The topic at hand was Greta Van Susteren’s interview of Bristol Palin, and the way the MSM focused on Bristol’s comment that abstinence “is not realistic at all.”  Cal was displeased that our culture treats having a child before or after marriage as morally equivalent choices. But his call for “the Palins”—which would clearly include Sarah as well as Bristol— to get out of the limelight, seemed to go beyond the subject of out-of-wedlock childbearing.

Cal’s surprising comment came in response to host Gretchen Carlson’s question as to whether the MSM’s highlighting of Bristol’s comment was a “gotcha moment.”

CAL THOMAS: Oh sure.  They love to do that with conservatives and pro-lifers and people who teach abstinence and believe in it like [her mother?] do.  I think that’s absolutely right. But there’s something else here. Back when I was a kid, and young women in high school disappeared for a few months, usually to a Florence Critteden home type of thing, nobody’d go on TV. This was an embarrassment. Now it doesn’t matter what you do. Get on TV, have a kid out of wedlock, it’s all the same as if you get married. I thought it was a terrific interview and it revealed, I think, a real flaw in our culture right now: that every lifestyle choice is equally valid. Have a kid after you get married, have a kid before you get married.  Frankly, I wish the Palins would leave the stage for awhile and get off the air.

I’m curious to know what prompted Cal’s final comment.  Was he disappointed that Sarah encouraged/permitted her daughter to do the interview, perhaps?  Or was there some more fundamental reason that the conservative pundit would like to see Sarah lower her profile for awhile?

Pinkerton on Palin: Jim Pinkerton, a Fox News Watch regular who blogs at Fox Forum, has let me know that he likes Palin and thinks she has a bright future.  Jim worked for Mike Huckabee during the presidential primaries.