I am deeply troubled by the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Shortly after Sarah Palin was selected as the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate, it turns out that her 17-year old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. As soon as Palin announces that her daughter will be keeping the child and marrying the father (clearly a shot-gun wedding), Palin is held up as a prime example of “family values” in action.

Ironically, none of the Republicans appear to notice that Palin’s staunch stance against sex education doesn’t appear to have kept her own daughter from engaging in premarital sex.

I am sure that the same glowing accolades would not be accorded the Obama family if they had a teenage daughter who became pregnant out of wedlock. The Republicans would denounce the family, accusing them of loose morals and bad parenting. And, they would probably attribute the girl’s premarital sexual activity to exposure to sex education in school. No doubt there would also be rumblings about how promiscuous African American teenagers are.

Well, we already know that Rudy Giuliani screwed New York's firefighters and bears some responsibility for the deaths of so many brave firefighters on 9/11 and the poisoning of many others in the weeks afterwards.

We already know that Mitt Romney is a flip flopping opportunist who openly supports torture.

But both Rudy and Mitt are also chickenhawks in the shameful tradition of Bush, Cheney and the vast majority of hawkish Republicans. McCain, though his record on Veterans issues sucks, is certainly exempt from the "chickenhawk" accusation. But Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani are cowards who evaded service every way they could, but demand that others serve...and are willing to insult real Veterans in the process.

Chickenhawk: A politician whose hawkishness and willingness to put soldiers' lives on the line is matched only by their desperation to avoid military service themselves.

This was covered in Salon.com last week, but only now getting around to covering it.