Hey, Obama, I Thought Families Were Off Limits?

I distinctly recall Barack Obama saying families were off limits earlier this week while the media and leftwing blogosphere were in the full throes of their character assassination of Sarah Palin.

So why is it alright for one of Obama's finance minions to take direct aim at Sarah Palin and her family?

An original member of Barack Obama’s finance committee said Friday that Sarah Palin is putting her career above her family by accepting the nomination as John McCain’s running mate.

Howard Gutman made the argument on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” telling the radio host that the Alaska governor should focus her energy on her unwed, pregnant teenage daughter.

“If my daughter had just come home at 17 years old and said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m pregnant, we have a family problem,’ I wouldn’t say, ‘You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to take this private family problem … I’m going to go on the international stage and broadcast it to the world’,” he said.

Gutman later added: “If you take a daughter who’s got this emotional strife and subject her to the most intense scrutiny of the world at this time in her life, I think you’ve put your career above your family.”

The Obama campaign couldn’t be reached immediately for comment, but Gutnam’s statements contrast starkly with the campaign’s declaration this week that Palin’s family is off limits for criticism. It isn’t clear what role, if any, Gutman still has in the campaign.

ABC News reported that the Obama camp issued a statement saying Gutman’s comments don’t reflect the campaign’s views.

Earlier in the week, Obama said anyone spreading rumors about Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy would be fired.

“I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits,” Obama said. “This shouldn’t be part of our politics.”

These scorched earth tactics against Palin are backfiring badly and coupled with Obama's incessant whining himself about being smeared, Obama and his supporters are looking really small and petty.

The audacity for someone to tell what a family should do and how to conduct their business really is demeaning. As if Sarah Palin and her husband and older children are so helpless and incompetent they aren't able to handle their business.

I guess Gutman and the rest of the Democrats would prefer they gave up on life, went on welfare and registered as Democrats. Then they wouldn't have any problem with the Palins.

Obama can't have it both ways. If he claims he doesn't want people attacking the Palins, they he can call off the dogs. Saying someone is no longer in an official campaign capacity is an excuse flimsy at best. He can call Gutman up right now and have him apologize.

The fact he doesn't speak loudly enough.

Update: A fantastic piece from Jeffrey Bell in the Weekly Standard looks at the depths of the rage encompassing and consuming the angry left.

From the instant of Palin's designation on Friday, August 29, the American left went into a collective mass seizure from which it shows no sign of emerging. The left blogosphere and elite media have, for the moment, joined forces and become indistinguishable from each other, and from the supermarket tabloids, in their desire to find and use anything that will criminalize and/or humiliate Palin and her family. In sharp contrast to the yearlong restraint shown toward truthful reports about John Edwards's affair, bizarre rumors have been reported as news, and, according to McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt, nationally known members of the elite media have besieged him with preposterous demands.

The most striking thing in purely political terms about this hurricane of elite rage is the built-in likelihood that it will backfire. It's not simply that it is highly capable of generating sympathy for Palin among puzzled undecided voters and of infuriating and motivating a previously placid GOP base, neither of which is in the interest of the Obama-Biden campaign. It also created an opening for Palin herself to look calm, composed, competent, and funny in response.

The more Palin emerges, the more unhinged the left will become.

The crackup will be spectacular.