I don't think it's mental health problems. I don't think she caught an STD from fooling around on the side. I don't think she covered up Trig's true parentage.

I'd guess she had a tubal ligation after Trig was born with Down Syndrome. That's a perfectly sane thing to do for any five-child mother, but it might not play well in certain crazy fundie corners.

Even if that's not it, the point is that there are plenty of reasons anyone would want to retain medical confidentiality, and many or most of them are benign.

Liberty and justice for all.

My home

To be fair, Russ and Goose Creek are both right. That's the beauty of the logo and its symbolism.

The image is meant to reflect a sunrise over American farmland-- while also representing the image of our national flag.

In one fell swoop, the logo annexed:
-- The letter O for Obama (as Bush 43 did with the letter W)
-- The "Morning in America" optimism from Reagan's '84 campaign (the sun, after all, is rising over that field, hinting at the promise of a new day to come)

The logo is designed to appeal to those who desire change and also to those "heartland" voters seeking reassurance that Obama is not the radical they've been told he is.

To me, the logo represents a significant change in American presidential politics. Obama and his team took the idea of "packaging" a president to a quite literal level. The campaign and the candidate were branded in a professional Madison Avenue level that I cannot recall seeing in my lifetime (which is entirely within the era of television-influenced politics). The logo is giant leaps forward from the traditional campaign logo (candidate X's name in a blue field over or under a red and white stripe. Maybe a few stars if you're feeling sporty.) Most campaigns, for all their attempts at breaking out into modern media and new outreach techniques, seem to have graphics departments lifted right out Albert Lasker's ad agency staff ca. 1920.

Obama's campaign graphics, for better or worse, represent a significant change in style in that they more closely resemble a corporate logo than a traditional campaign graphic. Up against any other candidate's graphics, the Obama campaign could make the opponent look hopelessly antiquated-- including Hillary Clinton. This does not necessarily make Obama a better candidate, but it does represent a basic understanding of the psychology required to successfully reach out to the youngest generation of voters-- a generation wrapped entirely in the swaddling clothes provided for it by mass marketing.

To be fair, I found McCain's logo interesting to a degree. It still relies on the tried-and-true "candidates last name and a solid field of color with a stripe and star" format. What struck me is that the color is neither red or blue, but black. The stripe and star are gold. McCain's campaign was clever to make a logo that reminds voters of a naval officers' formal dress uniform and award medal.

Unfortunately for McCain, as with most of his campaign, history was conspiring against his graphics. If the election were simply a matter of voting on Iraq and foreign policy, the graphic (and the campaign) might be seeing better success. In an election based instead on the economy and on the candidate's optimism for the future, a big black billboard, yard sign, or bumper sticker doesn't exactly send the correct subliminal message.