Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama issued this response to news of McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin's announcement that her teen daughter Bristol is pregnant:
"Let me be a clear as possible: I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits," said Obama. "This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president.
"I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories," Obama continued. "My mother had me when she was 18, and how family deals with issues and teenage children -- that shouldn't be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who's supporting me understands that's off limits."
When a journalist followed up by referring to McCain campaign charges that liberal blogs, some even tied to Obama, were behind rumors about Palin, the Illinois senator interjected, "I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us.
"I hope I am as clear as can be, so in case I'm not, let me repeat: We don't go after people's families, we don't get them involved in the politics," Obama continued. "It's not appropriate and it's not relevant.
"Our people were not involved in any way in this and they will not be. And if I ever thought that it was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they'd be fired," closed Obama before departing.
