Best To Madelyn Dunham

Barack Obama's grandmother is gravely ill.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Barack Obama will leave the campaign trail Thursday to travel to Hawaii to see his 85-year-old grandmother, who has fallen ill, spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday.

“In the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious,” Gibbs told reporters aboard Obama’s campaign plane.

The change of plans means Obama will scrap scheduled rallies Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, and Madison, Wisc. He will instead head to Indianapolis, Ind., for a morning event, leave for Hawaii and return to the campaign trail Saturday, making stops in the West.

Said for a bunch of reasons. If your grandson is weeks away from being elected the President of the United States and yet you may not live to see it... I just can't imagine how that would feel. It must be a combination of pride and dread and sadness. And for Obama, to have this pressure-packed situation and then to see the woman who raised him fall sick.

So he'll be off the trail later in the week. And there are always cretins who come out of the woodwork in times like this. They'll have to live with themselves.