Again with a post about Sarah Palin: Responding to the Department of Disingenuously Selective Editing and Smug Name-calling

Last week, I wrote about what I consider Sarah Palin's biggest lie and ethics violation to date and subsequently accused the media of employing sexism (albeit in reverse, this time) by taking a Don't Go There attitude toward a pregnancy and delivery story that was full of gaping holes while, conversely, being all too happy to investigate--and expose as fraudulent--the war stories of male candidates when said stories were similarly pocked with lies and inconsistencies.

I expected that there would be pushback. What I did not expect was that it would come from another progressive blogger whom I have otherwise respected: Amanda of Pandagon, someone I was surprised to see engage in such tactics as offering up selectively truncated versions of the facts at hand--admittedly huge, labyrinthine, and unwieldy as this body of Palin Baby Story information has become--and then knocking them down before a cheering audience. And this after lamenting that although she has up until now been too high-minded, too busy writing about more important things, clearly she would have to be the one--ho-hum--to set things straight:

I thought I’d skip anything news-driven and instead whip out a little skeptical posting. Sadly, I’ve been avoiding this somewhat out of cowardice, but frankly, that’s no excuse. Most people are in the “ignore them and they’ll go away camp” when it comes to conspiracy theorists, but I’m not, so I’m a perfect person to try to push back against them.

She begins by attacking one of the most common theories involved in the Palin birth-story hoax/lie/deception, namely, that Palin faked a pregnancy to cover for her daughter Bristol's pregnancy in 2007-2008.

1) That Bristol took some time off school in 2008. This is the least interesting evidence to the theorists, from what I can tell. The reason is that focusing on Bristol is rhetorically unwise of them, because if you believe the theory, you have to accept Bristol conceived a second time while still pregnant. So they shy away from this one.

As far as I recall--and as it was only last week that I wrote those posts (indeed, that I addressed the issue of so-called Babygate on my blog or at Cogitamus at all), I think I recall pretty accurately--I made no assertion that I was sure Palin's daughter Bristol was definitely the biological mother of the family's fifth child, Trig. (For the record, I strongly suspect she is; I cannot prove this.) Rather, I focused on the logistics of Palin's story and the facts that are known about labor, childbirth, the policies of airlines, the standard recommendations of obstetricians--even for for normal pregnancies, carried to term, by non-high-risk mothers age 35 or under (Palin was 43)--and finally, the experiences I have had, as a mother of three, with labor.

In other words, while I don't really know for certain who gave birth to Trig, I am certain who did not. And that's because for him to be the biological child of Sarah Palin, I would have to accept the lion's share of the stack of lies she told, and embellished upon in her book, and I would also have to accept that the same woman who, in her twenties and close to giving birth, looked like this:

...in her forties, after having birthed four previous children, and at eight months pregnant, looked like this:

(Photo stills from a 2008 FOX News program, "Sarah Palin, An American Woman",
with the second and fourth photos lightened for contrast)

But let's rebut the substance of Amanda's selectively edited words about Bristol anyway. Bristol did not merely "take some time off school". She took five months off school, and was out of sight (and probably out of town) for that long, due to a "case of mono", according to the Palins themselves. (Mono is admittedly bad--two of my boys came down with it at separate times; the worst case had my eldest son out of school for a total of three weeks--but five months worth of bad? When one is a popular, active student and a cheerleader?) This five month period coincided neatly with the time frame that Bristol could have been pregnant. Furthermore, Bristol had posted on a friend's MySpace account in the summer of '07 that her mother suspected her of being pregnant and had confiscated her cell phone. Upon Palin's selection by McCain, the Palin girls' MySpace accounts were scrubbed and/or deleted, and much of the photographic archives on the governor's official website, the ones taken during the months leading up to the day Trig was allegedly born, were scrubbed, too. Incidentally, a member of the campaign, claiming to be there to help deal with the press, moved in with Levi Johnston's family. Levi's sister, Mercede, said she came home one day and discovered her entire computer had been hacked--either it was completely scrubbed, such that all its photo files and more were gone, or else someone had completely replaced the hard drive with a new one that was completely devoid of photos and document files.

Furthermore, Amanda says:

The reason is that focusing on Bristol is rhetorically unwise of them, because if you believe the theory, you have to accept Bristol conceived a second time while still pregnant. So they shy away from this one.

I have not seen people "shy away" at all. Rather, I have read numerous times that it would be very easy for a case of "Irish Twins" to have occurred (forgive the regrettably insulting term), wherein a mother has another baby within a year of giving birth. Remember, Palin did not make Bristol's pregnancy public until the rumors that had been swirling in Alaska were now all over the country, the Internet, and even in Canadian media. By throwing her pregnant teenage daughter under the bus--embarrassing her by putting her on the world stage and dragging her boyfriend along too, and declaring she was about five months along--Palin believed she could put those rumors to bed and protect her own political ambitions (as well as those of John McCain, I'd add--one wonders how on earth he and his campaign could have missed such a thing as a potential VP selection having a teenage daughter pregnant out of wedlock when he was actively trying to reclaim the fundamentalist Christian vote for the Republican Party?) However, if you think Palin is capable of lying, and lying big--and I happen to think she is definitely capable of that, as she has done just that, and far too many times to count--it's not that much of a leap to question whether Trig's birth was in April after all, but rather, took place earlier in the year, and Palin simply took a page from the script of the prior season's Desperate Housewives series and pretended to be pregnant. It would not be the first time a prominent and purportedly religious family engaged in that very kind of deception.

Assuming for the moment, and for the sake of argument, that Bristol was pregnant once before, with Trig, but gave birth to him earlier than April 18, this would have allowed enough time for a second pregnancy to take place in 2008. And this was addressed by a midwife and childbirth educator known only as Audrey, whose blog Palin's Deceptions went dark shortly after Robert Stacy McCain and Dan Riehl blackmailed and threatened both her and her husband, a physician. Before the blog shut down, though, Audrey addressed the Trig birth date question:

Based on an (undocumented) birth date of December 27th, Tripp was conceived no earlier than April 2008, and arguably later as he was not presented to the world until mid-February (exactly as I predicted). So even Bristol could not have been aware of the pregnancy until late-April 2008, at the earliest.

Yet we know that rumors of the pregnancy preceded this time frame, so much so that Sarah herself tried to dispel the rumors prior to March 2008. The Anchorage Daily New wrote a story about the rumors on August 31, 2008 and as we now know, they pursued the story about the rumors again in the fall. We also know that, almost a year ago, a poster on reddit reported on the Bristol pregnancy rumor and said she was going to high school in Anchorage.

(Note: The Reddit article Audrey references, wherein numerous Alaska residents discuss their governor's just-announced pregnancy and the rumors she was faking it to cover for her eldest daughter, was posted on April 8th, 2008, long before Palin was selected by McCain; long before she, and the pregnancy rumors, would be known outside Alaska. This strange and unbelievable story did not originate after Palin's selection, but rather, upon Palin's surprise announcement that she was seven months pregnant, and well before Trig's birth was even announced.)

Numerous other blogs, from Alaska (like The Immoral Minority) to Germany (Palingates) have doggedly pursued the truth that must surely be stashed somewhere underneath the very strange and tangled mound of vines that is Palin's birth story. So has Andrew Sullivan. No-one, to my knowledge, has "shied away" from Bristol's potential role in it; quite the opposite.

Absent conclusive proof that Bristol is Trig's birth mother, she is certainly, nonetheless, at the top of my own very short list of people for whom Sarah Palin would go to the risk and trouble of faking a pregnancy.

And if she were not, would it not have been the more caring, sensitive, and prudent thing for Palin to do if, in the days after her selection, she'd merely laughed off the rumors and shown Trig's birth certificate and/or had his delivering obstetrician hold a brief press conference with a statement to the effect of, Yes, I am Governor Palin's obstetrician, and I was present and personally took care of her when she gave birth to Trig on April 18th. Certainly more caring and sensitive than announcing that, Well, look here: My teenaged daughter is pregnant--five months along, in fact--so that means she couldn't possibly have given birth to Trig on...(what was that date again?). Certainly much more politically prudent, given that the issue is still unsettled after all this time.

Now, on to addressing some other points Amanda sets forth.

2) That Bristol cuddles Trig a lot. [...] theorists enjoy putting up pictures of Trig being cuddled in public by Bristol, implying that she, as the mother, cannot resist this.

I have never said that. Nor, to my knowledge, has Andrew Sullivan. Nor have any bloggers or journalists, to my knowledge, asserted that Bristol's affectionate behavior toward Trig is proof that she is his mother. Humans who happen to like little babies tend to hold them affectionately, period. People will of course point out that Bristol always appeared affectionate toward, and natural with, the little boy, and commenters at any and all blogs are going to speculate on what this or that might mean, in matters Palin as well as every other story of interest. But making the jump from that, to calling Sullivan, me, and others "conspiracy theorists" because of it, is baseless and unnecessarily accusatory.

3) Palin didn’t show very much. It’s interesting to me that the theorists focus most of their energy on the Sarah Palin half of the equation, because focusing on the Bristol part would actually produce better evidence, if this deceit actually occurred. Even though I’d imagine it’s harder to prove that someone wasn’t pregnant than that someone was, they find way more emotional satisfaction going after Sarah Palin, so they do that.

Actually, what the vast majority of writers and mothers who've covered and/or discussed this have unanimously concluded is not so much that Palin did not show very much--although she clearly didn't show much before the seven-month point or her office staff would have noticed--but rather, that her size fluctuated so strangely, from virtually no baby bump at all beforehand--just big, floppy scarves (did any women reading this remember wearing long scarves at seven and eight months along, and having them fall plumb, that is, directly downward as opposed to off to the right or left? I didn't think so)--to the strange, squared-off-at-the-bottom baby bump on display on video filmed for FOX on April 8th and 9th, to the much, much larger figure she was reported to have just one week later at the Republican conference in Dallas. Then, all that somehow disappeared, or shrank dramatically enough, so that when she boarded the flight home, flight attendants reported that they did not notice her in any kind of distress whatsoever and that the stage of her pregnancy "was not apparent".

Amanda also disputes the fact that a slim, petite woman cannot hide a baby if her abs are tight enough. She mentions women at her gym who are slim and vain, and how you'd never know they were pregnant until the very end. Set aside my own experiences here, because although I'm on the thin side and a fair bit taller than Palin, I did get much bigger with my pregnancies--all in the stomach, too--than most women do. Let's instead consider some of the "tiny starlets" we see in the media all the time--women who are professionally beautiful, who work out like maniacs to keep themselves buff. Who have undeniably tight abs, in other words. At a certain point, it matters not how tight a woman's abs are, because a baby isn't in her stomach--he's in her uterus, an organ that sits deep within the pelvis at the beginning of pregnancy and rises upward and outward, along with its human resident, as gestation progresses. And it's not just a flesh-and-bone baby that's in there: there is a big, hard ball of fluid, a fat disc of muscle-like tissue (the placenta), and an umbilical cord. Here's a comparison, of dated photos, of the normally slim and very fit Heidi Klum and Gwen Stefani (neither of whom was in their forties or having their fifth baby, if should be noted) and Palin, all at the 25 week point (via):

Amanda's next odd statement:

4) Sarah Palin got on a plane while having contractions and flew all the way to Alaska from Texas. I’ve never understood why this is supposed to be proof of anything. [...]

Litbrit claims it would be impossible to fly during labor, because it’s so painful. But there’s no reason to think she was in heavy labor during the flight. (* Amanda has mistakenly reversed the departure and destination here.)

I did not claim; rather, I know. How many times must I repeat this to the non-childbearers of the world who keep questioning this? Other than taking an emergency flight directly to the hospital on a medivac helicopter, where there would be personnel and equipment designed to save your life and hopefully that of your infant, you simply couldn't and wouldn't do that--get on a long commercial flight having ruptured membranes and contractions of any sort at eight months. (No airline would permit it if they thought you were more than seven months along; some airlines would require documented permission from your doctor, but wouldn't let you on while you were in labor). And medical science--not to mention the reports of countless mothers and my own experience with two of my three pregnancies wherein the water broke early on--will solidly back me up here: once one's water breaks, the contractions become significantly more painful. Again, no doctor would ever sanction such a thing. And not only would every single doctor in the world who was worth his medical license NOT tell a woman whose water had broken at eight months of pregnancy that it was okay to fly (!) for that long (!!) and take yet another flight (!!!) for a similar length of time (!!!!), and drive for an hour or so through the snowy, curving roads between Anchorage and the valley (!!!!!), it would not be physically possible for any woman, even Sarah Baracuda, Queen of the Tundra, to endure, for that long, that kind of pain--the baby's heavy, hard, bony skull is now lying smack on top of the contracting and dilating cervix, without the benefit of much or any water to cushion it. That's why contractions hurt so damned much once the water breaks. You couldn't do it without at least wincing, over and over (as I wrote before, for me, it was more like screaming pitifully, and other mothers have reported choking their husbands, threatening the nurse, and being willing to take the epidural in their eyeball, if that's what it took to subdue the pain). In short, people would, at the very least, suspect that something was wrong.

Surely Amanda knows this. She has given birth to...how many babies?

I asserted, and I stand behind my assertion, that Palin is lying about a large portion of the Story of Trig that she told the media, in her own voice. She claims to have flown to Texas for a conference and while there, awakened in the early morning with her water breaking and contractions beginning--prematurely, at eight months. And she alleges her doctor, unbelievably, reassured her that instead of going straight to an emergency room, she could go about her day and then fly home later. As every doctor I've ever spoken to (including my own, who wanted the name of this "theoretical doctor" so he could report him or her and have the license suspended!) has insisted, once water has broken prematurely, at eight months, it is a now a medical emergency, as labor and even delivery can occur at any point, the risk of infection is high and climbs with every passing hour, and the serious risk to a special-needs infant born to a woman in her forties is yet higher still. Going directly to the hospital is mandatory.

Yet, as we have all heard repeatedly, Palin did just that: went about her day, then flew home. Further, she bypassed larger hospitals equipped with the neonatal intensive care units that, again, are mandatory for premature, special needs babies born to high-risk mothers, and proceeded through snowy roads to the small regional hospital in the Mat-Su Valley, the same hospital that, as several independent phone calls by a number of bloggers confirmed, not only does not have a neonatal intensive care unit (for premature infants) on site, but also is not equipped to handle high-risk births (i.e. to mothers in their forties), or even multiples (twins, triplets, etc.).

And one last thing: lets say, for the sake of argument, that Palin did indeed give birth to Trig, somewhere, on April 18th 2008. This was a special-needs baby--a Down Syndrome baby--who was not only born prematurely, but also had infantile jaundice and a heart defect.

Yet Palin took to him to work work with her three days after she alleges to have given birth.

A super-preemie! Magically immune to all airborne pathogens--and permitted to trip the light fantastic of Palin's own office within 36 hours of his premature birth--unlike typical, full-term-and-40-weeks-old, unjaundiced babies, those plump, pink, infection-prone slackers. (Perhaps Palin did not properly read that one e-mail from her press agent (pdf), one of many redacted ones and thousands of non-redacted ones, netted in MSNBC's FOIA request and now posted online, courtesy of MSNBC, that bore the subject line "re: strategy for responding to questions about pregnancy".)

It's an utterly astonishing pack of lies on which Palin's political bona fides rest, and as we've seen, her other, non-maternity-related political bona fides amount to pretty thin gruel. Plenty of people, nonetheless, will dismiss this matter as no longer important: the "It doesn't matter" folks.

That's a different argument altogether, even though I continue to assert, as Sullivan does, that it matters a great deal because Palin has dominated one half the political divide for nearly two years now, and she continues to reign supreme: she remains one of the top choices for the Republican presidential ticket among the hardly-insignificant fundamentalist Christian right and tea-party factions.

But the other, more central argument--the "Did it happen?" argument--is tentacular and complicated; it will not likely be settled until and unless some definitive proof is set forth, something that Sullivan has always asked for: Prove me wrong, please. And I am going to echo that: Prove me wrong, too. Even Alaska Daily News Executive Editor Patrick Dougherty said as much in a long email to then-Governor Palin, dated January 12, 2009, responding to an angry e-mail from her (emphasis added):

Because we have been amazed by the widespread and enduring quality of these rumors. I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the "conspiracy theory that would not die" and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all.

Lisa Demer started reporting. I don't believe she received any cooperation in her efforts from the parties who, in my judgment, stood to benefit most from the story, namely you and your family. Even so, we reported the matter as thoroughly as we could. Several weeks ago, when we considered the information Lisa had gathered, we decided we didn't have enough of a story to accomplish what we had hoped. Lisa moved on to other topics and we haven't decided whether the idea is worth any further effort.

Even the birth of your grandson may not dissuade the Trig conspiracy theorists from their beliefs. It strikes me that if there is never a clear, contemporaneous public record of what transpired with Trig's birth that may actually ensure that the conspiracy theory never dies. [...]

I cannot address your concerns if I do not hear them. Perhaps after reading this you will conclude that the facts are not exactly as you thought, or that there was more to these issues than you knew. I hope you see that we have tried hard to practice sound journalism. We may have trusted the accuracy of the AP too much, but I won't know that for sure until you confirm that Levi will graduate from high school.

When we heard that you were upset about Lisa's inquiries, we immediately extended an invitation to your office for you to meet with me and other editors so we could explain our interest in the Trig matter, and answer any other questions you might have. As far as I know, that invitation was never acknowledged.

We remain willing and available to meet with you to discuss these or any other issues. I would be happy to meet with you one on one, as would Pat Doyle, or as part of any group of editors and publisher you would like.

Annointing oneself as Lone Defendress of Reality-based Blogging, or some version thereof, and discrediting writers (or bloggers or investigative journalists) with belittling terms, while at the same time leaving out key elements of the story at hand, and doing this so as to make them appear delusionally wed to what one has already decided are merely their fantasies and conspiracies, is a cheap shot and an appalling way to write a blog post. For example, leaving out the small detail of ruptured membranes and saying "Litbrit claims it would be impossible to fly during labor, because it’s so painful. But there’s no reason to think she was in heavy labor during the flight".

I'm going to give Amanda the benefit of the doubt and assume she wasn't aware of those details because she simply hasn't ever paid much attention to the whole story (which is of course her right, until such time as she wishes to discuss it in an informed way); that she had long ago arrived at a conclusion (and set of explanations) she was comfortable with, and thus she skimmed--rather than read with an open mind--the posts I wrote; and finally, that having not had any personal experience with childbirth, she did'nt have the same reaction that I did, or that so many other mothers did, upon first encountering the story.

I think that's a more gracious way to regard a blog post sneeringly entitled "A little holiday skepticism"--wherein commenters remarked, unrebutted by Amanda, that I was "full of shit" and worse--than to malign her or insult her intelligence.

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle, as Orwell said, and Andrew Sullivan is nothing if not constant and unwavering, having put up with plenty of denigration--and for long enough--just for struggling, ever struggling, to commit the journalism that others will not: investigating and trying to disentangle an amazing, Brobdingnagian collection of lies, and pointing out that, in the absence of clear contemporaneous record to prove otherwise, the Empress has no clothes. Sullivan says he "doesn't give a toss" what others think or say, he just wants the truth.

I wrote this lengthy set of corrections to Amanda's post because I want the truth, too. And I really don't give a toss what people think or say, either, as I'm well aware how impulsively sharp-tongued and nasty bloggers can be; commenters, nastier still. Truth matters, always.

Once more, then, for our weirdly and inexplicably squeamish, sexist, ethically-challenged Barbecue Media:

The Empress has no clothes. Kindly investigate same.

Also at litbrit.

Comments

[Mnemosyne]

litbrit, are you saying that you had absolutely no contractions -- no Braxton/Hicks, nothing -- until you went into active labor? Or are you saying that the instant you felt a single contraction you went to the hospital and never left until your baby was born even though your contractions were several hours apart when you first felt them?

I think the problem here is that Palin is (as usual) exaggerating to make herself look better. She was not in active labor. She had a couple of contractions a few hours apart, called her doctor, and decided to fly home after her speech. It was only afterwards that it turned into some kind of heroic journey. At the time, Palin was quoted as saying that she didn't actually think she was in labor.

Oh, and her doctor is not "nameless." Her doctor was Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, who is an award-winning family physician. It took me about 10 seconds to Google it.

And I can think of another possible reason for Bristol to disappear for five months with "mono," especially given that her babydaddy's mother was arrested for dealing crystal meth and that Bristol was a pretty notorious partier. Rehab, anyone?

I'm sorry, but I really think you've gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick here. Ironically, it's because you took serial liar Sarah Palin at her word and assumed she really was in active labor when she flew from Texas to Alaska even though she didn't make that claim until months later when she wanted to burnish her image.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

No, sorry, Mnemosyne, that explanation -- quite literally -- 'doesn't fly.' She would not have been allowed on any commercial airliner if she were that pregnant -- forget the contractions and the water breaking, she still would have had to get to Texas.

Now someone suggested there might be some sort of VIP exception -- and there might, for an earlier stage. But how high would you have to climb up the airline executive ladder to find someone who would have the authority to take such a risk with the (then) very popular Governor of a state? Your average desk clerk or even airport manager isn't -- I hope -- going to put his company at such risk. Things can always go wrong in the last stages of pregnancy -- would you want to be the person who made the decision that caused your airplane to have killed a Governor.

(It's a side point, but I would expect this ban would have been a policy for so long that there are probably not a couple of dozen cases of women that pregnant flying at those altitudes, or what the effects could be.)

Why did she go to the conference to begin with? Or why did she make this great fuss about having her baby born not just in Alaska but in the Valley. The first implies she's a workaholic, the second that she has such a deep and abiding 'local patriotism' that she would risk her baby's life -- and her own -- for it.

Do either of these sound like the Sarah Palin we've come to know?

And you've added one other bit of info I was lacking -- litbrit, I repeat again, this was a piece of 'crime-solving' that would do any fictional amateur detective proud. That is the story about her taking the baby into work three days after he was supposedly born. At that point the story loses its last possibility of being true. Whenever the baby was born, it wasn't born -- as we'd already proven -- the day it was supposed to.

More tomorrow, but it's stil 85.1 at 2:39 A.M. and I have the usual work and a therapy session tomorrow, so even if my brain weren't boiled until it would bounce...

(I still hope somebody delves into the less important but fascinating "Mystery of the Six Schools" at some time. And I still want to know about the Wasilla-meth story.)

[litbrit]

litbrit, are you saying that you had absolutely no contractions -- no Braxton/Hicks, nothing -- until you went into active labor? Or are you saying that the instant you felt a single contraction you went to the hospital and never left until your baby was born even though your contractions were several hours apart when you first felt them?

Not that I expect anyone else's labor to mirror mine, because it doesn't work that way, but pretty much everyone has Braxton Hicks, which are tightening cramps--like a big rubber band around your abdomen, which gets rock-hard--and aren't painful, just uncomfortable. With all my babies, I had those for a couple of days before active labor began. What I am saying is that once the waters broke, the contractions got fiercely painful. We called my OB in the middle of the night, and he said, and I quote "OK, you sure your water broke?" Me: Yes. Some of it is on the bathroom floor. Him: "You can go to the hospital." Me: When? Him: "Now. Right now. Even though it's your first, we need to check you and see how far dilated you are and then admit you". I would add, to anyone reading this who hasn't been there, that once water breaks, the clock is now ticking before infection becomes a serious risk.

Ask any doctor--any one, even a GP or ER doctor--what it means when an 8-months-along pregnancy, grand multipara mother in her mid-forties, starts leaking amniotic fluid. The words "medical emergency" will be the answer.

Find me one doctor, anywhere in the United States, who would okay a woman with broken water at 8 months getting on a commercial airline for two four-hour-long flights.

You won't be able to.

I agree: Palin wasn't in active labor on that plane. She wasn't in labor at all, and I strongly believe she was not pregnant. Look at the dated photos and film, for Christ's sake.

I agree that Bristol could have been sequestered in rehab, but that would not explain her weight gain between summer and fall '07 (before being sent away) but then, we're back to doing what I really want to avoid doing--focusing on the unfortunate minor child involved in all this--but which is unfortunately inevitable if you pursue any line of logical thinking based on what we believe, what we actually know, and what we can prove.

Don't be sorry for being skeptical of anything I've written--you're entitled to your opinion of what I've written, and if I've stated "I think" as opposed to presenting something, like a dated photograph or link to an article or quote, that is on the record, that should be pretty obvious. I don't claim I can convince anyone of anything. It's just that I've researched and read so much, for so long, thinking someone would surely (a) prove me wrong, and I do mean prove, without omitting key bits of the narrative or (b) crack this "case" wide open and bring about some sort of resolution wherein Palin 'fesses up, aplogizes, and goes back to Alaska, hopefully to join her husband in being honest, present parents to their children, being pro-LIFE for real, you know? But no.

So I felt it was finally time to put fingertips to keyboard and write about what I've figured out so far, based on the work of a number of other people to whom I've linked, and my own readings and experience and interviews with numerous doctors.

As I said, I don't know with certainty, who Trig's mother is; I only know who she wasn't.

RE: Cathy Baldwin Johnson, she is not a high-risk obstetrician. She is very careful to say that she "took care of" Sarah Palin, not that she personally delivered Trig into the world. Sure, she has delivered other babies--of younger mothers with routine pregnancies. But I can't imagine she would put her medical license on the line deliver a special-needs, 1-month-premature baby of a forty-something mother at a hospital that has no NICU, which means they would have to Medivac preemie and mother to a larger hospital with those facilities. Such a baby such a mother require a high-risk OB and special facilities. The Mat-Su regional hospital is very small and as I wrote, several women bloggers who called there under the pretext of searching for a good place to have their babies and, oh yeah, they were 42 (or whatever), were told no high-risk mothers, we don't have a neonatal intensive care facility on site, and we can't do multiples, either.

So none of it adds up. No big surprise.

[Mnemosyne]

Find me one doctor, anywhere in the United States, who would okay a woman with broken water at 8 months getting on a commercial airline for two four-hour-long flights.

You won't be able to.

Except that Dr. Baldwin-Johnson told the Anchorage Daily News that she did. She also claimed that she induced labor when Palin arrived in Wasilla. Is your claim that Dr. Baldwin-Johnson is lying?

[Mnemosyne]

She would not have been allowed on any commercial airliner if she were that pregnant -- forget the contractions and the water breaking, she still would have had to get to Texas.

I'm sorry, prup, but you are incorrect. She flew Alaska Airlines, and Alaska Airlines does not ban women from flying at any stage of their pregnancy. You can see a full list of all of the airlines' policies here, and you can even call them to confirm if you like -- the 800 number is listed. Contrary to popular belief, the FAA does not ban women from flying while pregnant, but some airlines' policies do.

Why did she go to the conference to begin with? Or why did she make this great fuss about having her baby born not just in Alaska but in the Valley.

With apologies to my ancestors, it's called an "Irish abortion." You take risks with a high-risk pregnancy that you can't abort in the hope that "God will decide" and you'll miscarry without any responsibility falling on you. Given that Palin says that she didn't tell her family that the baby had Down Syndrome, that's my best guess.

[Caren]

Except that Dr. Baldwin-Johnson told the Anchorage Daily News that she did. She also claimed that she induced labor when Palin arrived in Wasilla. Is your claim that Dr. Baldwin-Johnson is lying?

Yeah, it is.

I remember at the time the doctor saying she didn't know the amniotic sac had ruptured from the phone call and that she wouldn't have told her to fly if she had. Palin doubled down on her story, so the doc changed her story to match. Then she shut up and wouldn't talk to the press anymore.

I can believe that Palin had Braxton Hicks contractions and called her doctor, who told her, "They're probably B-H. Lay down with your feet up and see if they get any stronger. If they do, go to the ER. If they go away, it's just B-H, so don't worry."

I can imagine that b/c that's what my OBs told me with my first.

So I can imagine a Palin call about B-H, resting and having the B-H go away, and then giving her speech. Then she makes up a big lie about being in labor, but still going on., which is complete and total bullshit.

The Wild Ride is a story. It's demonstrably not true, since no one else noticed her being in labor, and there's NO WAY TO HIDE ACTIVE LABOR.

I hate that fucking "I didn't know I was pregnant" show that Amanda quotes as if it was evidence. It's a tool of the patriarchy trying to prove that pregnancy and birth are merely inconveniences.

Bullshit.

My labor with my third was longer than that of my second, but from mucus plug passing to birth for her was just under 3 hours. And for half an hour after I passed the plug--2 hours till she was here--I had mild, irritating but not painful, contractions. Then they got serious.

You CANNOT KNOW how your labor will progress, but in general subsequent pregnancies go faster. That's why we say no doctor would tell her to go on with her plans if she broke her water. No COMPETENT doctor would.

Palin KNEW she had a high risk baby, and her Wild Ride story makes her look like she wanted to miscarry or deliver in a place where Trig would have no chance. It doesn't make her "strong pro-life" credentials--it destroys them...unless you want to believe pregnancy and birth are simply minor inconveniences.

[low-tech cyclist]

I gave up on Amanda years ago. I would have probably commented on her more idiotic stuff, but I'm sure not going to bother to register at a site that I only visit a few times a year, especially when that site doesn't seem to be adding to the level of the debate.

[Frank Wilhoit]

Let's try a different angle. It is neither surprising nor useful to point out that Sarah Palin lies. It is a trivial observation, without any significance. She is a politician, therefore everything she says is a story, and stories are neither true nor false. The important thing about a story is who its audiences are and how it appeals to them. There is never anything to be learned by looking at the storyteller. Look instead at the audience.

[oddjob]

Frank, that is to say that no politician can be trusted in even the most basic of ways, and that's not true. You are right that noticing the audience is a useful thing to do, but it is not trivial that Palin would make up such fanciful flapdoodle about something so essential.

[litbrit]

Mnemosyne: Is your claim that Dr. Baldwin-Johnson is lying?

Yes. Absolutely. And I think (I think; I cannot prove) that the status of her medical license, if not some other things too, is tied to her cooperation. As someone over at the Pandagon thread has said, and as numerous people, over and over, have pointed out since that fateful day in August 2008, it wouldn't need to involve that many people in order to pull off a successful fraud like this.

I would add that its audacious, jaw-dropping, shake-your-head-and-say-no-WAY quality is exactly in line with other enormous frauds that we know have been pulled off, and successfully, too. One of the writers at Palingates pointed to the Bernie Madoff case. More than one person tried to report his scam to the SEC, complete with documentation proving his super-high returns to his investors could not possibly be the results of anything but a colossal pyramid scheme, yet officials refused to believe anyone would be so daring, that anyone would commit such a ridiculously blatant scam on such a shockingly huge scale.

Which is exactly how it's pulled off by people like Madoff and Palin: no-one will believe it. So they do it, knowing that all they have to do, when and if they're confronted, is look shocked and say, How DARE you suggest such a thing? Meanwhile people in the media and blogosphere will pull out the verbal artillery they use on tin-foil hat wearers and start in with their "skepticism", ridiculing anyone who points out that there's something seriously wrong, or accusing them of being insane, or stupid, or creepy, or wanting the "emotional satisfaction" of bringing down someone successful, etc., all the while oblivious to the fact that they are actually aiding and abetting the perpetrator of the fraud.

For the fake pregnancy scam to be pulled off, it would only require the cooperation of the immediate family, the doctor, possibly a close personal aide or two, and I would add, any high-up political "mentors" or guides in the church who stood to benefit.

Much bigger frauds have been perpetrated against the American people, and with a number of people "in the know".

But let's look at this one (as I've been trying to do): the only potential blabbermouths here would be the daughter's boyfriend, Levi, and his family. Around the time all this was simmering in the blogosphere, Levi's mother was busted for nebulous charges ("intent to deliver", which I believe can also mean receiving them or sharing them) related to pain pills (OxyContin). Six of them, therefore six felonies. But unlike others who'd committed similar types crimes--comparable amounts--Mrs. Johnston was thrown in prison. For six pills, and in fact the plea deal reduced it to one felony. There was a massive media circus in town to shame her, too. She is in her forties and has chronic pain due to an accident. She was not a violent person or a threat to society by any stretch of the imagination. Eventually, she was permitted to serve out her term under house arrest, with an electronic monitoring device clamped to her ankle.

If she steps out of line (ahem), straight back to prison she goes. You may be certain that her son Levi knows this, as does his sister.

I submit there are few things more powerfully deterring to Levi or his sister coming forward and telling the truth about all this than the prospect of being responsible for having their frail mother thrown back in prison.

This is not tiddlywinks we're talking about. These are strange, cloistered, and intensely vindictive people who happen to wield a lot of power in their little (if geographically vast) neck of the woods. And she (Palin) in turn is controlled, obviously, by far greater and wealthier powers still (fundamentalist Christian and, of course, oil).

By way of contrast, remember how Todd Palin's sister was arrested and charged with four felony counts of burglary and theft and four misdemeanor counts of criminal trespassing and theft (stemming from two alleged break-ins at the same property on March 31 and April 2)? Her trial was kept private, unlike Johnston's, and Palin was, eventually (after continuances) sent to a drug an alcohol rehab program. Not thrown in prison. Or kept under house arrest with an ankle bracelet.

[litbrit]

The Wild Ride is a story. It's demonstrably not true, since no one else noticed her being in labor, and there's NO WAY TO HIDE ACTIVE LABOR.

I hate that fucking "I didn't know I was pregnant" show that Amanda quotes as if it was evidence. It's a tool of the patriarchy trying to prove that pregnancy and birth are merely inconveniences.

Bullshit.

Thank you, Caren. I agree wholeheartedly with every word of that.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

I don't want to get too lost going down Frank's tempting road. I started by taking ddjob's position, reread Frank's comment, and saw that the key word was 'story' or -- I'd argue -- better 'narrative.' And that is not as offensively wrong as it seems.

In fact, it is the politician's job to take the 'messiness of ordinary life' and to contstruct a narrative out of it -- and yes, in almost every case they have to do a little cutting and shaping to get events to shape the narrative.

"Stories are neither true nor false' is itself both true and false. Of course you 'personalize' a narrative by giving 'real-life' examples, about you or 'someone you met along the trail.' About 80% of the speeches backing HCR included 'anecdotes' about someone who was suffering under the old system.

But truth does matter. We have two competing narratives about Obama's birth and early years, his own and the 'birther' narrative. I'd like to believe that the vast majority of us who accept Obama's narrative do so because of the simple fact that it is true, and not because -- as you imply -- it is somehow more 'psychologically satisfying.'

(And I point out that I seem to be practically alone in warning progressives against getting too enthusiastic about a certain Floridian who I view as a dangerous left-wing demagogue -- based partially on my own knowledge of facts in his own personal narrative.)

In fact, your position comes close to the sort of 'denial of objective reality' embraced -- disastrously -- by some 'post-modernists.'

[jeanne marie]

@Frank
The important thing about a story is who its audiences are and how it appeals to them.

The "pro-life" constituency is not only buying her story, but they have elevated her to heroine status. Folks love her where I live in SW Virginia, in no small part because she chose to birth a Down's Syndrome baby.

They fill stadiums. They stand in line for book signings. They have and will continue to vote for her.

[DEO]

$arah has been lying about EVERYTHING from the gitgo.............

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

On the other hand, I still have to caution litbrit -- not about dealing with the facts, which she does wonderfully -- but against constructing her own 'narrative' based on an 'anachronism.'

At the time the fraud was pulled off, it could have had no other likely cause than simply wishing to spare her daughter -- and herself -- the embarrassment of an unmarried pregnancy. There was no great conspiracy involving back-stage manipulators based on Palin's likely advancement because -- barring a far more intricate conspiracy that does strain credibility -- there was no way of knowing that she was likely to go any farther than she had already reached, no idea she was protecting herself for 'future office.'

I would also question that these were the only 'potential blabbermouths' out there. There are a lot of people -- teachers and classmates of Bristol, the 'real father' (I doubt it was Levi, but too hot to explain why), the doctors and hospital (or midwife) who were involved in the birth -- who have at least contributing evidence if Bristol was the mother. (Again unproven, but by far the least unpleasant and most likely possibility. Unfortunately, exploring this means focusing in on her.)

But the potential danger for those who remain in Alaska is not theoretical. There have been blackmail attempts, attacks on businesses run by anti-Palin bloggers, etc. And, if my other hypothesis -- involving meth and Wasilla -- has any truth to it, some of the people involved have other non-legal weapons to use.

But those threats really don't stretch beyond the state borders. Time to trace down some classmates that have moved away.

[oddjob]

In fact, it is the politician's job to take the 'messiness of ordinary life' and to contstruct a narrative out of it -- and yes, in almost every case they have to do a little cutting and shaping to get events to shape the narrative.

Agreed, and that's where Frank's skepticism is warranted and healthy.

I take exception to assuming that also means one can never trust any politician to be grounded in/tethered to even the most basic aspects of reality. The politicians who are that far out there are certifiable (or damn close to it), and not the norm.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Agreed with DEO, of course. I am the person who began calling her the Baroness Munchhausen. But I've been wanting to get back to the dispute between Caren and Mnem -- I will not hear the voice of Kermit the Frog in the background as I write this abbreviation. i WILL NOT!

The irony is that, in almost every case, our narrative actually is 'nicer' to Palin than those of her 'defenders,' who are left with the "Irish abortion" theory. (Sure, at an early stage this is credible, take a risk and hope for a miscarriage. But fetuses at eight months are larger and a miscarriage is much more dangerous. I know how tempting it is to accuse Palin of trying for a 'partial birth abortion' but as evil as i think she is, that one I don't believe.)

One dispute is testable, if we can get one or two volunteers -- not everyone because it will cause suspicion. Sort out a group of airlines, give six of them to each of three people here, and have them ask variants of the following question -- I'm giving the one for males:

"Hello, can you help me. My wife and I have a trip scheduled for August, an important business trip that requires both of us. However, she is currently six months pregnant, and ultrasound has shown the potentiality for a difficult pregnancy. Would we be able to book such a flight with your airline, and what waivers would we have to sign absolving the airline from responsibility?"

Reports of the response we received would go a long way to settling the dispute as to whether she would have been allowed to fly going or coming.

And will somebody on either side please refresh my memory as to what that fabled meeting was. It's somewhere in the recesses of my memory but too hot for 'archeological investigations' in that crowded attic. If it was an unimportant ceremonial get-together, why take the risk of attending it if you were that pregnant? Any gathering would accept the excuse as to why you couldn't make it, and would have allowed Sean Sockpuppet to take your place.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

oddjob: sorry to battle on this, but no, Frank's skepticism -- which isn't that by my use of the term -- is not justified. When I said "it is the politician's job to take the 'messiness of ordinary life' and to contstruct a narrative out of it -- and yes, in almost every case they have to do a little cutting and shaping to get events to shape the narrative" I could have been more accurate by saying it is the responsibility of any person constructing a narrative to do just that. It's the way we all tell stories.

(Who better to comment on that than someone whose besetting fault is to drown people in too many details?)

Skepticism, in its true sense -- comparing the assertions to the evidence -- certainly is a necessity at all times -- but the key, as always, is the evidence, and knowledge of the 'shaping process' is not a reason for assuming that 'all politicans are liars' as Frank implied -- unless it means 'we all lie.' But we don't, we simply tell the truth in the most efficient way we can, at least that is the ideal. (Again, this has much greater relevance -- and again, now the temperature has reached 97.1 I'll delay going down that path for now.)

[Susan]

I am praying that Palin attempts a run for President. My bet is that the RNC has files upon files about this woman, and the second she tries to elbow out the big boys, the truths will appear like magic.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Susan: you've brought out a key point. Republicans -- professionals, not 'the base' -- are far more afraid of Palin than we are. They already hate her -- because the 'mpvement' shr spawned has already cost them lots of money and will wind up costing them seats they "should" have won.

In one of the earlier posts, not sure if from litbrit of Sully, the comment was made that several McCain aides admitted anonymously that 'they thought it was a fake.' There'll be a lot more of that.

And when the base and the professionals start fighting among themselves...

Anybody know a popcorn company I can invest in?

[litbrit]

Susan, as the mother of an American family who loves this country, I hope you're right.

But as a writer interested in getting to the truth, I only care about the evidence and where it leads. As journalists in our legacy media should. Contrary to Amanda's accusations that "the theorists" want some emotionally-satisfying result, I don't really want it to turn out one way or the other; I don't know the Palins personally, nor do I know their enemies; and I have no personal investment in anything other than my own conscience, which has gnawed at me for reading and researching this since the fall of '08 and waiting for someone else to stick his or her neck out and get at the truth. I thought that's what journalists were supposed to to; I kept waiting.

I have (above) asked to be proven wrong, just as Sully always has.

Even poets and fiction writers are, in our way, aiming to get at the elemental truth within something.

Truth matters, always.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

With the current heat index at 101 anf my appointment for therapy approaching, time to shut down the computer and give it much needed rest. see youze latuh.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Back but on my way to a nap. But just had to make an OT comment. "MiGawd, I'm actually enjoying exercising and am looking forward to my next session" -- a statement I'd figured on making about two weeks after Sir Charles announced his membership in the WCTU.

[Crissa]

I see Amanda saying the same as I was: It's not that it's sexist: It's that it's a losing argument.

It doesn't matter who's baby it is. It doesn't matter if she's lying about giving birth or not. Her story is full of holes because you want to see holes.

The war records are on record. They're public documents. Her contractions and body are not public domain.

Was he lying about having prostrate surgery to get that vaunted cancer-survivor vote? Medical records are not public records.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Crissa: Sorry, but that's just nonsense. The question of her supposed pregnancy became a matter of 'public record' the moment she walked down that staircase from the airplane with her 'prop.' (And, had there never been the slightest question of the baby's parentage, her willingness to use a Down's syndrome baby with other problems in that way -- when she could have left him on the plane, away from the noice, crowds, and air currents -- was enough to bring her parenting skills into the public arena.)

Similarly it was Sarah Palin, not a blogger or a reporter, who announced her daughter's unwed pregnancy, for no reason except to divert suspicion.

No, medical records are not public records, which is why we are forced to rely on deduction and 'common knowledge' rather than know for sure. (But it is useful to remind people that most candidates have chosen to release theirs, but she has not.)

The incredible thing is that almost any argument that has her as the mother is, in fact, much worse for her. Ask any mother if they'd take their 3-day old to the office, their six-month old into the maelstrom that was that press conference, entirely unnecesarily.

And there is no reason, after the past 22 months, to give her the slightest 'benefit of the doubt' or 'presumption of honesty.'

[jeanne marie]

Wow. I just spent too much time in the comments section at amanda's site. I have to take a shower.

More folks need to read your argument. It is a cool-headed call to hold our media accountable.

[litbrit]

Thank you, jeanne marie.

[litbrit]

I see Amanda saying the same as I was: It's not that it's sexist: It's that it's a losing argument.

No, she's not saying that and that alone, far from it. She is attempting to discredit--as "conspiracy theorists", or when she's too lazy to type two words, "theorists", or else "loony", "creepy", and more--two writers, one who is well-known and one who isn't (me), along with anyone else who dared to do what all journalists are (or used to be) expected to do: treat everything you're told with suspicion, especially when the story comes from someone in a position of power. Demand proof, investigate to find the truth, then expose it. Regardless of how much you like or admire someone, regardless of his or her gender or party affiliation.

Our media is, for the most part, a corporate-run sham that feeds propaganda and infotainment, spoonful by spoonful, to this country and in so doing, shapes its politics. They must be held accountable, always.

A woman with some sort of personality disorder, who knows what, faked a pregnancy of a special needs child, and in order to curry favor with a powerful fundamentalist Christian voting bloc, held out her maternal bona fides pertaining thereto. She was in line to be the Vice President of this country, for God's sake. Second in command, behind a 72-year-old cancer survivor. And unless someone stops her between now and then, she will run for president next year. She already has the tea party vote at her scribbled-on fingertips.

Palin made the personal, political. That the media has largely ignored the story this long is just the latest shameful indictment of its slavish Villager mentality, albeit a spectacularly shocking indictment that ought to wake everyone up once and for all.

They are asleep, willfully compliant, or else aiding and abetting--same results, really. Jefferson warned us about this: protect the independent voice of the press, he said (or words to this effect) because the survival of the republic depends on it.

(It should be noted that I find it interesting how many people who were formerly of the "You're full of shit, that's impossible, that never happened" camp, here and at my blog and email In box, are now saying, "Well, okay, so you're probably right and you're *not* full of shit, but it doesn't matter, because if it did matter, the media would have picked up on it by now, or something....WAAAAAH...I hate being wrong.)

[Frank Wilhoit]

Astonished that someone tried to pick up my point -- that's never happened before -- but you still didn't get it.

Nothing that any politican says or does (or thinks, once they've been in the game for a while) can be presumed authentic. Everything that every politican does or says is a pander to someone and the only interesting question is, to whom?

No, you're right, I didn't use any qualifiers in the preceding sentences.

Sarah Palin does not exist. There is no such person. There is an actress playing a role, rather more skillfully than the average. The point is, why are there people in the theater? Why aren't they somewhere else -- rule out doing something valid instead of going to the theater at all; why aren't they in some other theater? This is what we should be paying attention to.

I leave you with this final thought: naming the storyteller is a way of exonerating the audience, letting them off the hook: and that is not permissible.

[oddjob]

I don't accept your assertion that all politicians are necessarily nothing but personae. That way lies madness and the end of any self-government in any sense at all.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Thanks, oddjob. I was going to write a long demolition of Frank's point, starting with how I had originally thought he might have had an arguable point, that it was his overstatement and inability to express the obvious qualifications his statement required that made him sound like so much of an idiot. Then pointing out that I had misunderstood, that he had expressed himself very well.

But you did it in two short sentences.

[Frank Wilhoit]

"...the end of any self-government in any sense at all...."

Yup. Of course, self-government of educated people has never been tried. Attractive concept, on its face. Maybe in another few thousand years.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

I should point out -- and, btw, if I am grumpier than usual, three straight days of above 95 can do that to me -- that while I agree with litbrit 100% on her facts, evidence, and her basic conclusions, I have to 'dissent in part.' I do not believe that the news media were at all derelict in their duty in not doing more than a perfunctory investigation in 2008 -- though I'll gladly castigate them for not going there now. The difference is that, to believe the story was true, you had to believe this unknown governor who had been named to the ticket was a truly monstrous character.

(I still think it is relevant that this followed so many similar stories that were, in fact, nonsense. "Here we go again" is not an unjustifiable response.)

It has taken us a long time to realize that Palin is just the sort of monster that could do this. It would have taken an incredible leap to make it back then.

And I still deny the implications of "faked a pregnancy of a special needs child, and in order to curry favor with a powerful fundamentalist Christian voting bloc, held out her maternal bona fides pertaining thereto."

I can't see how you can look at it this way. She didn't fake the pregnancy for any other reason than to protect her daughter. She is not a planner, she's an opportunist, and I think she was panicing when she discovered the mess she was in with the McCain nomination.

[litbrit]

Prup, one of the first things they teach you in journalism school, as I wrote in my reply to Crissa, is to treat every story you're told with suspicion, more so if the story comes from a person in a position of power.

I think the press left that basic lesson behind. They didn't need to wait for Palin to prove to them that they shouldn't believe her narrative--they are supposed to start out not believing her narrative, to treat her with a degree of suspicion commensurate with the considerable amount influence she had, and continues to have, within our culture.

She didn't fake the pregnancy for any other reason than to protect her daughter. She is not a planner, she's an opportunist, and I think she was panicing when she discovered the mess she was in with the McCain nomination.

I don't disagree at all! What I'm saying is, pretending to be pregnant was probably a last-minute decision once she got word that she was on the short list for VP if McCain won the nomination.

[janinsanfran]

Folks might get something out of reading The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout. She convinced me that people who would try to pull off the enormous hoax that litbrit and Sullivan are questioning do exist. Apparently they are far more common than the rest of us realize; Palin certainly fits Stout's description: no apparent conscience, vindictive, egocentric ... Most of us figure their behavior is impossible because it would be for us. But not according to this author.

Doesn't prove anything, but might provide a conceptual context for the investigation.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Please let's try and confine ourseelf to facts and stop meandering about motive. (You too, Prup.) Seriously, it is the one way this could turn into a 'losing issue' for us.

We're on very strong grounds with the facts. We;ve demonstrated a lot, and i think another skull session will show more. Amd sometimes we can use motivation as an adjunct -- thus we can argue that if Palin is not the mother, the only person she would have done this for was a close relation, most likely Bristol.

But when we start in discussing who Palin is, or why we think she's doing this, we're engaging in logical arguments that usually don't totally convince each other. motivations are tricky, even when you are on the inside. Assuming from the outside, worse, from only public actions for the most part, the motivations will only get us sounding like we are nearing the 'tin foil hat' stage. (How many of us can say with certainty the motivations that move even people we've known for years, that we've lived with?)

And the fact is that the motive really doesn't matter. What matters is what we can prove, the lies, the frauds, etc. Let's try and stay on those.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

One final request -- which will be useful for something I am drawing up.

I asked before, but please remind me what the meeting in Texas was like. Was it ceremonial, political, issue-oriented. I remember it as some form of Governor's meeting. Was it for Republicans or all Governors?

Thanx.

[litbrit]

Prup, according to the Alaska Daily News, she was in town to attend an energy conference of the Republican Governors Association, and give the luncheon keynote speech. That would be on April 17, 2008.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

One additional interesting, if peripheral, fact that I included in my e-mail to you.

A lot was made over Palin's 'tolerant' attitude towards levi and bristol's relationship, to the point of having him 'practically living with them.' But I've seen no one mention the fact that the house also included the 14-year old Willow and the 7-year old Piper, and that Willow, at least, must have known what went on 'behind her sister's closed doors.'

No one has ever questioned the example that was being set -- especially by someone so much a spokesman for Christianism.

I might see little wrong with this, but I have a very liberal attitude towards sexuality and sex education. But how do the parents here feel?

[TRex]

Ah, Mnemosyne, still a world class inflamed twat.

[Sir Charles]

Jim,

It's okay. I believe Willow was being chaperoned by Alex Rodriguez at the time.

[Crissa]

Litbrit, I think focusing on things like 'her story is a story of irresponsibility' or 'look at her actions to physically/litigiously/financially attack her critics' is a far better argument. They're solid, based on things we can legally prove.

Medical history is just something we have no legal right to, and so an argument based on it is a losing proposition.

[big bad wolf]

SC, nice.

[litbrit]

Crissa, I think you've said that about seven times now. I'm quite fluent in English and fully understood you the first time, but just for the record, I still disagree. The falsifying of a pregnancy is an extremely serious matter (and incidentally, one that the media would have had no problem going after if the parent was a Democrat), as are all the surrounding issues, and I believe it needs to be settled, the sooner, the better. Thank you.

[Joe]

Prup, as a parent, I think Sarah Palin is a psychologically fucked-up person with a psychologically fucked-up family life. I look at her the same way I look at Lindsey Lohan and her family. In both cases, I prefer not to think about either of their family lives. Which, at the end of the day, is why this story probably won't have legs in any way other than as a tabloid sensation. Most Americans who are raising a family don't like to look at the inner workings of a dysfunctional family. It's both a reminder that things can go terribly awry and an invitation to unhelpful emotions like disdain and pity. A smaller percentage look at the Palins with morbid fascination (but can't feel very good about themselves for staring). In any regard, the whole thing is unseemly which is why most people want the whole issue to go away (along with Sarah Palin according to her approval ratings).

[Northeast Elizabeth]

Keep up the good work, Litbrit! Obama will be toppled once he's forced to release his contemporaneous 1961 long form birth certificate, and your campaign to get Trig's certificate might just be the thing that forces his hand.

(P.S. Since you're so good a conspiracy theories, what's the evidence that Obana was born at Kapliolani hospital? Just curious about your take on that magically appearing factoid.

[Sir Charles]

Northeast Elizabeth -- short no doubt for Northeast St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the wing in which you are being kept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elizabeths_Hospital

Say hi to Hinkley (and the ghost of Ezra Pound) for me.

Oh, and I thought Obama would be deposed via election when all right thinking Americans get a chance to vote for St. Sarah against him. We liberals live in fear -- deep, deep, unbridled fear -- of such a match up.

Fear we're going to die of laughter during the debates.

[Joe]

I wouldn't laugh Sir C. I think if St. Sarah got the nomination she might get 45-50 million votes (considering John McCain got about 60 million).

[big bad wolf]

i think we get to laugh, joe, if we win. we need that day; not because it is funny, but because we need a day of triumphal release and validation, then we go back to life in which 45 million can be more than 300 million.

[Pregnancy]

Heidi looks gorgeous even in her 25th week of preganancy..
http://www.vivamagonline.com/CoverStories_Cynthia.php