In Florida they would be skirting the limits of the law that is hanging over Mark Foley’s head. It’s a poorly written law that won’t stand-up to Constitutional muster, but that’s Repubs for you.

Though I’ll concede your basic point, Bryan: it would be a lot nicer, and considerably less smarmy, if the candidates left their spouses and offspring at home. Even nicer if they’d run on something more substantive than being a “good family man.” (It’s inevitably a man in this position, it seems.)

Kerry’s children joined the campaign and set themselves out there for scrutiny, but this was a case of searching for a child. There is a word for people who scan Facebook looking for children, and it isn’t very nice.

This is another example of why journalists have little ground to stand on when complaining about ethics among bloggers.

Am I advocating payback? No; Chelsea has demonstrated she can take care of herself, and payback would be in execrably bad taste, to say the least. But this is an era in which candidates themselves put forward their children in campaigns. (What? you want to argue that Jenna and Not-Jenna are adults?) It’s a little hard for me to condone candidates pushing their kids in front of cameras to the candidates’ advantage, yet feel any shock when others do something similar to the candidates’ disadvantage.

Do I wish it would all go away? do I find hounding the kids to be in poor taste? Yes to both. But the campaigns themselves brought this on. At least Olbermann merely reported it… unlike Chelsea’s critics, Keith didn’t call anyone “ugly” on the air.