By now you’ve probably heard that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant. Given the mounting evidence that the vetting of Palin was rushed and incomplete, and the fact that a competent, clear-thinking politician would have scratched Palin from the running-mate short list upon learning of the daughter’s pregnancy (if not for other reasons), isn’t it possible that Palin herself only learned of Bristol’s pregnancy within the last 48 hours? In other words, isn’t it easy to imagine a scenario wherein Bristol was too terrified to tell her mother that she was pregnant, and put off telling her, then felt she had to say something after her mother became McCain’s running mate? It’s hard to believe that Palin wouldn’t have mentioned her daughter’s condition to the McCain campaign, but it’s almost as hard to believe that McCain would have chosen her if he’d known. The McCain campaign is acting like everything is going according to plan, but how can that possibly be true?

Obviously it might not have happened this way. But isn’t it conceivable?