Ann Althouse asks a question a lot of people are asking:

...why are we even thinking of evaluating candidates based on the chastity of their offspring? Even if we could ascertain whether a candidate has this qualification -- and, given birth control and abortion, we can't -- it's a patently absurd and offensive idea for a qualification.

Why should the sex lives of Biden's kids be off-limits? The only reason I can think of is that Biden is a Democrat.

Let me admit my bias here. I don't even care about the candidates' sex lives (perhaps I should), so why on earth would I care about the sex lives of their kids? As I said before, I hope this line of attack backfires. I think it represents panic, and a deeply ingrained leftist habit of politicizing the personal. Above all, personal muckraking is a diversion from discussing substantive issues they'd rather not discuss.

However, I have another theory as to why Sarah Palin scares the crap out of the left, and it's not just political, but psychological. I think that she and her family represent that lingering (but ever-cool) American pioneer spirit the emasculated left wants so badly to stamp out. For starters, it just kills them that Palin is more of a man than any of them are. As to the kids, it must absolutely gall Hollywood and New York liberals to see pictures of cool young teenagers unabashedly holding guns. True, they're Alaskans, but Alaskans are Americans, aren't they? And (gasp!) they look like American teenagers! Liberals fear that their own kids might see pictures like that and get ideas. Whether targeting sex lives is the best way to counter the underlying threat posed by America's lingering pioneer spirit is debatable, though.

It might just exacerbate the problem.

I hope it does.

MORE: Thomas Lifson thinks the MSM fears Sarah Palin's authenticity:

A desperate race is underway, with the liberal media scampering to define Sarah Palin to the public as a dangerous religious fanatic and naïve hick, some kind of back woods primitive incapable of effectively discharging the awesome job of president, soon to be thrust upon her as John McCain expires right after his inauguration. Tonight, Governor Palin will have her opportunity to speak directly to the American people, and thanks to the blizzard of critical coverage, she will be no doubt attract an enormous audience.

She has the rarest of qualities: authenticity. Media and Beltway types can't fathom what that is. It goes right over their heads....

MORE: In an exciting Op Ed I've been awaiting, Peggy Noonan says that Sarah Palin is such a threat that she could become transformative.Therefore, they have to kill her quick:

She could become a transformative political presence.

So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.

And it's going to be brutal. It's already getting there.

There are only two questions.

1. Can she take it?

Will she be rattled? Can she sail through high seas? Can she roll with most punches and deliver some jabs herself?

2. And while she's taking it, rolling with it and sailing through, can she put herself forward convincingly as serious enough, grounded enough, weighty enough that the American people can imagine her as vice president of the United States?

I suppose every candidate for vice president faces these questions to some degree, but because Palin is new, unknown, and a woman, it's all much more so.

Who knows? It might even be cooler than "change."