I’ve mostly ignored this over the past few months because I believe that examining pictures of a pregnant woman with an eye to figuring out whether her shape is appropriate to the gestation of the fetus is morally degrading to the examiner. But I have to say that I’m with Amanda here, and I’m very surprised at the quarters whence the newest round of conspiracy theory comes.
Don’t get me wrong. It strikes me as completely plausible that Palin, a woman whose public persona is constructed around a conservative fantasy, the tough woman who proves liberals wrong by having Christ, a career, children, and a perfect coiffure, exaggerated the extent to which she was in labor during the plane flight (here’s one account, where the doc says she induced labor upon landing) This would not be surprising for any politician whose career depends more than most on personal charisma and narrative. I have heard that male politicians have sometimes exaggerated their influence in important legislation or their status as a war hero.
What bothers me is the epistemic leap from Palin probably isn’t wholly truthful big friggin’ shocker to Therefore, we have a right to demand the birth certificate of her child to prove that she’s the mother. As near as I can tell the only reason anyone considers the latter question seriously is due to Andrew Sullivan’s hissy fit that started way back before anyone knew that Bristol was pregnant (which makes it next to impossible that there’s another candidate for the role of Trig’s Mother besides Sarah Palin); otherwise it would be a complete non sequitur. Settling the question that Palin is Trig’s mother wouldn’t prove her Wild Ride story to be true or false.
The obvious parallel with birtherism annoys people, but there’s more in common than the fact that in both cases people are demanding birth certificates and bemoaning the lack of MSM interest. In both cases, the demand for the birth certificate came after a bunch of common-sense evidence was rejected as easily fabricated. And I’d be willing to bet that if Palin released Trig’s birth certificate tomorrow, there will still be people pointing out that sometimes adoptive birth certificates show the adoptive parents as the parents with no indication that the child has been adopted, and somewhere down in the abyss of Amanda’s comments there will continue to be arguments that because Palin was photographed wearing kitten-heeled boots, she’s can’t really be the mother.
124 comments
July 6, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Jonathan Rees
Perhaps I’m unduly influenced by being a regular Andrew Sullivan reader, but I think the Palin/Obama comparison is really unfair. There is a credible explanation as to why President Obama hasn’t produced his birth certificate, which is that he actually has produced his birth certificate.
As Sullivan writes over and over, Palin could shut him up instantly by backing up her story about the birth with just about anything. She hasn’t offered up anything. The President did.
July 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm
zunguzungu
I think flagging the leap to “we get to demand the evidence” is the right move here, since, like so many conspiracy theories, there’s sufficient evidence not to believe her story but not sufficient evidence to prove anything else. The trouble is that none of it really matters; if you were actually working for the DNC, then it would make sense to try to hit her wherever her image is weak because that’s how political campaigns are won. If you’re not, on the other hand, I don’t get it; Palin isn’t a menace because she doctors elements of her campaign bio, but because the things she believes are poisonous and stupid and wrong.
July 6, 2010 at 6:31 pm
politicalfootball
I have heard that male politicians have sometimes exaggerated their influence in important legislation or their status as a war hero.
And when ersatz warriors do that, they are generally forced to ‘fess up or face continued questioning. Palin hasn’t done that.
Granted, a really determined politician can endure the questions until, say, Dan Rather makes some poorly sourced claims, thereby putting the issue to rest. But Palin hasn’t done that either (yet).
As long as it seems like she’s fibbing about a key narrative in her life, she’s going to face questions. I don’t have any problem with that.
July 6, 2010 at 6:57 pm
dana
As Sullivan writes over and over, Palin could shut him up instantly by backing up her story about the birth with just about anything
The doctor’s testimony and the newspaper articles about the birth from three days after, long before she was a Presidential candidate, would seem to satisfy a normal observer, just like a normal person probably assumed that Obama’s parents didn’t fake the birth announcements in the local paper in the 1960s in the hopes that he’d be a candidate one day. Moreover, as real life experience has shown, showing the birth certificate hasn’t stopped people from speculating about Obama. I’d be willing to say it’s intensified.
Palin hasn’t done that.
Native citizenship is a requirement for being President; there isn’t the same compelling interest in the case of Trig to demand proof of parentage on evidence that is “her memoir exaggerated the extent of her labor pains.”
People are now arguing, in Amanda’s thread, that the reason they need the birth certificate is that even though it will show Palin as the mom, it will show a date of birth early enough that Bristol could be the mother of both Trig and whatever her kid is named!
(That this is a moving goalpost has not escaped my notice.)
then it would make sense to try to hit her wherever her image is weak because that’s how political campaigns are won.
Somewhat. It only works if it works, and I’m not certain, were I an operative, that I’d go after this line when there’s just so many juicy targets to choose from that are less likely to end in epic failure, if I want to damage Palin’s image.
July 6, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Bucky
I can appreciate both sides of the important/unimportant debate. But ultimately I think it is important because Sarah Palin has made it important. She is the one who holds up Trig as a prop — to much applause — at every public event.
The story of Trig’s birth — an obvious lie — is THE central narrative of her political life. It is the Trig story alone that gives her the anti-abortion bonafides that led McCain to select her as his VP running mate.
The notion that all politicians pad their resume is both true and irrelevant in this case. Assume a man whose political career was predicated on his status as a war hero and POW. Also assume that all of his statements about his time in the service and as a POW were obviously false and there was no documentation to back up his story. None at all. Do you think the press would give him a pass and refuse to investigate because it is “personal” and “none of our business?” Not likely. Nor should they.
July 6, 2010 at 7:45 pm
dana
The analogy doesn’t work. Military service is a matter of public record, and you’re assuming for the sake of argument that it’s known that the man is lying about having served. Here, we have a question raised by some keen analysis of some pictures of Palin in a coat, no real evidence one way or another, and a demand for private records.
It is the Trig story alone that gives her the anti-abortion bonafides that led McCain to select her as his VP running mate.
She was a rightwing darling well before April 2008. She plays up being Trig’s mom, sure, but that’s doesn’t explain why she needs to prove maternity (she’s not the first politician to use her family.)
July 7, 2010 at 4:59 am
Malaclypse
And when ersatz warriors do that, they are generally forced to ‘fess up or face continued questioning.
Not when they are Republicans. GWB “served his country,” remember?
July 7, 2010 at 5:46 am
Erik Lund
I want to like this story. It provides a nice point from which to argue about how the presented facts of historical demography aren’t necessarily to be accepted uncritically, a subject I’ve become rather nutty about lately. “What Sarah Palin can do, so can….”
On the other hand, if Andrew Sullivan is right, Palin took a traditional and supportive step to protect her daughter, and it blew up in her face for reasons that she had no control over, short of refusing the nomination.
Or to put it in small town northwest coast terms, this is something that good neighbours should be ignoring. Find a better reason to vote against Sarah Palin, when and if you have the chance. I’m sure there are a few.
July 7, 2010 at 9:15 am
Colin
Births are powerful symbols. The parallel to birtherism is displacement from what ought to be important (views on issues, record in office) to a birth counter-story. In Obama’s case the counter-story refuses to accept that the son of an African man can be an American; in Palin’s case it denies the baby-making that’s part of her political persona. Both stories involve culturally out-of-place births, or maybe a cultural struggle over the “legitimacy” of a birth.
Notice, too, that politicians have been appearing with families for a long time, but we don’t usually ask male politicians to prove paternity of the well-scrubbed children in their brochures. (The “prop” argument re Trig Palin is a troubling double standard.) Nor do white politicians typically face scrutiny of their births (the ironic counterpart of birtherism was that it was the Canal Zone-born Republican candidate in 2008 who was arguably not native born but, I think reasonably, nobody cared.) So it’s reasonable to ask why you get the special fervor, and epistemological closure, around both birth counter-stories.
July 7, 2010 at 11:01 am
dave
Please don’t use ‘epistemological closure’ to mean ‘blind partisanship’. It makes you sound like a dick.
July 7, 2010 at 12:19 pm
cloey
Why should Sarah Palin have to produce birth certificates on her children when Obama can’t/won’t produce his?
July 7, 2010 at 12:28 pm
frannypak
Just to be fair, Andrew Sullivan doesn’t say he thinks Bristol is the mother; he just wants to know which part she’s lying about. And honestly, even if this is a true story, why isn’t she being completely shamed about taking such huge risks with a baby she supposedly wanted to deliver complication-free? She’s a crazy horrible person if she did all the things she said she did during that labor, and somebody should her on that to her face, if only to make her admit she doesn’t care about anybody else’s life but her own.
July 7, 2010 at 12:32 pm
DarkEFang
Palin’s political base outside of Alaska is almost entirely based on her choosing to give birth to a Down’s Syndrome baby. She was chosen as McCain’s VP candidate because she shored up the pro-life movement. She continues to enjoy support from the pro-life movement, as well as the end-of-days evangelical movement that see her as a kind of quasi-religious figure – again because of her decision to give birth to a Down’s Syndrome child.
Considering this, a bit of curiosity about the circumstances surrounding Trig’s birth isn’t a double standard. I can’t name a single other politician (male or female) whose political rise is due to a similar circumstance.
July 7, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Lymis
“Why should Sarah Palin have to produce birth certificates on her children when Obama can’t/won’t produce his?”
Ummm… he has. Repeatedly. Certified copy. But apparently until he goes door to door with the original, that’s not enough.
July 7, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Mel
All that a truly pregnant SP would have had to tell the public is that she gave birth after arriving home from a conference. For some reason she decided to back up to the moment the sensations of birth began and weave an ridiculous fable that smacks of a desperate need to hide something–which in this case was the fact that SHE WAS NOT PREGNANT. I don’t know who the mother of the children offered up as “Trigs” (yes, more than one) is, but she is not, and it pisses me off to have somehow who hopes to lead my country feed me such bullshit without any sense of obligation to explain if not prove. And quit with the comparisons with President Obama. PRESIDENT Obama, who is so beyond her bush league it’s laughable.
July 7, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Kathy
I think one of the interesting aspects about Trig’s Birth Certificate, isn’t the fact that she merely refused to show it citing privacy reasons, she lied and said she did show it. Personally, I think she is telling the truth. She was in labor with Trig and hopped a plane to AK putting her special needs son at risk. Thus showing appalling judgement. Now, will someone please explain why appalling judgement is a qualification for the Presidency or is good judgement now elitist.
July 7, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Logan
If Sarah Palin was a Democrat and the conservative blogosphere had accumulated the amount of photographic, timeline and logical evidence the liberal blogosphere has, this story would be getting Dan Rather / Texas Air National Guard treatment and the mainstream media would be obsessed with getting to the bottom of it. They would demand documents. They would demand testimony. And they would be utterly relentless until they got their way.
But Sarah Palin is a Republican, so the rules are different. A Democratic President who lies about oral sex with a consenting adult gets impeached. A Republican President who lies a nation into a war in Iraq gets a second term.
A Democratic Presidential candidate who serves with honor in Vietnam and earns medals for valor gets smeared. A Republican Presidential candidate who spent the war protecting the skies over Amarillo is referred to as “a fighter pilot.”
Want to know how David Vitter (prostitute scandal) and John Ensign (mistress) are still in the Senate? They aren’t Democrats.
I think the only way we’ll ever get to the bottom of this is if Palin switches parties, after which finding out the truth will suddenly be in the national interest.
July 7, 2010 at 1:20 pm
JDNash
Dana,
Some logic missing there:
1. The contemporaneous newspaper stories: Folks are not claiming that she lied about being the mother in order to run for Vice-President, the theory is that she lied to protect her daughter and/or to ensure that the baby would be born. The date of the newspaper stories is irrelevant, unlike in Obama’s case, where that would require some epic foresight. In any event, even if the theory did turn on some political motivation, Ms. Palin was governor of a state, and as you point out, a darling of the right (and even on my radar as a up-and-comer) as of April 2008. It may only be important to you and Andrew Sullivan once there were national implications, but she had massive (by normal standards) political capital invested and on the line by April 2008.
2. Moving goalposts? So if the birth took place a month or two before April 2008, that makes the story OK? “They” said they only wanted to see Palin as the Mom, and she was the mom in February, so everyone should be satisfied? I understand your frustration at the moving target of people you are arguing against, but if Ms. Palin’s story cannot be true on its face, then we are all left to imagine what the true story is. And when there are lots of puzzled people trying to come up with ways to square the facts (some of which they do not have access to), then naturally they will have different views from each other as to what the actual explanation is.
I do recognize that all this smacks of conspiracy theory; some of it is a bit fantastical, and one gets frustrated because one cannot disprove a conspiracy and all that. But honestly, she hasn’t made a serious effort to explain anything.
I for one think that she just made up (or reimagined) the water breaking in Texas part. But it could be more than that for all I know. As the wise sage Kurt Cobain once sang (by analogy): “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you . . .”
July 7, 2010 at 1:22 pm
silbey
a bit of curiosity about the circumstances surrounding Trig’s birth isn’t a double standard.
“a bit of curiosity” is not remotely the same thing as “you have created a massive conspiracy to hide that you’re not the mother of the child as you claim.”
For some reason she decided to back up to the moment the sensations of birth began and weave an ridiculous fable that smacks of a desperate need to hide something–which in this case was the fact that SHE WAS NOT PREGNANT.
Or, alternatively, that, like a lot of politicians, she likes to tell heroic stories about herself that exaggerate the heroism part.
July 7, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Bill
When Palin ran for Mayor in 1996, she forced her opponent, John Stein, to produce his marriage certificate because his wife still used her maiden name.
This makes her fair game.
July 7, 2010 at 1:46 pm
dana
the theory is that she lied to protect her daughter and/or to ensure that the baby would be born.
I’m going to regret asking, but how does lying about the date of his birth accomplish this?
Moving goalposts?
At first, people wanted to see the birth certificate in the hopes that it would show that Bristol was the mom, and that Trig was born in April. Once it was established that Bristol was pregnant with Tripod and couldn’t be the mother of Trig, then the fuss about the birth certificate became a fuss to show that his birth was much earlier than reported, so that Bristol could still be a candidate for being the mom.
The argument is now that we have a need to see the birth certificate because the original theory that Bristol had Trig in April didn’t align with the facts. This is a desire for a birth certificate wildly in search of a justification.
My interest here isn’t in defending Palin as much as it is an interest in what conditions have to obtain to incur an obligation on a politician to reveal something personal about a member of his family.
July 7, 2010 at 1:59 pm
DarkEFang
“a bit of curiosity” is not remotely the same thing as “you have created a massive conspiracy to hide that you’re not the mother of the child as you claim.”
Who says this has to be a massive conspiracy? Sarah, Todd and the kids (minus Piper) would probably have to know. Other than that, you might have a doctor (Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson?) and possibly a nurse who would have to be in the know. Then, if legal documents were written up, Thomas Van Flein or some other attorney would have to know. If Trig was adopted outside the family, then you would have an adoption director that would have to know.
This is a handful of family, close personal friends (CBJ) and people bound by nondisclosure agreements. Even people working in the governor’s office must not have known, or else they wouldn’t have been repeatedly quoted talking about how they had no clue that Palin was seven-months pregnant. Some people might have a vague notion that something odd was going on, but they’d have no proof. And most people in a position to notice anything would likely be oblivious.
July 7, 2010 at 2:06 pm
anne
Let’s just say Sarah Palin is indeed the mother of Trig. Seems plausible, in that there is – what – about 8 months that separate Trig from Tripp? Seems biologically impossible to get pregnant the very day your first child was born…
Anyway, just say that Sarah is Trig’s mom. What has always bothered me is her self-righteous pro-life chest pounding – even though this baby has Down’s, I didn’t abort it! And then, her claim that her water broke when 8 months into a high risk pregnancy. And instead of heading over to the hospital, as any sane pregnant woman would have done, she boarded a plane for Alaska to avoid the horror of birthing a Palin baby in Texas.
That is an incredibly risky decision to make in any pregnancy, let alone when you know you are pregnant with a baby that will likely be born with heart issues, as many babies with Down Syndrome are likely to have.
That’s the mindset we do NOT need in the White House.
July 7, 2010 at 2:26 pm
chaos
What a bunch of loons. Have any of you ever actually seen a vagina, and this includes the women? Do you know how babies are made and born? Nice to get your unqualified opinions about it. And the only reason this is happening is because Palin is a “conservative”, a “Republican,” or whatever. No one would care about Hillary Clinton taking a last-minute flight home to deliver a Down’s Syndrome baby after her water broke if it had happened to her. Not a single damn person.
“Not when they are Republicans. GWB “served his country,” remember?”
Yeah I remember a president who openly talked about how he dodged the draft and went to Europe. Lots of people seem to like him. Hell, even I like him. Both as president and afterwards. He did have a problem with his pants though.
What was his name again? William… William something… William Jefferson Clinton? Yeah that’s right.
We’re at the point in this country where talk is absolutely worthless. The only point of any political comment is to emotionally denigrate your opponents and hopefully humiliate them into shutting up/not participating in politics. If this was another country with a different history we’d probably already have seen massive political violence from both sides during the Bush Administration.
We’ll see who wins on election day, and the losers can eat shit until the next election. That’s where we are. Congratulations America!
July 7, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Colin
1. The phrase “fair game” is a good clue that mean-spiritedness is afoot. Even unspeakable people have the right to be treated decently. Plus we should be just a little bit reflective about the ease with which women in public life are pushed into dichotomies in which you’re either a self-sacrificing mother or an ambitious bitch. I really don’t think I know enough to make judgments about Palin’s abilities as a Mom, and I worry about people who think they do.
2. What’s the basis of drkefang’s assertion that “Palin’s political base outside of Alaska is almost entirely based on her choosing to give birth to a Down’s Syndrome baby.” Have we surveyed her base? Done interviews? How do we know this? Or are we just assuming that her supporters are idiots?
3. The prying curiosity and weird certainty displayed by the birth-obsessed make sense, though, in the context of the celebrity culture of _People_ magazine etc. What’s weird about people who like that stuff is not so much the prurient nosiness, which is at least understandable, as the absolute certainty with which they speak about the personal lives of people they don’t know. It’s a small step from this overconfidence to paranoid conspiracy-imagining and imperviousness to counter-evidence (which is, dave, what “epistemological closure” means here!)
July 7, 2010 at 2:57 pm
thehova
heh, Andrew Sullivan has gone of the deep end and, from a brief look at this post’s comment section, he’s taken a lot of his readers with him.
July 7, 2010 at 3:45 pm
tacy
1. Obama showed his birth certificate. Palin lied and said she did, when she didn’t.
2. Saying we shouldn’t care about whether Palin actually gave birth to Trig is like saying we shouldn’t care that Eliot Spitzer had an affair..and that obviously wasn’t the case. Why the double standard?
3. The mother’s name can indeed be changed on birth certificates. But the birth date cannot. There is plausible evidence that suggests Trig was born earlier, and only unveiled to the public on April 18, 2008.
4. No media has addressed the question of why Palin has passed off 2 different babies as “Trig”. Pictures don’t lie: http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2010/02/tale-of-two-babies-by-sarah-palin.html
July 7, 2010 at 3:54 pm
dana
Oh, Christ, there’s another Palin child?
July 7, 2010 at 3:57 pm
More Cowbell
“In both cases, the demand for the birth certificate came after a bunch of common-sense evidence was rejected as easily fabricated. And I’d be willing to bet that if Palin released Trig’s birth certificate tomorrow, there will still be people pointing out that sometimes adoptive birth certificates show the adoptive parents as the parents with no indication that the child has been adopted”
There are two differences in the cases. President Obama has released his birth certificate. And Palin’s release of a birth certificate would answer the question in some people’s minds. According to people in Alaska, the birth certificate WOULD have the Palins as parents. But the one thing that can’t be changed is the date of Trig’s birth. That, I believe, is why she won’t release it.
“way back before anyone knew that Bristol was pregnant ”
You have things backward there. People in Alaska were speculating that Bristol was pregnant at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, way before Sarah Palin was a blip on the national screen.
July 7, 2010 at 4:02 pm
More Cowbell
“The doctor’s testimony ”
The only testimony came in the form of a letter released on the eve of the election. It did not state that Palin gave birth to Trig. It did not state that CBJ was present at the birth. It got the year that Piper was born wrong. It’s hardly evidence of anything other than that Sarah Palin has a low opinion of what people will believe. And she’s apparently correct.
July 7, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Russell60
I haven’t seen so many ruffled feathers here since the time somebody suggested that Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley weren’t necessarily two-thirds of the Holy Trinity.
July 7, 2010 at 4:29 pm
DarkEFang
“2. What’s the basis of drkefang’s assertion that “Palin’s political base outside of Alaska is almost entirely based on her choosing to give birth to a Down’s Syndrome baby.” Have we surveyed her base? Done interviews? How do we know this? Or are we just assuming that her supporters are idiots?”
Read the political blogs. The makeup of Palin’s base has been analyzed and discussed on all sides of the political divide for a couple years now.
July 7, 2010 at 4:33 pm
1smartcanerican
Since Sarah Palin uses/used Trig (where is he these days?) to enhance her bona fide to the Xtian right, thus locking up that vote, it is important that she prove that she, in fact, birthed Trig as she announced. If he is adopted, that is acceptable – but why lie about that? Could it be because Trig was actually born much earlier, thus the birth certificate cannot be released because it would show the correct birth date?
It is the LIES around this event that cause Palin to be questioned. The fact that she continues to lie opens her to further review as a political figure.
While many politicians tell whoppers from time to time, none have had the audacity to create a whole new life around their political ambitions -and the lie has been given legs by the lack of reporting by the MSM, and the lack of truth from the McCain campaign.
Her followers are cult-like in their adoration of their ‘holy mother’ who gave birth to Tri-G. This is scary in that, as some have actually said in their message, they are willing to die for Sarah. Is that the kind of adoration that a politician should engender?
July 7, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Malaclypse
Saying we shouldn’t care about whether Palin actually gave birth to Trig is like saying we shouldn’t care that Eliot Spitzer had an affair
We should not have cared about Spitzer.
No media has addressed the question of why Palin has passed off 2 different babies as “Trig”. Pictures don’t lie
Also, no media have addressed this vital issue: http://www.bartcop.com/obama-alien-endorsement.jpg
Pictures don’t lie, people!
July 7, 2010 at 5:00 pm
More Cowbell
“Notice, too, that politicians have been appearing with families for a long time, but we don’t usually ask male politicians to prove paternity of the well-scrubbed children in their brochures. (The “prop” argument re Trig Palin is a troubling double standard.) ”
It would be a troubling double standard if you could name one other politician who uses a child as a weapon the way Palin does. She can’t just say that she doesn’t think Americans deserve health care reform (while she and her family get free health care because of Todd’s Native ancestry). She has to make up a vile lie about “death panels” and say that Trig would have been put to death.
Trig is her ONLY credential. There were other Republican women who are smarter, more accomplished, and more experienced than Palin. But none of them could appeal to the socially conservative base like a woman with a DS child.
Of course, Trig isn’t the only child she uses. She deliberately brought Piper onto the ice at a hockey game in Philadelphia when she was told that the fans would boo. She told her handlers, “Let them boo Piper.” She threw Bristol under the bus by revealing her pregnancy in August 2008. She did that ONLY in an attempt to prove that Bristol could not have given birth to Trig. A caring mother would have proved that she, Sarah, HAD given birth to Trig instead of exposing Bristol that way. But Sarah Palin cares only for herself.
“I really don’t think I know enough to make judgments about Palin’s abilities as a Mom, and I worry about people who think they do. ”
At least you admit that you don’t know what’s going on in Alaska. Track had to choose between the army and jail after vandalizing school buses. Willow was the ringleader in a gang of kids who broke into and vandalized a house last December (the reason that the Palins cut their Hawaii vacation short) causing over $20k in damage. (Sarah Palin arranged a deal in which only the boys, not the girls, would be charged).
But everyone should be able to see what kind of mother Sarah Palin is by her very public acts. She carted Trig and Piper along on her book tour, bringing Trig out to meet the crowds on winter nights wearing nothing but a diaper and a shirt– no socks, no pants, no shoes. DS kids need intensive therapy and regular schedules if they’re to achieve their full potential. Piper lamented after the campaign that she didn’t think she’d be able to catch up in school, and yet Sarah continues to keep her out of school for public appearances, even taking her to the funeral of former governor Wally Hickel, to which Sarah was not invited. Piper is her shield.
July 7, 2010 at 5:03 pm
silbey
ho says this has to be a massive conspiracy? Sarah, Todd and the kids (minus Piper) would probably have to know. Other than that, you might have a doctor (Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson?) and possibly a nurse who would have to be in the know. Then, if legal documents were written up, Thomas Van Flein or some other attorney would have to know. If Trig was adopted outside the family, then you would have an adoption director that would have to know.
That fits my definition of a massive conspiracy.
July 7, 2010 at 5:14 pm
nswfm
This was from a comment on either the blog for Bree Palin or Palingates around 11/17 when her book came out:
“Joe Christmas…
Just insult us again you lying fraud. I know it is unlikely it will be babygate that brings this psychopath down, like taxes brought down Capone, but this is a load of crap.
As an ER doctor, an I can say that after 25 years, I know something about the human condition. When a woman is in labor, i.e. contractions, that is true visceral pain. I can recognize it from across the street. Anyone who has had a gallbladder attack, a kidney stone, a bowel obstruction, or any woman in labor will understand, there are no speeches, getting on planes, or holding hands tenderly. If there’s praying to be done, it’s to the Patron Saint of Anesthesia.
Of course, the idiocy of claiming you can pass thru labor calmly without anyone noticing is just one of several reprehensible points about the ‘Wild Ride’.
— What kind of stupid person doesn’t go directly to a hospital with the onset of labor? “Any idiot would know that.”
That kind of decision-making wouldn’t be appropriate for a 3rd grader, much less any kind of public official.
— The risks you incur on your child, yourself, the passengers, the crew. No Fucking Way.
— Audrey’s comment that this vainglorious clown would never risk legs akimbo, meconium stained, hoping a flight attendent can repair a rectal tear, delivery mid-flight.
She would be the laughingstock of the world as well as the total humiliation of ruffling her bumpit.
Liar, liar, liar.
Quitter, quitter, quitter.”
July 7, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Mave
The rumors persists because Palin’s story, appearance and Bristol’s 5 month absence from school led to them. The woman is an idiot if she faked a pregnancy; and even if she didn’t, she is an idiot for not dealing with the rumors in a simple straight-forward way that proved her story.
How hard is it to issue an official statement from her physician that says she delivered Trig Palin from Sarah Palin’s womb and here is the nurse who assisted to corroborate and here are Palin’s medical records which show the prenatal and postnatal care she received during this pregnancy? Not hard.
But, my subjective opinion after I watched the Elan Frank video is that Palin wore a pillow. Yes, I think she is that crazy.
http://www.palindeception.com/blog/2008/12/elan-frank-screenshots.html
July 7, 2010 at 5:25 pm
politicalfootball
M. Cowbell, I was intrigued the differing descriptions you and dana gave of the letter from Dr. Baldwin-Johnson, so I fetched it.
I can see why you didn’t provide the link.
July 7, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Popeye
Read the political blogs. The makeup of Palin’s base has been analyzed and discussed on all sides of the political divide for a couple years now.
So you read the political blogs, and you’ve come to the conclusion that if people only knew the truth about Palin’s Down Syndrome baby, her base would vanish into thin air and her supporters would pledge full allegiance to Michelle Bachmann instead? Really? I mean, you look at Palin’s base and then you become outraged by little she’s done to truly earn their backing? Get out.
July 7, 2010 at 7:48 pm
alskdj
With a few notable exceptions, you are all effing crazy.
And that includes you, Mr. ER Doctor, and your comments about labor. My water broke and I didn’t have a single painful contraction for nearly 15 hours, so you’re either the world’s worst doctor or a fool (or both, probably). You haven’t got a clue what you are talking about.
You people are FAR WORSE THAN ANY TEN “BIRTHERS” put together. You are all bat guano crazy and it’s no wonder the country is going to hell in a hurry with your side in charge.
I don’t know what’s scarier. Obama as President or you lunatics living among the rest of us sane people. Please, for the sake of your children, GET PROFESSIONAL HELP RIGHT NOW.
July 7, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Ignobility
Is that ER doctor a man or a woman? Pregnant women don’t always rush to the hospital the moment membranes are ruptured. Some go for hikes in the mountains (as a recent patient did), some want to eat a big meal or take a walk, or have sex. Others rush to the hospital for every little ache or pain. Some women come to the hospital in labor and are sent home. Some women have their babies in the toilet. Every woman is different and every pregnancy is different. It is not wise to use such generalizations when one knows little about the subject at hand, ER doc or not.
Why do conspiracy theorists always sound so fervently insane? I’m not a fan of Sarah Palin, but there’re so many other things to find
fault with about her, we don’t need to resort to this kind of nonsense.
July 8, 2010 at 12:23 am
Dave
Remind me, why are we focusing on this piece of nonsense, when SP is so demonstrably a lying, greedy, self-righteous, hypocritical sack of shit? She is condemned, again and again, out of her own Twitter feed, let alone her book, her speeches and her public, verifiable conduct.
And no, ‘epistemological closure’ doesn’t mean that, even if you want it to.
July 8, 2010 at 1:11 am
Ben Alpers
Congratulations, dana! You’ve managed to find a topic that produces a level of impassioned lunacy in the comment threads that challenges the Big Three: 1) slavery and the Civil War; 2) Israel/Palestine; 3) Ron Paul.
A well-earned deployment of the “we’re doomed” tag!
July 8, 2010 at 2:32 am
Malaclypse
You’ve managed to find a topic that produces a level of impassioned lunacy in the comment threads that challenges the Big Three: 1) slavery and the Civil War; 2) Israel/Palestine; 3) Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is Trig’s real mother. Trig was actually born in Palestine. Trig’s birth was inspired by State’s Rights, not slavery.
July 8, 2010 at 4:06 am
Lidia
“Some women have their babies in the toilet”!!!!????!!!
THAT’s the rationale we are supposed to use for someone who was potentially to be given great power, possibly the greatest power on earth? A woman who was willing to give birth in a toilet?
Trust me, no woman with a high-risk pregnancy is going to go on two long commercial flights bypassing a half-dozen hospitals (including one 5 min. from the Tx. conference venue).
And the Sarah Palin whose passion for Lear jets and bendy straws is now well-known would *not* have passed up Rick Perry’s offer of his private plane to get back to AK, now would she?? No way!
Why was her security detail waived at her request for this trip only?? (Replaced with Todd, whom she said the RGA would “pay for”). This was arranged ahead of time.
Why did Todd’s e-mail to AK after the speech say that Sarah “kicked ass” .. but no mention at all of any labor or urgent/changed arrival plans???
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/all-too-convenient-lie.html
http://crivellawest.net/palin/pdf/1105.pdf
Disbelieve all you want, but sooner or later the truth will out.
July 8, 2010 at 4:19 am
dana
Why do conspiracy theorists always sound so fervently insane?
I don’t know, but it’s making me want to amend my first sentence: apparently scrutinizing pictures of pregnant women makes your brain hospital to parasites that eat the creamy rational centers.
This is awesome.
July 8, 2010 at 6:03 am
litbrit
Pregnant women don’t always rush to the hospital the moment membranes are ruptured.
The “pregnant” woman in this case experienced prematurely ruptured membranes and labor at eight months. That is a medical emergency, particularly if the woman is a multi-para and of an age–35 or over–that automatically places her in the “high risk pregnancy” category anyway. Bear in mind, too, that this was a special-needs infant: Down Syndrome babies often have difficulties breathing, and/or heart problems when they’re born; many, if not most, premature babies, Down or not, need to be incubated at first and kept in NICU’s too. Facts are your friends.
Find me one obstetrician in the country who would tell a 40-something multi-para woman in her eighth month of pregnancy who had leaking/broken amniotic fluid and was experiencing contractions (all this is per Palin herself), that she did *not* need to go directly to a hospital to get checked. (Forget taking two transcontinental flights. What utter nonsense.)
You won’t be able to.
I realize facts can be inconvenient when they don’t fit your preconceived notions of how things ought to play out. Or maybe people are too squeamish to read the particulars and instead focus on the peripheral discussions in comment sections (boots with heels, etc.) because those support, rather than refute, their smug perceptions about “conspiracy theorists”, who are so much fun to ridicule.
I think one thing is extremely clear: the author of this condescending and highly ill-informed post, just like Amanda, is choosing to focus on those very speculations and peripheral discussions, conflating them with the core issue here: the woman selected by the very powerful Republican party to run for the second-highest office in the United States, behind a 72-year-old cancer survivor, lied about being pregnant with, and giving birth to, a special needs baby on April 18, 2008.
And, to this day, hardly anyone will point out that the Empress has no clothes. The Big Lies people continue to be willing to swallow call to mind the incredulous head-shaking of the SEC folks in the Bernie Madoff case: No-one would mount a fraud this brazen, this insane. It’s got to be a conspiracy theory made up by detractors.
Why she would do such a thing, who is the real mother…those are all debatable, though obviously some speculations make more sense than others.
And saying “it doesn’t matter” when your assertions, like “hey, some pregnant women give birth in the toilet” (as though that’s some kind of germane argument) are called to the mat isn’t good enough, either. Neither does saying it isn’t nice to focus on pregnant woman’s stomachs, or, as in this case, pantomime stomachs.
None of this would matter, nowhere near as much, if Palin had a strong record of public-service accomplishments and policy-implementing from which she’d derived her bona fides, as opposed to a very thin resume and an even sketchier education, and if she had not trumpeted this very pregnancy and birth, from Day One, as proof of her being both pro-life *and* tough (or something) (seriously, that she had given birth to a special needs child while still governor was the first thing I heard about her, via a breathless and thrilled–and childless–Maria Bartiromo, on the morning of her selection).
McCain needed that pro-life/fundie vote. Billy Graham, who has a home in Alaska, and other leaders in the Christian milieu, had already met with, and leaned on, McCain, who, according to his own staff members as quoted in the book Game Change, was originally wanting to select Joe Lieberman or Charlie Crist as
It certainly does matter. Palin is still a strong contender for the Republican nomination in 2012, and in states with strong pro-life, fundamentalist populations, we’re well aware of this truth.
She is a liar and a fraud. She was then, she is now, and she will be in 2012. Q.E.D.
July 8, 2010 at 6:08 am
litbrit
(The above should read was originally wanting to select Joe Lieberman or Charlie Crist as his running mate.)
July 8, 2010 at 6:08 am
Ms. Hissy
Its so funny that you describe Sullivan’s musings as a “hissy fit”. Its funny because he’s gay, and we all know gays have irrational tantrums like little girls. I suppose I could contribute to the tone of your discourse by describing it as the rantings of a typical castrating wench, but I wouldn’t do that.
July 8, 2010 at 6:48 am
silbey
“Q.E.D.”
Ben’s right; if we could get the Paulbots, the “War of Northern Aggression” folks, and a side order of Israel/Palestine, we could really have comment thread armageddon in this one.
Who’s got popcorn?
July 8, 2010 at 7:03 am
DarkEFang
“That fits my definition of a massive conspiracy.”
Six to eight people is a massive conspiracy? Stuff like this is all semantics, I guess.
“So you read the political blogs, and you’ve come to the conclusion that if people only knew the truth about Palin’s Down Syndrome baby, her base would vanish into thin air and her supporters would pledge full allegiance to Michelle Bachmann instead?”
My hope would be that these people might start to wake up to the fact that they’re being cynically used by Palin for personal gain. Palin is taking advantage of people’s faith.
“Why do conspiracy theorists always sound so fervently insane?”
How many people pooh-poohing Babygate have actually done any kind of research on the topic before declaring that skepticism about Palin’s story is insane?
I’m sure it also seemed insane that a governor would sneak out of his state to have an affair in South America and call it a hike in the woods. Or that a Presidential candidate would cover up having a baby with another woman while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment? Or that a President would order the theft of documents from the headquarters of an opposing political party?
Politicians try to pull the wool over our eyes all the time. Since the media has given up doing it’s job, it’s up to us to try and keep them honest.
July 8, 2010 at 7:09 am
silbey
Six to eight people is a massive conspiracy?
Yep, especially when they’re doctor- and lawyer-types.
I’m sure it also seemed insane that a governor would sneak out of his state to have an affair in South America and call it a hike in the woods. Or that a Presidential candidate would cover up having a baby with another woman while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment? Or that a President would order the theft of documents from the headquarters of an opposing political party?
All those people are in the earth orbit of insanity; you are currently approaching the galactic edge.
–
By the way, folks, you do realize that you’re actually helping Palin with her base now, right? She can play the “look how crazy and evil my opponents are” card and reemphasize her image as Red Meat Momma. Good work; you’ve officially helped her get nominated in 2012.
July 8, 2010 at 7:09 am
Cam Winston
// Its funny because he’s gay, and we all know gays have irrational tantrums like little girls. //
It’s come to the point where if someone notices Andrew Sullivan’s penchant for over-the-top hysteria, they’re a homophobe. Good lord, what are you, nine?
That’s almost as funny as someone taking a picture of their bare butt, putting it in an advertisement for quick $ex under the name ‘rawmucleglutes’, all while criticizing anonymous & meaningless $ex, and then having the gall to question someone else’s judgment.
Or, even worse, being a follower of such a person (who is now pretty much deranged).
July 8, 2010 at 7:10 am
dana
the author of this condescending and highly ill-informed post, just like Amanda, is choosing to focus on those very speculations and peripheral discussions,
Litbrit, the so-called peripheral issues are on your front page, with the pics of celebrity baby bumps.
I have no reason to doubt that a woman in labor at 35 weeks would immediately seek medical treatment; but that’s a reason to believe that Palin was exaggerating that she was in the throes of labor (which is consistent with her doctor describing the eventual birth as “induced”), and you don’t get from there to believing that she faked the pregnancy, the birth, and the date of birth without making a boatload of assumptions.
I suppose I could contribute to the tone of your discourse by describing it as the rantings of a typical castrating wench, but I wouldn’t do that.
We all applaud your ability to post from such a high, high horse.
July 8, 2010 at 7:13 am
Cam Winston
By the way, I’m the real mother of Trig. Had him on the grassy knoll.
July 8, 2010 at 7:34 am
Malaclypse
By the way, I’m the real mother of Trig. Had him on the grassy knoll.
Yes, but did you fly to the knoll after your water broke?
July 8, 2010 at 7:43 am
Cam Winston
Yes, on an airplane with a pillow hidden in the cargo bay so as to replicate a bump. I kept tinfoil wrapped around my daughter’s head, so she was able to fake someone else’s pregnancy. Then she had another kid 8 months later.
July 8, 2010 at 7:52 am
politicalfootball
It may be a little late to try to turn this thread back to sensible discussion, and I certainly agree that based on the evidence in this thread, Trig birtherism is roughly on a par with Obama birtherism, but why should the media (and the public) not be interested in Palin’s weird story about plane trips and labor?
July 8, 2010 at 7:56 am
Lidia
Induced?? Dana, her doctor described nothing of the sort. Her doctor will no longer comment and has sought legal counsel.
If Sarah’s “labor” were induced, then why would she describe it as the “easiest” birth she ever experienced?? Induced births tend to be tougher and more painful than normal births, not less.
—-
Please look into a forensic tool called “statement analysis”. Liars and criminals almost always reveal themselves in unguarded moments. [OJ Simpson during the slow-speed chase: "I'm the only one..". His book titles, "If I Did It" and "I Want to Tell You"! ]
Palin said “It was really great: I was only pregnant a month!” That has meaning. Take her at her word here.
http://www.campaign.com/candidates/candidates117.taf?_function=read&oid=1685
“It was smooth. It was relatively easy,” Palin said. “In fact it was the easiest of all.”
(Yes, because you were not pregnant!!)
http://www.adn.com/2008/04/22/382864/palins-child-diagnosed-with-down.html
More statement analysis: Sarah more than once has talked about “meeting” Trig.. Who says that? You might say I can’t wait to ‘see’ him/her.. but “meet”?? I think women who have had a child moving around inside them 24/7 for months don’t think of their babies as strangers they are going to meet… Sarah has acted like a stranger to Trig even afterwards, usually holding him facing out, or passing him off to Bristol or other ‘handlers’.
More statement analysis: the birth announcement written by Sarah AS GOD (signed, “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father”). She is so personally distant from the actual act of “creating” this child that she has to write about it in the third person!!
Listen to what she is telling us, people!
July 8, 2010 at 7:57 am
Puzzled
Why did Palin’s doctor (Cathy Baldwin Johnson) bring a lawyer with her to the offices of the Anchorage Daily News? The ADN was trying to clear up the whole pregnancy speculation and when asked if she was present at the birth of Trig to Sarah, Johnson replied “no comment?”
July 8, 2010 at 8:08 am
Malaclypse
Why did Palin’s doctor (Cathy Baldwin Johnson) bring a lawyer with her to the offices of the Anchorage Daily News? The ADN was trying to clear up the whole pregnancy speculation and when asked if she was present at the birth of Trig to Sarah, Johnson replied “no comment?”
Because HIPAA violations are costly.
July 8, 2010 at 8:15 am
dana
Induced?? Dana, her doctor described nothing of the sort.
It’s in the very article you linked.
July 8, 2010 at 8:33 am
Cam Winston
Listen to what she is telling us, people!
Except when she’s lying, right?
It may be a little late to try to turn this thread back to sensible discussion
Correction: a LOT late.
July 8, 2010 at 9:09 am
Trish
Personally, she lost my vote before I ever heard the rumors about faking a pregnancy. When I read that she told no one but Todd before 7 months, and then told her staff before her mother and kids, I understood that her political ambitions came before her family at all costs. When I read that she flew to Dallas to give a speech while 8 months pregnant (doctors advise no air travel in the last trimester), I knew her political ambitions came before her unborn child. When I read that she hopped a plane after her water broke without being examined by a doctor, I knew she was totally lacking in judgement in emergency situations. I would actually understand her better and be more supportive of her if she did fake a pregnancy to protect her daughter than I am with the actual events.
July 8, 2010 at 9:28 am
litbrit
Dana, the faked pregancy–and the photos on my front page that clearly show same to anyone with eyes and a brain–is not a periperal issue; rather, the “kitten heels” reference in your smug, condescending title, lifted from a discussion between commenters at the Pandagon thread, is the peripheral issue. Jesus.
The photos to which you refer show Palin, pregnant beforehand in the 1990′s, and then Palin, allegedly pregnant in 2008, alongside two other very slim, very fit women at the exact same stage of pregnancy. That they are celebrities has nothing to do with anything (although I realize it helps you disparage the whole matter as stupid, People-style gossip); I could just have easily have posted a photograph of myself at 25 weeks, and it would have dwarfed all three baby bumps. And I am a thin, fit woman.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been pregnant, but I strongly suspect not. You cannot hide a 25-week baby bump with “tight abs”, and that’s because it’s not a bump–it’s a baby, for crying out loud. Flesh, bone, placenta, umbilical cord, and a hard ball of fluid surrounding it all.
I’m tired of people regarding pregnancy, labor, and childbirth as though they are incidental, as though they’re mere inconvenient blips in a woman’s life, things that can be glossed over, or have a scarf flipped across, while more important things are tended to. In its own twisted, sad way, that attitude is as patriarchal as it gets.
The photos are dated, and exhaustively checked to be sure that the dates are correct. So are the stills from the FOX news video footage, in which that small, square pillow thing you see above Palin’s lap is not a baby–not unless you believe in Spongebob Squarepants-type aliens growing in women’s uteruses, which would now place you firmly in the camp of science-deniers.
July 8, 2010 at 9:34 am
NM
it’s not a bump–it’s a baby
I’m totally putting this bumper sticker over my “it’s a child not a choice” bumper sticker.
July 8, 2010 at 9:40 am
Cam Winston
I’m totally putting this bumper sticker over my “it’s a child not a choice” bumper sticker.
+1
Hope she read that in between daily dish refreshes.
I do love all the women saying that X couldn’t occur because it didn’t happen to them. My sister has four kids, and on each occasion she weighed less on the date of birth than she did on the date of conception. In reality, pregnancy made her sick at her stomach, a lot. In bizarro world, where Andrew Sullivan of the milkyload/rawmuscleglute rules supreme, she faked all four.
I’m not sure some people realize how nuts they appear.
July 8, 2010 at 9:46 am
NM
Well, you have to admit some of those photos are very suspicious.
July 8, 2010 at 9:47 am
NM
Also, being induced is completely compatible with water breaking; these are two different things.
July 8, 2010 at 9:52 am
Cam Winston
Fits better on a pro-life bumper sticker than “I’m tired of people regarding pregnancy, labor, and childbirth as though they are incidental, as though they’re mere inconvenient blips in a woman’s life, things that can be glossed over, or have a scarf flipped across, while more important things are tended to, so remember it’s not a bump–it’s a baby” does, though.
July 8, 2010 at 9:52 am
NM
…And by massive coincidence the very last time I was in a delivery room, one of the nurses said “one more push, and then you can meet your baby.”
Who says that?
If you think the baby is a full-fledged person before birth, you might be even more likely to say things like this.
July 8, 2010 at 9:54 am
dana
That they are celebrities has nothing to do with anything
Sure it does. I don’t believe that pictures in magazines of celebrities are truth-preserving. I believe there’s quite a bit of research that bears me out on that.
July 8, 2010 at 9:54 am
NM
Jesus.
July 8, 2010 at 9:56 am
Lidia
dana: That is the ADN writing and it is not a direct quote. It could be based on something Sarah Palin told them. Or the doctor, who is not an ob-gyn but is a member of Sarah’s church, and has been the recipient of a political appointment by Sarah, could be covering up for her.
Cam: that is an ignorant comment, as statement analysis is used all the time by law enforcement. You know the difference between the lies that Sarah comes out and says (“I was pregnant for a month”), and the truths that can be read between the lines (“I was pregnant for a month”).
It doesn’t matter how nuts we appear: Sarah Palin is the one who is mentally ill. Her hoax is so audacious and inconceivable (to a normal person) that she has gotten away with it. The very extreme of personality disorder it takes to lie so hugely and constantly about every single aspect of her life is just something that few people have come across. It’s hard to imagine if you’ve never come across a person like her.. but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
–
Consider also that Mrs. Palin has threatened many of her critics with legal action for various presumed defamations.. but never about this, the biggest defamation of all, were it not true. She has never made a peep about it.. because she knows she is lying!
July 8, 2010 at 9:57 am
NM
(One might also think that magazines choose the pics that emphasize the pregnancy because…that’s what the stories are about. Also Katie Couric lost a lot of weight for that sept. 06 photo shoot.)
July 8, 2010 at 10:02 am
Lidia
dana: Your argument is that photos of celebrities have been falsified to make them look more bloated and protuberant than they would be in real life???
The person who gathered those used celebrities because they are very young, slim, and fit.. with “tight abs”.. to counter Palin’s contention that people with “tight abs” don’t appear pregnant at seven and eight months along.
Just go to any website on pregnancy if you don’t like the celeb pix:
http://www.pregnancyguideonline.com/wk33.htm
http://www.unique-baby-gear-ideas.com/35-weeks-pregnancy-picture.html
July 8, 2010 at 10:23 am
Cam Winston
because she knows she is lying
Except when she’s privy to statement analysis, of course (it’s obvious that someone has found an internet phrase to throw about!). Then, she’s really telling the truth.
The big question is whether or not someone’s increased the contrast on cable news stills to see if they’ve found evidence that Sarah Palin planted bombs on the WTC towers, since Bush knew about 9/11 before hand & someone brought those towers down.
Also, I want to know if Sarah Palin was the person who outed Dave Wiegel’s e-mails. Statement analysis! Loose change!
July 8, 2010 at 10:41 am
Lidia
Cam, what exactly is the point of your cartoonish retort?
I sense that you are merely evading the issue and the evidence.
July 8, 2010 at 11:16 am
Cam Winston
Cam, what exactly is the point of your cartoonish retort?
An attempt to forward the concept that many of the accusations & charges are downright looney. See: Obama’s birth certificate.
I sense that you are merely evading the issue and the evidence.
You know who else says that exact same thing? The “Bush knew about 9/11″ loose-changers. They’re just as secure in their contention that they’re more in the know than the normal person, too, completely unaware that much of the USA (sadly, the world is chok full of 9/11 loons) looks at them with disdain, contempt and no small amount of mockery.
Everyone involved with the birth, according to your ‘evidence’? Liars. Every.Damn.One.Of.Them.
The grandparents? Yep, liars, too.
We get it, you folks hate Palin (I know, save the retort. But, really, ya do).
You guys will go a lot further if you try to keep the discussion sane, though.
Tip: if your writing looks a lot like Andrew Sullivan or the 9/11 truthers or the war for oil crowd? Not so sane.
Example: my mom: 5’3″. My dad: 5’11″.
Me: 6’5″
Conclusion: Wow, could my mom really have had me?
According to the outskirts of the internet, and I mean WAY on the outskirts, we need to see the birth certificate.
When someone who was such a douche that they were considered bad news for the John Edwards campaign starts mocking you -that would be Amanda Marcotte btw- it’s time to get the hint, guys.
July 8, 2010 at 11:26 am
NM
You know, there’s a LeBron paternity issue brewing. Maybe you guys could get in on the ground floor of that one.
July 8, 2010 at 11:33 am
litbrit
Fits better on a pro-life bumper sticker
How dare you.
I am as pro-choice as it gets. If you’ve never given birth to a baby, you can find medical literature all over the Internet to confirm that, absent any congenital problems that would lead to fetal demise, a 25-week-old pregnancy is considered viable–in other words, a baby that has a stronger than 50% chance of surviving outside the uterus should it be born before the standard 40 weeks.
But I was not referring to the legal or medical definitions, not that this terribly stunted group of readers would seem to have any understanding of nuance. I was referring to the logistics: the fact that a fetus at 25 weeks is of such size and weight, as is the surrounding tissue and organs, that it would be impossible to hide with “tight abs” alone.
And yes, attitudes that brush off pregnancy and childbirth as inconvenient blips, besides being deeply patriarchal and insulting, ignore the effect they have on a woman’s life. And ironically, that is, among other reasons, why it is so important for women to be able to choose for themselves if they want to continue a pregnancy or not: childbirth is a significant physical and emotional event, one that’s not without risks to a mother’s life. And raising a child lovingly and responsibly, as no-one here seems to be aware, takes commitment, courage, and no small amount of financial and social resources.
Again, to deny that is to assume an attitude that is patriarchal in the extreme, but it explains why this country still does not provide its mothers with affordable healthcare and child care, never mind pass legislation to ensure family-friendly workplace policies.
July 8, 2010 at 11:39 am
Malaclypse
And raising a child lovingly and responsibly, as no-one here seems to be aware, takes commitment, courage, and no small amount of financial and social resources.
That’s quite the leap you’ve made, without any evidence whatsoever. I see a pattern.
July 8, 2010 at 11:53 am
NM
terribly stunted
How dare you take issue with my stature! Those snide, ableist asides are unworthy of you.
July 8, 2010 at 12:01 pm
DarkEFang
Just because you refuse to look at the evidence doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
If anyone is interested at actually looking at the issue, instead of name-calling, I’m providing a link to a synopsis of Babygate from Palingates, a site that looks at all of Sarah Palin’s various shenanigans, from accusations that she may have stolen building materials from a Wasilla town project in constructing her personal home, to accusations that Palin was violating state ethics rules by conducting official Alaskan business on private email accounts.
The summary begins after a brief discussion of the topic being discussed by Andrew Sullivan:
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/sarah-palins-faked-pregnancy-big-push.html
This is a repository of the various links from which information was obtained:
http://www.box.net/shared/ze1x0eyplo
Of course, like any other subject, you can’t rely on one source. Go out and read other arguments about this issue. Yeah, it takes some effort. Learning enough to discuss a topic intelligently always does take effort.
And if this subject doesn’t interest you enough to look into it, then why are you even wasting your time laughing at those of us who have?
July 8, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Cam Winston
That’s quite the leap you’ve made, without any evidence whatsoever.
Somewhere on the internet someone’s got a grainy photo that someone else has changed the contrast of & it clearly shows, to any thinking adult, the evidence necessary to make such a leap.
July 8, 2010 at 12:23 pm
dana
And yes, attitudes that brush off pregnancy and childbirth as inconvenient blips, besides being deeply patriarchal and insulting, ignore the effect they have on a woman’s life.
No one is brushing it off. I’m arguing that the standard of evidence that would obligate a politician to reveal personal records about her children (not: determine her eligibility for the office, nor a public record of service) to prove that they are hers should be quite a bit higher than “her baby bump doesn’t look like the baby bumps of some other celebrities in this screenshot.”
July 8, 2010 at 12:43 pm
DarkEFang
Palin isn’t obligated at all to reveal her private records. But, on FOX News and Facebook, she constantly complains about pajama-clad bloggers asking questions about Trig. She paraded her pregnant daughter on stage at the RNC in what McCain staffers said was an effort to defuse the rumors about Trig not being hers. She stifled an attempt by the Palin-friendly Anchorage Daily News to prove the Trig rumors wrong. If all this chatter about Trig bothers her so much, why not prove that it’s unfounded?
July 8, 2010 at 12:46 pm
silbey
If all this chatter about Trig bothers her so much, why not prove that it’s unfounded?
See my comment above: the crazier y’all look going after this, the more you get Palin’s supporters riled up on her side.
July 8, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Lidia
silbey (and others) .. you’re really missing the boat. It doesn’t matter who we get “riled up” or not; just as getting OJ’s fans “riled up” or not has nothing to do with his guilt or innocence.
Palin is not the mother of Trig, period; it’s an impossibility.
You people are all playing the meta-game.. the political game.. the Bush-Rovian game that denies reality.
July 8, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Lidia
Cam, what exactly is the point of your cartoonish retort?
I sense that you are merely evading the issue and the evidence.
——-
We are not examining your family, so sorry!!
If an ex-proponent of the “John Edwards Campaign” in the form of Amanda Marcotte “mocks us”.. ummm…. consider the source?? A person who was apparently incapable of perceiving squalid lies in her own backyard, now negates the existence of squalid lies in other people’s backyards??
This is the kernel of your Palin defense.. Amanda Marcotte’s opinion?
July 8, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Cam Winston
This is the kernel of your Palin defense.. Amanda Marcotte’s opinion?
Noting that the likes of Amanda Marcotte is the left wing zealot taking the high ground should be the proverbial cold shower of reality.
But, on FOX News and Facebook, she constantly complains about pajama-clad bloggers asking questions about Trig.
It’s a nice way of saying “there are some deranged nuts out there who don’t realize how bat$%^t crazy they are”.
The “evidence” thus far consists of accusations, accusations, accusations, some loopey person’s manipulation of a video still and screams of “since she didn’t do X then she must be lying” (in similar news, since Lebron James has not presented the documents denying that he owes me half his fortune, it must be truly be my treasure).
I’ve had my fun for the day; I’ll let the jealous 4′s continue to go beserk of the 9.5 that is Palin (don’t kid yourselves or go to the overused outraged victim card…it’s true).
July 8, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Lidia
Cam. the evidence consists of many photos of Palin not pregnant, a photo of Palin apparently pregnant, and then afterwards photos of Palin notably less pregnant than before.
Pregnancy volume does not fluctuate up and down.
How pointing this out devolves into “jealousy” is beyond me. I wasn’t jealous of Nixon or Liddy during Watergate, nor of Ollie North during Iran-Contra.
Liars are liars.
July 8, 2010 at 6:01 pm
KarenJ
July 8, 2010 at 12:23 pm by dana I’m arguing that the standard of evidence that would obligate a politician to reveal personal records about her children (not: determine her eligibility for the office, nor a public record of service) to prove that they are hers should be quite a bit higher than “her baby bump doesn’t look like the baby bumps of some other celebrities in this screenshot.”
After all of the commentary here and on Pandagon, isn’t it obvious to you YET that the baby-bump comparison (where the ALLEGED Palin “baby bump was ALWAYS hidden completely by scarves and/or by bulky loose clothing) is NOT THE SUM TOTAL of the argument against her Trig Tale?
Really, by selectively attacking first one aspect, then another of the sum total of the story, you and others here diminish and trivialize your own skepticism of the possibility that Palin faked her pregnancy.
If this is the level of discourse that is usual here — this is the first I’ve heard of or read on your blog — it’s no wonder the MSM is equally “lame”
————————–
(“If all this chatter about Trig bothers her so much, why not prove that it’s unfounded?”)
July 8, 2010 at 12:46 pm by silbey See my comment above: the crazier y’all look going after this, the more you get Palin’s supporters riled up on her side.
Awwwwww…bring it on!
July 8, 2010 at 6:06 pm
KarenJ
(“But, on FOX News and Facebook, she constantly complains about pajama-clad bloggers asking questions about Trig.”)
July 8, 2010 at 4:51 pm by Cam Winston It’s a nice way of saying “there are some deranged nuts out there who don’t realize how bat$%^t crazy they are”.
Can you think of a more effective or better way for a bat$%^t crazy loon of a vindictive sociopathic failed ex-runner-up beauty contestant, figurehead mayer and quitter half-term governor to belittle or vilify her detractors than “projecting” her own bat$%^t crazy lunacy onto them?
July 8, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Malaclypse
Can you think of a more effective or better way for a bat$%^t crazy loon of a vindictive sociopathic failed ex-runner-up beauty contestant, figurehead mayer and quitter half-term governor to belittle or vilify her detractors than “projecting” her own bat$%^t crazy lunacy onto them?
No. So why are you helping her in this task?
July 8, 2010 at 6:30 pm
silbey
silbey (and others) .. you’re really missing the boat. It doesn’t matter who we get “riled up” or not
Sure, it does. You’re pursuing an insane conspiracy theory that ultimately will do more to help Sarah Palin than almost anything else. Good job, you.
July 8, 2010 at 6:31 pm
KarenJ
July 8, 2010 at 4:51 pm, again, by Cam Winston some loopey person’s manipulation of a video still…
So — you’re saying that’s somehow suspicious, maybe even sinister, that someone took a screen capture of a frame of a video of Palin slapping her allegedly pregnant belly like it was her souvenir high-school championship basketball, and that someone (merely) LIGHTENED it, so as to peer more definitively at her invariable funereal black maternal wear?
THAT, to you, is….wooooo…manipulation? Is that equivalent, in your mind, to the mystery of the Diebold voting machines in Ohio in 2004? The missing 18-1/2 minutes on the Nixon Watergate tapes?
How odd it is that you don’t think the Palins’ manipulation of the events of the period of time between March 5, 2008 and April 18, 2008 (and every publicized minute thereafter featuring “Tri-G”) is as troubling as those two circumstances.
July 8, 2010 at 7:03 pm
KarenJ
July 8, 2010 at 6:26 pm by Malaclypse No. So why are you helping her in this task?
THAT, too — your accusation that I, and others like me, are responsible for Palin’s attacks on us — is a feature of “projection”. I wonder at your motivation in pursuing a Palin-like tactic.
And to objectively answer your question, as Lidia and others have already pointed out, we Babygate skeptics aren’t the first people she’s attacked.
In 1996, she humiliated her defeated opponent in the mayoral race by allowing the local newspaper to imply he was a Jew (despite his name, he was a Christian).
In 1997, she harassed the chief of police, who eventually sued her and the city for wrongful firing. At nearly the same time she fired the city librarian over a child’s book, then recanted, then eventually fired the librarian again. She also fired the museum director, and replaced her with a childhood friend.
In 2006, she slithered through a substantive gubernatorial debate by refusing to discuss the issues, saying aloud, “does any of this matter?”, in essence belittling all those big, serious men running against her (sound familiar? Biden/Palin “debate”).
In 2006 also, she befriended, used, then discarded a woman she later attempted to humiliate and belittle by calling her “the falafel lady”.
There are many more examples like the above. You want more? Go to palingates.blogspot.com and look at the LOOONG list on the right border of the blog.
Last year she attacked her daughter’s then-18-year-old ex-fiance publicly in several gossip/celebrity magazines for nothing more than him simply being out of her sphere of influence — long before he attempted to pay his debts and pay child support (because no one would hire him in his hometown, Wasilla) by posing in Playgirl, for which she then called him “Ricky Hollywood”.
(nevermind that she and her locust daughters descended on Hollywood themselves last March to suck up expensive free gift bags before the Oscars)
I wonder if she’s apologized to the kid for that slur, now that he’s come crawling back to the Palin Wasilla Mafia and abased himself by apologizing to her for the Vanity Fair article.
Shades of Rush Limbaugh…
July 8, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Popeye
I don’t get it. Palin has done all these horrible things that everyone knows about, and yet she still has supporters. So what on earth would change if your completely unhinged whacko conspiracy theory was validated? Nothing? Then why are you so emotionally invested in it? Especially given that you sound like you’re drooling when you type?
July 8, 2010 at 8:00 pm
KarenJ
Puerile commentary doesn’t become you, Popeye.
July 8, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Popeye
No I’m really trying to understand. What’s the big deal? If Palin has a million things wrong with her, this is a drop on the bucket. if this is far and away the biggest problem with Palin, then it’s not actually a big deal.
July 8, 2010 at 8:27 pm
KarenJ
I gave any reader of the rather long response to Malaclypse above a link where more detailed information is available, gleaned from countless VERIFIED sources over the past year and and a half.
It’s up to you to research to your satisfaction, as much or as little as you care to — palingates.blogspot.com has made it easy for you.
July 8, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Ben Alpers
KarenJ’s attempted snarky dismissal of Popeye’s perfectly reasonable question has finally forced me to revise my previous comment.
The heat-to-light ratio of the “Who’s Trig’s Mommy?!?!eleventy-one!?” discussion has, in my estimation, now passed that of the Paulbot threads. I/P and War of Northern Aggression, here we come!
But let me contribute a little to the cause….
No I’m really trying to understand. What’s the big deal? If Palin has a million things wrong with her, this is a drop on the bucket. if this is far and away the biggest problem with Palin, then it’s not actually a big deal.
“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.” — William Shakespeare*
_________________________________
* Yes, I know it’s actually John Harington. But it sounds more gravitas-a-licious if I attribute it to Shakespeare.
July 8, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Malaclypse
THAT, too — your accusation that I, and others like me, are responsible for Palin’s attacks on us — is a feature of “projection”. I wonder at your motivation in pursuing a Palin-like tactic.
Look, I don’t deny Palin’s mendacity. But that does not change the idea that you all are coming off as looneys.
Consider litbrit’s statement that “raising a child lovingly and responsibly, as no-one here seems to be aware, takes commitment, courage, and no small amount of financial and social resources.” That is quite the claim, that is. No evidence for it, either. See how that makes you all sound nuts?
July 9, 2010 at 4:22 am
politicalfootball
The website linked by DE Fang above has lots of good stuff. I particularly liked this bit:
July 9, 2010 at 4:36 am
politicalfootball
So what on earth would change if your completely unhinged whacko conspiracy theory was validated?
I think in fairness to the unhinged whacko conspiracy theorists, you have to acknowledge that demonstrating that Palin faked her pregnancy would be fatal to her national political aspirations.
July 9, 2010 at 4:51 am
dana
I don’t think it would. If the going theory is that in January or February of 2008, Bristol had a baby, and to protect her daughter, she faked the pregnancy, birth, and covered up everything but the date on the birth certificate, and this is discovered by some reporter, she still has the same pro-life credentials she had before (I think people underestimate how much Bristol’s actual pregnancy bolsters those credentials), plus the narrative of being a desperate mom who would do anything for her kids, and now she has a chance for Redemption. I suspect her base would suddenly develop a yearning for the days when a young woman in Trouble went to visit her aunt, and they’d recall fond memories of great-grandmother’s youngest, who always looked an awful lot like his oldest sister.
Granted, it wouldn’t make me vote for her, but the base she needs to convince isn’t me, because I already think she’s unqualified for office, and they think she is, despite all evidence.
July 9, 2010 at 6:24 am
politicalfootball
I can see how that narrative buttresses good ol’ family values and whatnot, but I think a big part of Palin’s appeal is her authenticity (which she fakes quite persuasively).
Pictures of pregnant Palin support that narrative. Pictures of pillow-under-the-dress Palin undercut it. Was she protecting her daughter? Or her own political fortunes?
I was not one of those folks who thought Palin quitting in Alaska was going to be damaging. In fact, I thought it was probably necessary. I did, however, think that Joe Biden was never going to live down his coal miner moment, so I may not be the best judge of these things.
July 9, 2010 at 7:50 am
DarkEFang
“No I’m really trying to understand. What’s the big deal? If Palin has a million things wrong with her, this is a drop on the bucket. if this is far and away the biggest problem with Palin, then it’s not actually a big deal.”
There really are a large number of potential scandals lurking in Palin’s background. That Palingates site I mentioned earlier discusses most, if not all, of them. Most of the ethical problems would hurt her chances in 2012, but probably not sink them. There are a couple possible IRS issues that could be fatal for her Presidential aspirations if they end up in criminal charges. But this Babygate thing would result in the Republican Party dropping her like a hot potato.
Babygate would also seriously damage her credibility among the pro-life and end-of-days crowd. The pro-life crowd sees a big difference between giving birth to a Down’s Syndrome child and adopting a Down’s Syndrome child. Among the pro-life movement, people who adopt are supporting the pro-life cause. Women who give birth in situations that might often result in an abortion are considered heroes. Palin’s status as a hero to the pro-life movement was the basis of her selection by McCain, who was weak among the pro-lifers.
Many of those who believe the end-of-days are here – primarily the Dominionists, Palin’s denomination – see Palin giving birth to Trig as a sign from God that she is the one chosen to lead us into the Rapture. Again, adopting Trig instead of birthing him undermines her credibility. Birth mothers are revered. Adoptive parents aren’t.
Now, exposing Palin isn’t going to convince some of these people, but it will convince enough of them, and coupled with the loss of RNC backing, will ensure that a better candidate will get the nomination. I’m not exactly thrilled with the candidates out there so far, but none of them will be as disastrous as Palin.
“The website linked by DE Fang above has lots of good stuff. I particularly liked this bit”
There is obviously a certain amount of noise there. You really do have to consider the information in toto. Individual bits of information aren’t going to mean anything without context. And some bits of information are going to be silly. You’re looking at the results of the information compiled by a couple hundred people who were throwing everything out for debate to see what made any sense. At this point, I’d say the only thing everyone agrees on in regards to the Babygate issue is that there’s no way it all happened the way Palin said it did.
July 9, 2010 at 8:37 am
Malaclypse
There is obviously a certain amount of noise there
You don’t say.
July 9, 2010 at 10:58 am
Popeye
Babygate would also seriously damage her credibility among the pro-life and end-of-days crowd. The pro-life crowd sees a big difference between giving birth to a Down’s Syndrome child and adopting a Down’s Syndrome child. Among the pro-life movement, people who adopt are supporting the pro-life cause. Women who give birth in situations that might often result in an abortion are considered heroes. Palin’s status as a hero to the pro-life movement was the basis of her selection by McCain, who was weak among the pro-lifers.
Many of those who believe the end-of-days are here – primarily the Dominionists, Palin’s denomination – see Palin giving birth to Trig as a sign from God that she is the one chosen to lead us into the Rapture. Again, adopting Trig instead of birthing him undermines her credibility. Birth mothers are revered. Adoptive parents aren’t.
Um, according to your whacko theory Palin is a mom whose teenage daughter has given birth to 2 kids, including one with Down Syndrome. But you think that her supporters will no longer think she’s pro-life enough once they discover the truth? Yeah, they’ll probably vote for Obama instead.
July 9, 2010 at 1:22 pm
DarkEFang
“Um, according to your whacko theory Palin is a mom whose teenage daughter has given birth to 2 kids, including one with Down Syndrome.”
The theory would be that Trig is not Sarah Palin’s biological child. There’s no real consensus on who might be the biological mother. Some say Bristol, but it’s hardly a majority who think she is.
Personally, I don’t think Trig is Bristol’s child. If he was, then he would also probably have to be Levi’s son. And that means the Johnstons would have been involved. After being treated so poorly by the Palin family, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have talked by now.
I think it’s likely that Trig was privately adopted through Palin’s connections at the Downtown Pregnancy Center in Dallas, or some similar facility in Alaska.
The Downtown Pregnancy Center is pregnancy counseling center run by a pro-life group. It’s set up to kind of resemble Planned Parenthood, and advises women to carry their pregnancy to term, and give the baby up for adoption. The Center then sets up a private adoption.
These kinds of places are often called “white baby farms,” and accused of existing primarily as a way for rich white families to adopt white babies while skipping the long waiting periods of the regular adoption process.
“But you think that her supporters will no longer think she’s pro-life enough once they discover the truth? Yeah, they’ll probably vote for Obama instead.”
Pretty much every Republican is pro-life. The pro-life movement helped elect Reagan for two terms, Bush I, a Republican-majority Congress from 1995-2009 and Bush II for two terms. And yet abortion is still legal. They’re sick of Republicans telling them that they support the pro-life movement, but doing little, in their eyes, to support the cause once they’re elected.
Palin was seen as being one of them, instead of just paying lip service to the pro-life movement. Exposing her fake pregnancy as a cynical political ploy meant to deceive pro-lifers into thinking she’s a different kind of politician is going to destroy her credibility among them.
And no, Obama isn’t going to suddenly find pro-life voters backing him. Some of them are going to back other Republicans. And some of them just won’t vote because they were single-issue voters to begin with.
July 9, 2010 at 1:34 pm
DarkEFang
Oops, I didn’t finish my thought in the above post:
I think Trig being adopted privately is a more probable theory than Bristol being pregnant because with an adoption, the adoption agent is prohibited by law from speaking about the adoption, unlike the Johnston family in the other scenario. Plus, if she went through the Downtown Pregnancy Center, she is dealing with a personal friend and political ally.
Generally, this “massive conspiracy” is more likely if it only includes immediate family members and people who are legally prohibited from speaking about the subject.
July 9, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Sal Strange
1. Sullivan’s interest in the Palin/Trig birth story started because no one would ask Sarah Palin to comment on the controversy. He has repeatedly said he doesn’t support controversy, merely that he he feels the controversy should be addressed in a meaningful way.
2. The inability of any MSM to demand Palin be treated like every other political candidate in modern American history and thus be held to task in press conferences, make media statements, etc. fueled controversy and confusion.
3. Palin herself, realizing she capitalizes from controversy and confusion continues to tell obvious lies and make outrageous claims knowing she’s protected from having to answer any hard questions by MSM cowardice and her “look, I gots me a microphone” job at FOX.
4. Sullivan, for all his faults, thrives on consistency. It is the fact that Palin believes she is above answering the hard questions that knocks him batty, not the kid thing.
5. Andrew is an openly gay, Catholic, pro-life fiscal conservative. For all this seeming contradiction, he is painstakingly honest and sincere with himself and his readers. When he’s wrong, he says so. When he’s fueled by emotion, he admits it. This costs him respect from the MSM and holds him up to a lot of ridicule in the blogosphere. It also makes him a compelling read. I suspect it is because of the sacrifices he makes in his everyday life on the basis of sincerity and honesty that makes someone like Palin stick in his craw. He cannot just give her a pass on her public lies because he understand what honesty costs and how character-building it is.
6. It continues to amaze me that people use terms like “hissy fit” in reference to Sullivan, and it generally says a lot more about the source than they realize.
7. I have never cared about whether or not Palin is the mother of every special-needs child in Alaska. I care that she gets a pass on the hard questions and still thinks she can sit in the big chair. If you can’t sit down and take it from your “enemies” in the MSM for a couple hours of interviews, why exactly do I want you sitting across the table from diplomats of the world negotiating what is best for my country? She’s a coward who couldn’t be bothered to finish her job as governor because the paycheck wasn’t big enough and a million birth certificates won’t change that.
8. The lies about her baby’s birth matter because it demonstrates one of a few things. (1) that she doesn’t care about politicizing everything in her life, including her own children, (2) that she doesn’t feel motherhood of a special-needs child in itself is heroic enough, she also has to be super-birther, (3) if she will lie about one of the most cherished institutions of her own party, what won’t she lie about? Anyone with common sense knows the answers to these already, but making her be confronted and own up to it on the record appeals to Brit-pups like Andrew who are used to their politicians having to take it across the chops without being crybabies about it.
Defend Palin, don’t defend Palin, but stop acting like Sullivan invented the situation to fulfill some National Inquirer fantasy. Palin herself created the situation and continues to maintain the situation. Sullivan just refuses to pretend like it’s all magically gone.
July 9, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Popeye
If Palin completely faked a pregnancy, then why didn’t she do a better job of looking pregnant? After all, she had seen the movie Juno.
(I ask because i’m intereste in the question of “how can you reveal to a crazy person that they’re crazy?”. Confirmation bias is very powerful.)
If Palin merely adopted a child with Down syndrome, that would also burnish her pro-life credentials quite nicely. The idea that birthing Trig was some essential step towards becoming a political star is simply nuts. I mean, her teen daughter had sex outside marriage and that didn’t have the slightest effect on her family values cred.
Face it, Sarah Palin is simply a popular figure that you find illegitimate, and you desperately want a silver bullet that will completely dispose of her legitimacy. Sorry, but it os not going to happen, everyone already knows what she is about. Be content with the fact that she is unlikely to even win a republican primary.
July 9, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Michael H Schneider
I’m sure it also seemed insane that a governor would sneak out of his state to have an affair in South America and call it a hike in the woods. Or that a Presidential candidate would cover up having a baby with another woman while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment? Or that a President would order the theft of documents from the headquarters of an opposing political party?
The one I’ve always had trouble believing is the moon landing. I mean, people have been looking at the moon for thousands of generations, and NASA claims to have gotten people there (and back!) in my lifetime? The odds against that are, like, ten ten thousand to one.
So I’m left with this dilemma:
Either
P1: NASA faked the moon landing; or
P2: Sarah Palin bore Trig.
Thinking about the moon landing, I think about how, watching the stars from my deck in the woods just after sunset, I always see several satellites. If I can see several in a short period, there must be lots and lots. If NASA (and its ilk) can launch lots and lots of satellites, maybe they could go to the moon.
But then I wonder whether these are, in fact, satellites of terrestrial origin. They could be outer space aliens in their spaceships – in which case that’s no support at all for the proposition that NASA went to the moon.
In other words, the dilemma becomes:
either:
P1: Sarah Palin bore Trig; or
P2A: Space aliens are orbiting earth
Ergo, in order to decide rationally whether Sarah Palin bore Trig we need to carefully look into the evidence that hundreds of space aliens in their spaceships are orbiting the earth.
After all, it’s perfectly obvious that if hundreds of alien spaceships are orbiting earth, Sarah Palin is precesely the person we need as our next president.
July 9, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Erik Lund
Come on, of course NASA faked the moon landing. Look at all the money it spent on rockets, getting the set decorators and props up there!
July 9, 2010 at 5:25 pm
dana
If Palin merely adopted a child with Down syndrome, that would also burnish her pro-life credentials quite nicely.
Better, I think. I mean, if you’re pro-life, and you get pregnant, you’re supposed to have the baby, and while you can talk about how hard it is to be pro-life in a pro-choice liberal culture, it’s not nearly as good as being able to say, “We adopted a special needs child who otherwise would have been aborted because he wasn’t perfect enough for our secular age.” It’s like the snowflake children. Pure pro-life supererogatory numminess.
But the Trig-was-adopted theory has the virtue of being the fallback in the event the birth certificate comes out with his birthdate in April. I like Sullivan’s blog a lot, but the tenacity that serves him well generally has run clear off the rails here. The theories at this point are wild speculation, mutually inconsistent, and not falsifiable.
July 9, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Lidia
Popeye: If Palin completely faked a pregnancy, then why didn’t she do a better job of looking pregnant?
Sarah Palin is mentally ill. Just look at her hair, for example.. one day she appears to give a speech with a messy “bed-head”, then she’ll come out with a severe school-marm ‘do, then bizarre bangs and ringlets like Nell from Little House on the Prairie meets Baby Jane.
She doesn’t *know* how to dress appropriately: she went to a memorial service for fallen veterans in a rather short skirt, bare legs and red peep-toe sandals with her creepy painted toenails sticking out to mark the solemn occasion. She went to the CSU black-tie gala in the same short skirt, bare legs and red peep-toe sandals with a tank top and a jacket that didn’t even seem to match the skirt. She made a scene at the Belmont Stakes, ignoring the dress code there and calling attention to her falsies with an ever-classy black-bra-under-tight-white-T-shirt ensemble. The size of her chest changes, too.. just like the size of her baby bump.. bigger->smaller->bigger->smaller.. She’s not right in the head!
“One minute, Palin would be her perky self; the next she would fall into a strange blue funk,” the authors write.
The morning of her ill-fated CBS interview with Katie Couric, Palin – “her eyes glassy and dead” – was unresponsive to attempts to prep her as she was being made up.
“As they were about to set off to meet Couric, Palin announced ‘I hate this makeup’ – smearing it off her face, messing up her hair, complaining she looked fat,” the book relates.
Palin went on to give answers to Couric that were so incoherent the interview permanently damaged her.
…
“When her aides tried to quiz her she would routinely shut down – chin on her chest, arms folded, eyes cast to the floor, speechless and motionless, lost in what those around her described as a kind of catatonic stupor,” the book says.
…
When the campaign took her to Arizona to prep for the veep debate, McCain’s staff made sure a doctor friend was on hand “to observe her,” the book says.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/11/2010-01-11_new_book_game_change_sarah_palin_believed_.html#ixzz0tFDZdTxq
July 9, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Mark
Sarah Palin is mentally ill. Just look at her hair, for example.
This is comically unhinged, and nothing that follows re-hinges it.
McCain’s staff made sure a doctor friend was on hand “to observe her,” the book says.
You dropped the part – by accident, I’m sure – in which that same article talked about the book’s descriptions of how “she talked often of her baby Trig” and that the McCain people were concerned that she was suffering from post-partum depression. Her concern for her baby, and the completely logical explanation of her behavior that follows from it, are doubtless not credible to you, though the sentences preceding and following it appear to be perfectly acceptable evidence.
You can square that circle with the same tools with which you constructed a Palin that is too unbalanced to keep a consistent hairstyle(!?), but in enough control of her faculties to mastermind a conspiracy and cover-up of no small complexity.
July 11, 2010 at 7:47 am
blogbytom
Wow. That was entertaining. I never knew that PalinTrigBabygate people were this insane.
July 14, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Lidia
Mark, what-evah… Palin cannot keep track neither of her wigs nor her persona.
Palin’s “baby”: most assumed she was talking about Trig. She could not care less about Trig. Her wanting to sleep with “her baby” meant Piper. Piper was her mother’s keeper on the campaign trail, poor thing. (“How dare they boo Piper!”) Piper has been the shield that protects Sarah from adult inquiries and adult interaction for years.
Piper tries to wear stiletto heels while carrying Trig right along with the best of ‘em. When is the last time she was in school?
Oh, that’s right. the Palins don’t hold by schooling.
July 15, 2010 at 11:59 am
Mark
Palin was missing a baby she called Trig according to your source (quote marks mean the same thing where you are, right?), but was actually her six year old daughter, who was her “keeper” on the campaign trail and therefore presumably somewhat too present to be missed? Wow. I must agree with you that the scenario bears a whiff of powerful delusions.
In any event, we’re not quite having the same argument here. I’m not disposed to like Palin, so your diatribes against her aren’t adding much on that score. I’m rather more interested in the question Popeye posed parenthetically in his last post above. You’ve been very helpful in helping me find an answer, thank you.