and maybe John Edwards was really the father, too

[topaz]

For the love of God, people, can we drop this nonsense about how maybe Trig Palin is really Sarah Palin's granddaughter?  Christ on a crutch.  This story is so stupid it makes the "Barack Obama in a limousine with cocaine and gay hookers" line sound like an NPR report.

At the moment the Democrats are not, for once, the dumbest party in the country.  Let us please keep it that way for another few months.  Thank you.

Comments

[alanj]

Oh, come on.

Between the photos of Sarah, the photos of Bristol, Bristol being out of school with "mono" for a bizarrely long time, the seemingly insane decision to get on an eight-hour flight after contractions started... you can't tell me there's not some reasonable doubt there.

And between Palin's views on sex education (because abstinence-only programs "work"!) and the campaign proudly trotting out the decision not to abort Trig, you can't say it's not relevant.

[vespid-interest.livejournal.com]

Even if it is true I don't thing it is harmful (except possibly to her daughter). A mother standing by her pro-life principles and sacrificing for her daughter could be appealing. It's a "white lie" with a built-in punishment, rather than hypocrisy.

Personally I don't care either way, except to hope the child was conceived in trigonometry class.

[alanj]

See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/privacy-and-pal.html for a good response to that.

[vespid-interest.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying it should be off-limits because it is a private matter, I just don't think it would change anybody's mind about her.

[vespid-interest.livejournal.com]

Recall that one of Dick Cheney's daughters is in a long-term relationship with another woman, something I'd think social conservatives would be against. That didn't seem to hurt the republican ticket.

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

I was totally trying and failing to apply Occam's razor. On the one hand her advanced age (much harder to get pregnant), the mono, the traveling whilst in labor, the late announcement of the pregnancy, the photos of the daughter, the absence of photos of the mom looking pregnant. On the other hand her advanced age (much much more likely than a 16 year old to have a Down's kid), the fact that it would take so much orchestration. Neither side wins.

I failed so spectacularly in the application that I'm left having to believe one crazy side or another, which leaves me somehow still dubious about the current pregnancy. If the daughter's not pregnant, it's a great refutation of the story, and the kids can get married and raise the kid after the "miscarriage" which ends the current non-pregnancy. It's crazy, but no crazier than either thing I was considering before, and one of those had to have been true.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

What she said.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

There were unquestionably some weird things going on there. But it just invites the question: are they more or less crazy than the idea that Palin orchestrated (and is still orchestrating!) a conspiracy to fool the press and public into thinking that she was pregnant for nine months? And I think the answer is clear: way, way, way less crazy.

The bit about getting on a plane after her water broke is also telling, but I think in the opposite way. If the whole pregnancy was a put-on in the first place, why on earth would she concoct such an odd and easily attacked reason for getting on a plane to come home? Why would her handlers not simply say "a family matter" or even "cut short for urgent state business"? It really strikes me as more plausible that the stated reason, while unusual, was the real deal.

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

Yeah, except I think that even very smart people tell very stupid lies. Maybe bold is a better word.

But on the "it's not her kid" side of the razor the "Daughter is always holding New Baby, because it's hers" now has a looking-glass analogue in "Daughter is always holding New Baby to hide her own baby bump."

Oh, wait, your post was about how we're not supposed to be dignifying this. Dammit.

[alanj]

It doesn't matter if something is easily attacked if no one is attacking her. She's a small-state governor with high ratings and friendly local press. Note that none of the rabid speculation dates back to the actual incident, only when McCain named her. There may have been whispers, but so what?

I can accept "more plausible", I can accept "less crazy", but "way way way less crazy" is a stretch. :P I'm with sconstant, all the options seemed crazy and Occam's Razor was slashing all over the place.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

It just doesn't add up for me. The initial theory is way way out there in the first place, and while that doesn't make it impossible, it means I want to see some really good explanation to support it. So far everything that I've seen has been circumstantial hand-waving.

This story came out, presumably, because someone who knew about it leaked it. Why haven't any of the stories we've seen cited that source? Not even on deep background?

Here's what I think Occam's Razor tells us. Someone got wind that Palin's daughter is pregnant. After that story got told to a friend of a friend of a friend, it turned into the two rumors that hit the net: "Palin pretended to be pregnant to cover up her daughter's pregnancy" and "Palin is pregnant again."

That's all I see here. Honestly, my worst fear is that Palin will call the skeptics' bluff and tell her doctor to release her medical records. In minutes, it would turn the story into one about how the Democrats are losing it and grasping at straws. And isn't that all we need right now.

[alanj]

Now that we know Bristol is currently pregnant, I think Occam's Razor gives us a pretty clear answer. Before that bit of information - yes, we're hiding something, but it's not that - it was a lot less clear.

As for sources, the initial posts I saw about the story were from random celebrity/gossip blogs. Sarah doesn't look pregnant, but Bristol does, huh, connect the dots. No sources, just looking at photos, the info about mono and flights came later.