Obama denounces coverage of Palin’s daughter: ‘Families are off-limits’

GOP meeting turns to appeal for hurricane aid
Obama denounces coverage of Palin’s daughter: ‘Families are off-limits’



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26486090/

NBC, MSNBC and news services
updated 20 minutes ago

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Republicans hurried to turn the opening day of their national convention into a fundraising drive for hurricane victims, with Sen. John McCain’s wife and first lady Laura Bush appealing for help in the Gulf Coast. McCain visited a disaster relief center in Ohio.

At the convention site, talk focused on the announcement that the 17-year-old, unmarried daughter of McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was pregnant — a disclosure the campaign said was aimed at rebutting Internet rumors that Palin’s youngest son, who was born in April, was actually her daughter’s.

In a statement Monday, the campaign said Palin’s daughter Bristol was due to have a child in December. It said she would keep her baby and marry the child's father.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents,” Sarah and Todd Palin said in the brief statement.

McCain’s Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, took note of speculation that rumors about the child were being fueled by liberal Internet activists and said, “I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits.”

“Our people were not involved in any way,” Obama told reporters in Monroe, Mich., noting that his mother gave birth to him when she was just 18. “And if I thought anyone in my campagin was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”