The funny thing about conservatives, they tend to soften their hardline stances when something happens that affects a member of their own family. For instance the father with the gay daughter suddenly revises his stance on homosexuality or the wife of the guy who was against embronic cell research is suddenly all for it when it may possibly provide them a cure.

So that being said it will be interesting to see how Mrs Palin here adapts to the public revelation of her unmarried 17yr old daughter being 5mths pregnant and, more importantly, if the conservative - 'family values' - right suddenly finds the forgiveness in them that always seems to be missing (except, of course, when this kind of thing happens to one of their own).