Our bad behavior. After 8 years of raging against the administration's many, many failings (to use a mild word), I understand the impulse to rejoice in the other party's misfortune, but let's choose the right issues.
We all know a subset of the Republican party is represented by hypocritical, holier-than-thou folks and we'd love nothing more than rubbing their noses in a scandal of their own creation. But doing it at all (and especially doing it now, before the election and during a hurricane) looks really, really bad. Not to mention the simple fact that we could raise above it, if only to do so because the Obama campaign practically begged us to.
Of course, as others pointed out here, the lefty blogsphere does not receive and follow a set of talking points from headquarters and I fully understand people's need to vent. I understand that many of us loath the endless talk about morality from a Republican party which has no problems excusing the crimes of our government. I also understand that if the shoe was on the other foot, if our party's nominees were in Sarah Palin's shoes, the right wing media would be merciless.
But we are not the right wing media. We don't have to beat up on a 17-year old girl and we don't have to knock her mother for this particular issue.
We don't have to resort to these tactics - this is the simple truth. There are enough actual issues to talk about without jumping into the mud of personal attacks and salacious speculation about the sex life of a girl who is not at fault for her mother's political ambition.
Let's show some compassion and maturity, it's the least we can do.