After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that first of all I’d probably been shanghaied by the Obama campaign through Daily Kos. I want to see how that pans out over the next couple of days, that’s for sure. I think they did no small amount of well-poisoning here, but it took a few minutes to realize it.

Of course, my main concern was that because I supported Sarah Palin so vocally here and at The Minority Report, and all of a sudden I’m hearing these surprising revelations, what’s next? So there was some shock there.

Then I realized that maybe I was shocked simply because it was new situation that I hadn’t anticipated (and I don’t think many people here anticipated it either.)

Finally, it sunk in that having this discussion at this time, in the context of the first Republican female VP nominee, could be a very productive and welcome discussion. In other words, there are a lot of important subjects that this development gives us the chance to talk about more concretely, as we meet for our party convention, and that’s a good thing. So I realized that it could be a positive development, not an unpleasant surprise.

Hopefully all of us get the chance to be young and in love: it’s one of the more sublime experiences of being human, intense and fleeting, unique and beautiful. The important thing is really how we talk about it and make it a part of our conscience as Republicans, in this context. And for the two young people at the center of it, they have already created something truly awesome and wondrous: let’s not turn that into something awful just because we didn’t necessarily expect it. Politics is shaped by events as much as it is driven by philosophy and principles — some surprise there, right? Tell me something I don’t know, as it were.

The real measure of our intergrity is how we respond to the unexpected and handle it as a kind of extended family, which is how I like to think of our Party.

If they got married after the inauguration, not necessarily in the White House but in Washington. The Protocol Mavens would probably have to write a new chapter for hosting a marriage like that at the WH, but hey:

McCain’s already done several unconventional things in this election cycle. Who knows else is in store?

Talk about drama.

Is that the Democrats are so determined to recapture the Presidency and both houses of Congress that four years ago they insitutionalized lying as a tactic of official campaign policy.

Bob Shrum said it right out loud on television, and those are the people we’re dealing with. It’s a “by any means necessary” group of people we’re fighting here, and consoling ourselves that we’re not in a really nasty knife fight is meaningless.

The Democrats are prepared and in fact eager to do anything they have to do to get back into the White House, including destroying as many people as they have to with utter falsehood. A lot of Republicans still don’t realize that, I think.

Four years ago when President Bush was inaugurated for his second term, the glee and hubris in this party was unmistakable. That lasted about 4 months, and we’ve been running with our tails between our legs ever since. We’re up against people who are out for the jugular, Game. Happy slogans aren’t going to beat them, and neither are unexpected surprises from a Presidential nominee who perhaps still thinks he’s got some mojo with the media.

Earth to McCain: you don’t.

Game, really. It’s not about you and me. It’s about the way the stories get told beyond our control and despite everyone’s best efforts. I’m not “curling up in the fetal position” but neither am I sugarcoating the fact that there’s a good chance this is going to wind up as a net negative when all is said and done, unless people in this party recognize what they’re up against.

I still think McCain might be under the illusion that there is some residual goodwill in the media for him because of his famous and often-ballyhooed ability to “reach across the aisle.” If he entertains any of those beliefs, they’re an illusion, and the next few days of coverage combined with yesterday’s and today’s should prove that to him beyond the shadow of a doubt.

He’s a Republican. He’s the enemy. Period.

We’re living in a media environment that is going to give McCain/Palin — and us by extension — no credit, no assistance, and certainly not any time to catch their breath. They’re going to hammer this out-of-wedlock pregnancy and wring it for everything it’s worth. It’s already started today.

It’s certainly possible and honorable if McCain knew it and Palin knew it and made the choice to go through with this anyway. But I’m not under any illusions that they’re up against a media machine that’s bigger and more powerful than they are, and neither should you be.