Sarah Palin: Who's Your Baby Mommy?
There's a piece up on DailyKos making the case that Alaska Governor and now presumptive Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States Sarah Palin's youngest child – the one that was supposedly diagnosed during pregnancy as possibly having down syndrome and whose pregnancy she supposedly decided not to abort in deference to her views on abortion (she is anti-abortion in ALL cases, including rape and incest) – is not, in fact, the child of Governor Palin. The child, Trig Paxson Van Palin is not the child of Governor Palin, the article suggests, but the child of the governor's daughter, Bristol Palin. That would make Sarah Palin the grandmother, not the mother.
Basically, the DailyKos article, complete with supporting pictures, makes the case that Gov. Sarah Palin's body never really appeared to be with child, even when she announced to her staff that she was seven months pregnant. Oddly, daughter Bristol was taken out of school shortly before that announcement and remained out of school for months on end, apparently because she had "mono." The photographs provided indicate that the particular strain of mono that Bristol had contracted made her belly protrude in much the same fashion as that of a pregnant woman.
It is important to note that DailyKos is a far left-leaning website and the story that suggests that Gov. Sarah Palin might have faked delivering a child to provide cover for the fact that her teen-aged daughter actually did give birth to a child (out of wedlock?) might be, in fact, just that, a story.
However, real conservative Andrew Sullivan apparently thinks that enough questions have been raised that Gov. Palin would best serve her own interests by providing the media with official documents that prove that the infant Trig is actually the child of Gov. Palin, and not that of her daughter.
Sullivan raised the following points for which Gov. Palin would do well to provide evidence in her favor:
1) Was Bristol Palin really out of school for up to eight months with mono?
2) Why would a 43-year-old woman on her fifth pregnancy (with a Down Syndrome child) not go to the nearest hospital immediately after her water broke? Who cares if she was in Texas for a speech?
3) For that matter, why would Gov. Palin opt not to go to the nearest hospital in Texas, but instead elect to take an eight-hour flight all the way to Anchorage?
4) Once in Anchorage, why would she choose, once again, not to go immediately to a presumably premier medical facility in Anchorage, but opt to travel many miles away to a hospital near her home town?
5) Why didn't the flight attendants on her flight from Texas to Alaska notice that she was pregnant?
Sullivan, asserting that the idea that Gov. Palin faked a pregnancy to cover for her daughter is preposterous, asked that the good governor provide the necessary medical records to, "put this to rest."
Now, why on Earth would John McCain select for a running-mate a woman with such a questionable recent past? I can only offer two possible scenarios:
1) Given that Palin is a relative unknown, and given that McCain's vetting team is relatively small, it is entirely possible that presumably well hidden details such as the pregnancy of the good governor's teen daughter simply escaped their attention. I don't imagine that those charged with vetting Palin would have thought to ask if all of her children were really hers.
2) Perhaps this issue came to the attention of those tasked with vetting Palin's prospective vice-presidential candidacy. Perhaps Palin's selection was intended to fail in that McCain, once the scandal came to light in the mainstream media, could effectively say to the ultra right-wingers, "Hey, at least I tried to throw you a bone." Then, once having acknowledged the far right's interests and, presumably, having made himself an attractive candidate for those who thought him too liberal, he could ask Palin to step off of the ticket and in her place ask somebody such as Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty.
But all speculation aside, this issue stands to completely discredit somebody. That somebody will either be the folks at DailyKos or the good Governor, presumptive Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, and mother of four and grandmother to one, Sarah Palin.
No word on who the baby's daddy is...
