conservatives that they are right. They have spent the last couple of decades saying that the gender of the person one chooses to love should be grounds for discrimination at work, in housing choices, in marriage rights and whereever else a little homophobe's heart desires. They have said that the government should be able to limit (and to know) what woman does with the contents of her uterus based on what they wish to make a government-sanctioned religious conception of when life begins. They use their power in government to limit children's access to age-appropriate sex education in schools in the name of teaching children their religious-inspired world view on sexual behavior. I could keep going, but you get the point. And when liberals and progressives pounce on rumors like this one about Trig's "true" parentage — whether or not it is true, which I'm pretty sure it's not — or rumors about Republican politicians' sexuality (in the absence of crimes committed) we are conceding that conservatives are right, and personal choices do qualify or disqualify one for certain aspects of participation in public life and this democracy. We are accepting their terms, their definitions of appropriate private behavior, and attempting to use those definitions to defeat their candidates. And once we do that, even if we do "take down" Sarah Palin or whatever Republican candidate in order to protect gay rights or reproductive rights or educational rights, then we've lost on those issues anyway because we've conceded that the underpinnings to the Republican positions on those issues is valid. So, please, stop. There are dozens and dozens of legitimate reasons to oppose Sarah Palin — everything from her position on drilling to that on polar bears; her flip-flopping on the Bridge to Nowhere; her pro-life advocacy to her opposition to marriage equity. Let's focus on those legitimate reasons as to why people should oppose Sarah Palin and the McCain-Palin ticket rather than trying to be the next Karl Rove because, as Dan Rather might say, when you wrestle with a pig (i.e., shitty rumors like these), all you get is shit on you and the pig kind of likes it. Sarah Palin Is NOT The Mother [Daily Kos] Palin: She Inhaled [CBS News] Sarah Palin Photos: A 'Busty' T-Shirt From Her College Days [Huffington Post] Dirty Tricks, South Carolina and John McCain [The Nation] Inside an RNC Raid [Firedoglake] Sarah Palin: Drill, Drill, Drill — All The Way [Salon] Palin "Bridge to Nowhere" Line Angers Many Alaskans [NY Times] Palin's Christian Background, Anti-Abortion Stance Put VP Concerns To Rest For Evangelicals [Minneapolis Star Tribune] Palin On Gay Rights [Andrew Sullivan]