Wow. The Repugs may have to move their whole convention into Dick Cheney's hidey-hole.

I, too, have to vote for this woman. Not for the gothic romance, which I'm not sure I can even define adequately. But because... well fuck! Just LOOK AT THESE FUCKING PEOPLE! Are you going to vote against this bitch? Are you? I'm not.

Am I?

Give me a while and maybe I can articulate it better.

If this becomes big, and if it turns out that Bristol wanted an abortion, McCain is dead and buried.

Shouldn't that be- Grandson that is being passed as a son?

/jus' sayin'

If Sarah Palin were President, she'd be Babe-braham Lincoln.

A 17 year old has only a 1 in 1250 chance of passing on an extra copy of chromosome 21, whereas a 44 year old woman has a 1 in 30 chance. (Trisomy 21 is also known as Down syndrome.)

I don't know if the story is true or not, but the analysis of that family photo is crap. Kids are fat these days. Adolescents carry their weight differently than adults. In any event, if the girl were trying to hide a pregnancy, why the fuck would she wear a skin-tight sweater?

As for the rest of it -- I honestly couldn't care less. If the religious right cares about this story, let them report it and excoriate Palin for it. Most people on the left -- and people at the Stranger in particular -- preach that a person's private life is private. The age of consent in Alaska is 16. Bristol Palin is currently 17, and Trig is 4 months: as near as I can tell, no laws have been broken here, no matter whose baby Trig is.

And let's not hear any of that "the right started it" shit. Don't flatter yourselves with any false beliefs in your own piety: You guys are every inch as hypocritical and opportunistic as the people you hate on the right.

The difference -- and this is a difference you that should matter to your agenda -- is that by chasing this story, you actually shift focus onto your coverage. Instead of being a story about Palin's candidacy, or McCain's tokenism, or whatever, the right-wing media can now report this as a story about the prurient yellow journalism of the hypocritical left, who preach sexual freedom and equality out of one side of their mouths, and call for the crucifixion of Sarah Palin out the other. As far as that goes, you have at least done your part to protect the inviolability of Palin's personal life by setting yourselves up as surrogates for her transgression -- assuming there was one, which you have yet to produce anything other than circumstantial evidence of.

I swear, you people are a bunch of myopic, hairy-palmed, shit-flinging little monkeys. Seattle's only newspaper my ass.

They piss on your fountain splashing, too, Jonah?

It's a fake, Kiley. I can't believe this suckered anybody.

Well if a blogger spread it, it must be true.
While we're at it, let's gawk at the perceived paunchiness of a teenager.
Real class, that.

Assuming it indeed is Sarah's baby, the flight stuff is still strange and indicates lack of judgment, no?

Oh, fuck you, Judah. This story has been out for months. Shove your fake outrage up your ass.

Judah@7: you are full of shit. The whole point here is the sanctimonious bullshit from the biblethumping buttfuckers here. The evidence is pretty clear. Just STFU.

Judah, Democrats don't teach "sexual freedom." I believe "medically accurate sex education" is what Democrats want. Or more simply, "tell kids the truth about sex."

When the truth about sex becomes your enemy, you end up with situations like the Palins. When you become neurotic in your fixation on running and hiding from the truth about sex, you end up with grandmothers pretending to be mothers.

There is nothing hypocritical about uncovering the sickness of this kind of sexual repression. The sexual attitudes of the Palins spread AIDS and cause teenage pregnancy, and teenage abortions. And the odd suicide, if you look closely.

This is not a sideshow. This is what this election is all about. We're trying to save America and the world from pig ignorance

(And I'm sure we will somehow find time to talk about tokenism, pandering, opportunism, cynicism, and irresponsibility, among other problems with McCain's disastrous VP choice. The internet has room for all things.)

This sitch is gonna flip one way or the other, hard, fast, and loud.

If dkos's version is untrue, they're at ground zero for libel charges because malicious intent would be easy to prove. If it is true, and dkos's early lines of evidence (especially regarding Sarah Palin's movements) seem convincing, there is a LOT of collusion involving numerous people--the medical and birth records would have to be faked for Sarah and obliterated for Bristol, and numerous hospital staff would have to be in on it. Birth records are public. Medical records, while normally private, could be released under pressure for Sarah at least, because of the high office to which she aspires.

The mind wants to boggle that Sarah would throw her hat in the ring hoping to keep such a conspiracy (if true) under wraps, but hey, look at the stunt the Edwardses tried to pull off.

Judah @7, while I admire the mellifluousness of your imprecations, if this story pans out I hope you're man enough to apologize.

Never mind the pregnant teenager, I think that's a bong on the left side of the picture!

I'm not really surprised at how low the stranger is going to stoop here. It's frankly disgusting. Unless you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she hid this, it's only going to blow up in your faces and make you look like demons to the voting public.

http://alaskareport.com/images31/palin_pregnant.jpg

Look at that picture. Not so trim, not so attractive. Besides, as Jonah pointed out, the chance of a teenager carrying a baby to term with autism is so low it's near impossible.

Besides, I've seen plenty of college girls with the little pot-belly stomach going on. Hell, does no one here remember the scene in pulp fiction with uma thurman and bruce willis talking about pot bellies? The point is, this is sheer grasping at the straws. What an awful, awful plan.

The cruelty of labeling a 16 year old girl with a little bit of belly jiggle "pregnant" shows the depravity of Slog and it's authors.

But that's not important.

What is important is GUSTAV-GATE and it's impact on belittling a sinking Odoomba-Bidet candidacy.

Why did Democrats suppress information about the hurricane? Was it to focus attention on Barjaya and his stupid speech?

Preparations for evacuation were hampered because of all the egoism of the DNC!

Only Republicans can right these wrongs by using their Convention as a mobile interactive Red Cross operation.

hey #16 (Not Shocked):

- down syndrome is not autism
- maria de medeiros is not uma thurman

Seattle Fails Dr. King
(John A. Bailo, Sun Jan 7 01:47:15 2007)

I think that Seattle has become so brutish and backward in the last few years, that Dr. King would hang his head in shame if he were alive and walking around downtown.

Go into any Starbucks. If you are above a certain age, the person at the counter will greet you as "Sir". This is not a term of respect (although, if I launched a suit against them, they would claim such). It is a term of age discrimination. It's the same, to me, as long ago when a Black man might be called "Boy" and no one would bat an eyelid. No one at Starbucks will admit or condemn this behavior. I have written 10 customer complaints but to no avail (except for a few free latte coupons).

This is just one of the many examples of the daily slights that exist in Seattle society. Take Microsoft for example. It's de rigeur that one has to ride a snowboard and listen to The End. Suppose the person just writes good code. It is to no avail -- the group dynamic and prejudices are stronger than the professional quality of the person.

People here are very monoculturally oriented. They gang up and judge everyone by strict adherence to the norm. The danger is that Liberal Seattlites are so smug in thinking they are free of the old prejudices...but they carry new baggage and presuppose how people should be and what they should look like and how they should act. Your own hubris blinds you to this.

I live in a lower middle class to poor neighborhood in Kent East Hill, Washington State, USA, about 16 miles southeast of Seattle.

The people here are working poor or plain poor. Driving and walking the streets it also seems about 80% immigrant: Indian, Vietnamese, Somali, Mexican, just about everywhere that has a significant US immigration rate.

I was eating my dinner yesterday and watching The Old Star Trek (remastered) yesterday, and I realized...to these people, my middle class tastes and appurtenances must make me seem a fool, or perhaps a crazy person. Phasers? Transporters? And most of all the bombastic bleatings of Kirk, the guru laconic quips of Spock and the grumbling snorts of Bones would seem not decades, but millenia away from today's American Idol audience.

I was playing Talking Heads '77 earlier that morning. Yes, to anyone who went to college or who listens to alternative radio, the playing of "Psycho Killer" or "Pulled Me Up" brings a smile and gets the blood circulating with good rock and rock beats.

But to someone who just moved here? I tried to imagine what it was like listening to David Byrne's grunts and psychotic tic noises for the first time! I would get back on slow boat to Bangalore if that was what my American neighbor took for music.

hmm, well this could make things interesting. but i feel like it's just more fodder for outlandish cognitive dissonance on the part of the right (and judah apparently).

What if they were both pregnant?

if nothing else, that photo shows that palin lacks the good judgement to advise her daughter to not wear a shirt through which her bellybutton dent shows in a family portrait that will receive widespread public attention. christ, she was in a vogue spread, right? she has heard of clothes fitting right? what next, panty lines???

um, john bailo...have you lost your mind? what the fuck are you on about? and what is rock and rock?

also that girl looks a little pregers, more so than her supposedly seven month pregnant mom. but neither of them look third trimester pregnant.

Brendan you're literally going to vote based on this? please fucking don't vote then, dude. fuck.

The rumor is outrageous and certainly false. Verily I do pray to God that the mainstream U.S. media will diligently act to disprove the rumor via reporting the rumor over and over and over again in even-handed front page articles debunking its outrageous and certainly false accusations.

Thanks for hearing my prayer, o mighty God.

Anyone who thinks belly fat cannot become dome-shaped should take a look at the photo of Jim McDermott at the convention that was posted a few days ago. Wait a minute...maybe Sarah Palin's baby is really Jim McDermott's and he just hasn't lost the pregnancy weight.

Uh- I don't think the Stranger or Kiley in particular are creating this story, or making any of the arguments that the dkos diary entry is making- he linked and relayed them to you. So, it's not exactly as if he's saying that her daughter was either pregnant or fat, he's pointing out a place where that was said.

Additionally, I think what is interesting about this story is that it proposes one of two scenarios:

1) That Palin's funding for abstinence only programs led to a decrease in knowledge about safe sex practices which contributed to increased teen pregnancies in Alaska, including that of her own daughter. She then covered this up by claiming the baby as hers.

OR

2) She is genuinely such a negligent mother that she did not inform the airline she was traveling on that she was 8 months pregnant (like you're supposed to), did not seek medical services when her water broke and she went into labor, then boarded a plane for an eight hour flight, bypassing plenty of safe hospitals in major cities in Texas where she went into labor, Washington where she had a layover, and Alaska where she landed to then drive to a remote hospital near a town of 8,000 people. The mind boggles at the amount of risks she took with this infant, especially considering by her own reports she was going into labor a month before her due date.

Either way, she made incredibly poor decisions which endangered the lives of her children. If this is indicative of the moral character she is said to bring to the McCain ticket, McCain must be in a pretty sad state.

Ugh. This is a distraction, people. Give it a rest. True or false, I really don't care. What matters is that John McCain is acting like he wants to make the third W. term worse than the first two.

Wasn't that the plot to a desparate housewives episode?

Seriously?

Sara F Words? Confirm please.

This attempt to smear a great Christian patriot like Sarah Palin will fail.

I predict McCain will win at least 40 states.

Obama the Marxist Muslim will lose.

The proper course of action would have been for them to eat the retarded baby before anyone knew about it.

.... so very happy to see the SPAWN POLICE re not biased in their politics .... and active in pinko commie Seattle ....

we can rest better

less fear, more art and culture

...go SPAWN POLICE, GET THE TRUTH OUT ... NOW

Hey Ivan:

I love you.

Brendan left out a crucial fact, although it was one of many juicy points in the link he provided -- Palin's 17 yr. old daughter missed 5 months of school during her mom's pregnancy due to what we used to call "the kissing disease." Mono.

Her studly brother was pressured to join the army 2 weeks after sis tested pregnant. check the dates and do the math..

It's so sad.

I hope it isn't true -- sort of.

And don't forget about Joshua Moffet of Palmer, Alaska, who was in a collision with a very pregnant Palin daughter this spring. look it up. Gotta love the Anchorage Police Beat.

Amazing and tragic. And strangely joyous for anti=Republicans, including dems.

Wally

Good grief -- please drop this fast. There's no chance it's true, and it makes the many legitimate criticisms of Palin look just as ridiculous by association. This is the 9/11 Truthers of this election. Run away.

Odoomba-Bidet has dropped to a new low.

Soon they'll be calling those planes "guided missiles".

Politicians say more taxes will solve everythin'

And Barjaya sang on...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47446064@N00/2811916066/

It's Ball o' Confusion...

That's what the world is today.

Let me hear ya let me hear ya let me hear ya

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47446064@N00/2811916066/

Ball of Confusion!

If the rumor is false, there's a very simple way to prove it so.

Palin just has to release a picture of herself lying in a hospital bed with the newborn Trig, properly dated of course to confirm things.

One would think someone would have thought to take several photos of the blessed event, so all they need to do is to produce ONE to squelch the rumor.

Strange that no one on the GOP side has thought to do that yet...

I mentioned this before, but: how often do 15-year-old girls give birth to babies with Downs? Unless, you know, incest and all that.

It is very common for candidates to provide medical records. John McCain provided only limited access, but the precedent still stands. It would not be inappropriate to give reporters access to her medical records. If these records show no unusual circumstances, that should settle it.

It would be a shame if we had to get to the point of reviewing her daughter's medical records. The poor dear has been through enough already with that difficult mother.

So very sad indeed.

Didn't this happen to Jack Nicholson?

I remain skeptical. Her daughter's belly looks pretty normal in the photo, at least to me, though she looks incredibly uncomfortable.

Less than 1 in 2000, alan. Which means it's unlikely, but hardly so unlikely as to render it impossible.

The other part of the story, besides Palin not looking pregnant and the daughter missing months of school. Namely that when she started leaking amniotic fluid in Dallas she supposedly finished her speech, got on a plane, flew 8 hours home to see her personal doctor and then give birth.

Extremely dangerous thing to do if she was really pregnant with a baby that already had issues. But a very sensible thing to do if you had to hide the fact that you weren't really having a baby.

FUCKING AWESOME.

@40:

Look, fuckwit -- a kid with trisomy 21 isn't less viable than a kid without it, the age of the mother doesn't impact the mortality of a kid with Down's, and it sure as hell isn't worse for the kid if the mother is young.

The statistic you keep repeating (incorrectly) like a retarded fucking parrot, is that an older mother is more likely to have a kid with Down's than a young mother. But that doesn't mean that a young mother can't have one.

Kos has already pulled this moronic rumor down. I'm so surprised it gained traction here with all you intelligent liberals and armchair geneticists. (eyeroll)

For the sake of accuracy, I'd like to point out to everyone that Down's Syndrome has NOT been shown to be caused by incest.

For a really long time, people blamed any kind of genetic anomoly or mutation on inbreeding. In fact, you would have to have generations upon generations of inbreeding for the statistical likelyhood of genetic anomolies or mutations to increase significantly.

Furthering the myth that Down's Syndrome can be caused by incest further stigmatizes a group of people by casting aspersions on the circumstances of their birth.

For an example of this, see:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/seven-apologises-for-incest-episode-20080602-2kw0.html

Yes, the the child is statistically more likely the older mother if she has down syndrome, BUT the child is more likely to want to be kept by Palin IF the child has Downs Syndrome.

It's also easier to hide shit like that when you live in a weird rural state like Alaska than it is in oh ... Seattle.

I think that Judah and @16 are half right in their point when they think that this story is perhaps libel and a distraction. But I also think that Palin might be the first to pull a stunt like this IF IT WAS TRUE. And maybe that is the point, and that is what infuriates me about the prolifer ultra-religious conservatives, is there denial of the condition of humanity.

They disguise it in the guise that people should be held accountable for their mistakes, and that's fine ... but should SOCIETY BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR AN INDIVIDUALS MISTAKES??? Should I have to pay for the welfare and prison fees for some fucked poor soul who's parents never wanted in the first place? Who is only going to be resentful of his life, ours, and FURTHER DRAIN OUR PLANETS RESOURCES?

And I guess that is the issue I have ... maybe some of us gave up on this romantisized view on life, because it really doesn't fucking work, maybe three billion people ago it made sense...

And I guess that is the issue, to think that you have to dress pretty and pretend everything is all Christian and Kosher when there are REAL PROBLEMS that aren't addressed in the bible. Especially a book that is incredibly subjective to the mentality of the person that reads it. I can read it (and have) and come up with a number of at least pseudo aethistic yet altruistic viewpoints of how i see the world that are conveniently forgotten.

Judah and 16 ... whatever

@47

Nope, the story's still there on Kos.

@46: what's with all the name-calling? And your spittle-flecked response has nothing to do with the point I raised.

Maybe you're too fucking stupid to catch my point, to let me spell it out for you: perhaps THE DAD FUCKED THE DAUGHTER AND KNOCKED HER UP.

These are hard-core right-wingers we're talking about, after all.

Since it's a holiday weekend, this non-story will probably have an extra day of life until someone gets a copy of the kid's birth certificate and interviews the doctor who delivered him.

Of course, the same Kos poster will probably weave together a new theory that involves the doctor and the twenty or so other hospital employees that are involved.

@51: Windowlickers like you are the only reason Michelle Malkin gets huge traffic mocking moonbats. Thanks for contributing to the wrong cause, dipshit.

the truth seems to be posers here are in high frenzy at all the possible contortions of this story

... who fucked who when and where
... where is the father
... age of consent, which we all know is so very important
...is it inscest, which is possible cause dad just looks like he is too cool
... if all the facts can come out, well, you can blame the mom cause the daughter has no real right to sex at 17 --- the good virgin/ prim and proper thing for the young women of Alaska ---- or you can make it clear families cannot work through sexual stuff, ie. pregnancy before 25 with privacy and freedom.

Is this the Concerned Women of America site?

And when are the Sranger staff going to make public every detail of their own family sexual history? Including all teen sex and playing Doctor on elementary school playgrounds? More reporting on sex between elders, often not married, widowed granny and horn dog old men, post it as soon as possible.

And, the SPAWN POLICE IS A GREAT IDEA - IT IS ABOUT TIME.

are there ny reports of Lesbian activity?

Oh, get real. My ex-girlfriend gained 5 kg total during her pregnancy, and didn't even realize it until 7 months (she was on the pill the whole time, so she suspected the slight weight gain was something else).

This wasn't just an episdode of Desparate Housewives - it was an entire season plotline.

Bree's daughter (the tramp!) got pregnant by Edie's long-lost and no-good nephew. Bree and her husband shipped Danielle (the trampy daughter) off to grandma, saying that she was studying in Europe, and then proceeded to fake her pregnancy. She was found out eventually, however. I don't remember how. (I'm usually drunk by that time of night. )

But I do have a point here: This sort of thing - if true, and if incest is not involved - is still not that uncommon in middle America, and is not a selling point for the left. In fact, it will garner a lot of sympathy for the family. Catholics and Fundies will love her even more.

This is a story that will only sell in the urban archipelago, and not well even there.

#56 - your girlfriend is an idiot.

This grandmama-drama is the "Obama is a secret muslim" of the General Election. If you publicly profess to believe it, you just end up looking like an idiot. Democrats passing this tidbit around immediately become the moral equivalent of the Republican race/religion baiters. Don't stoop to their level.

Make the contest about judgment, McCain's AND Palin's, not this tabloid fodder.

Looking like an idiot on the interwebs is the worst thing that can happen to you. From what I've been told.

I'm going to be extra extra extra careful what I say on the internetwork because I don't want to look like an idiot. On the internet. You either. You all take care here.

Questions:

- Where's the birth certificate? It's a public document.
- Where are recent pictures of Bristol? Is she still a bit plump?
- And where are the now-missing pictures of Sarah Palin from her official website, from January to April?

And... do you really gain weight when you have mono?

Actually, an out-of-wedlock child does not raise the ire of social conservatives as it once did.
(My grandmother orchestrated a fake wedding and divorice in 1949 as she sent my mother to another state to give birth to my out-of-wedlock half-sister.)
Abortion, however, still does. If the baby had been aborted because of Down syndrome that would have been far more of a transgression. I agree with the comments of @6 and @7.
Once again, never take anything from The Stranger as actual journalism.

I think the analysis of the pictures of Salin and her daughter are ridiculous. Everybody shows pregnancy weight differently, and those photos could have been selectively chosen. And, the daughter does not definitively look pregnant in that picture - the belly fat "analysis" is totally absurd.

BUT, that being said, the whole "daughter being out of school for 5-8 months due to mono" thing is obscenely suspicious due to the timing of it and the length of it (it would be extremely rare for mono and its effects to last that long). If it weren't for that I wouldn't have given this a second thought...

wasn't the girl suspected of being preggo taken out of the last 4-6 months of school?

There are potential complications with mono, such as a ruptured spleen, which could have played a factor.

That being said, the only classmates I had who missed that much school had leukemia or a liver transplant.

maybe it was her brother that knocked her up...

Attn: Trolls -
As some of you have obviously failed to grasp, trolling works better when you use a recognizeable language arranged into a coherent and logical sentence structure. Might I suggest the following; English (since this is a dominantly English language forum, though I'm perfectly willing to work with any other real language) and perhaps a structure of Subject Verb Object, like Palin (subject) told / did not tell (verb) a lie (object) failure to use your words shall result in further dismissal and mockery. That is all.

A) Scroll down to the bottom of this post: http://www.spartacuslives.org/node/20463
to see pictures of Sarah Palin during her first pregnancy, and during this latest one. As others have commented, after multiple pregnancies, the tendency is to start showing earlier in the pregnancy, not later.

B) If Bristol was staying home because she had mono, she would have looked like she lost weight, not gained it, between the "late 2007" family picture and the March 2008 picture. Loss of appetite and weight loss are some of the principal symptoms of mononucleosis.

Palin is going to be the Tom Eagleton of the GOP.

Palin didn't announce that she was preggers to her staffers for several months even though nothing sells in politics, especially in winger land, like motherhood.

Then eight months pregnant, she says, she flew to an energy conference in Texas, where, during the night, she started leaking amniotic fluid. Her water broke and even though she supposedly knew that the baby was going to have Down's Syndrome, which also brings with it possible severe complications, she made the speech and then, after getting the okay to FLY FOR 12 HOURS BACK TO ALASKA despite the threat of sepsis, which could have killed both her and the child, she landed in Seattle, talked to the physician, who said it was okay for her to make her connecting flight back to Alaska.

None of the flight attendants noticed that she was pregnant or in any medical distress.

She arrived in Alaska and gave birth the next morning in a podunk hospital with no NICU (Natal Intensive Care Unit) even though it would be pretty standard procedure to put the special needs baby there for a bit to try to head off possible complications.

Now my mother is a former pediatric nurse (retired in 2000 after about 30 years on the job) and she told me this story is "fishier than tuna" and finds it "unbelievable" that a physician would allow her to get back on a plane rather than urging her to immediately seek medical attention. At the very least, Palin acted negligently and my mother thinks that the physician did not tell her to get on that plane.

Here is likely what really happened:

At 4 a.m. Texas time, she gets a cellphone call that her daughter's water had broken. Palin had to keep the story congruent with what was happening to her daughter, so she told everyone her water had broken when that was not the case. She called her daughter's physician before she got on the plane and flew to Seattle and then called him again before flying on home. The daughter gave birth the next morning.

Oh, I didn't mention one thing: Palin's daughter had been pulled out of school five months before she gave birth, ostensibly for "mono." In a lot of neighborhoods in America, "mono" is a code word for "I got knocked up" or "I did some time in a correctional facility" among juveniles. How convenient.

Palin had to maintain this charade because she didn't want her Christian Right followers to know that her daughter had given birth out of wedlock and sinned. She has thus lied to the media and the American people and she will be greeted like Linda Smith (the murderer) by her evangelical following, who she also lied to, if she is found out.

The selection of her by McCain also follows a pattern of behavior. He has always been highly impulsive, his native impatience marked by his refusal, for example, to read flight manuals while he was in the Navy. He was protected by his father, a big shot admiral, and could get away with it. He womanized like it was going out of style and crashed at least four airplanes (millions in taxpayer money, also making him a worse pilot turned pol than Bob Dornan) before he was shot down by the North Vietnamese. But even there, he was treated relatively gently compared to the treatment meted out to other and lesser known prisoners.

His first wife saw him through his convalescence and then he jumped into an affair with his current wife. His impulsiveness raised its head again after meeting Palin just once before naming her his VP nominee.

Once she is found out and forced to step down, that will make McCain's presidential bid a Campaign to Nowhere. Neither of these two has the integrity to be the leader of the free world. And the above demonstrates that amply.

As for the physician, who has backed up Palin's story, there are one of either two motives at work here: one, he or the medical group he might be a part of didn't want to lose a high powered client or possible further state business. It will be interesting to see if any Alaska state money ends up in this guy's bank account for state-related things other than treating Palin.

Secondly, he could want to be the next Bill Frist and run for office and Palin's connections could help him a lot there.

Whatever the case, both her and he are lying, I believe.

brother track was sent to boot camp soon after the rabbit died.

they don't show the older daughter as much -- during yesterday's speech Palin explained that she was on the bus taking care of the baby.

This shit really is funny. Now I read that the pic of Bristol showing a slight baby bump was taken when she would have been 4 months pregnant, not 7 as stated in the post. Very Alaskan gothic imo. Now the real problem with Palin is overturning Roe v Wade, and maybe Lawrence and maybe Griswold, or complete incompetance in difficult foreign affairs, not who's baby Trig actually is.

You can't tell me that a 16 year old girl, pulled out of school and away from her friends, isn't on MySpace or Facebook or LiveJournal eight hundred times a day. There's dirt in there, you can bet.

This is so great. If this proves to be true, the McCain ticket is totally DOA, as it will show McCain's judgment is zero and his VP can't attract Clinton supporters or the religious right. If it proves to be untrue, it will still undermine the ticket because it's the kind of accusation that sticks in people's minds, gives greater credibility to other troubles like her firing her brother in law etc.

Kos has as much credibility as World Net Daily.

It's a silly story and Slog's relevance quotient just plummeted for posting it.

That is so 1950's.

Does anybody but me remember the scandal about CBS and those faked Bush Air Guard documents? Essentially, the meat of the story was true: Bush was AWOL for a lot of his duty. But the story became about the coverage of the story -- the documents CBS used were fakes. The clear implication to me is that it was a brilliant Rovian ploy: plant fake documents about a true story, and then expose the fake documents in a move that both diverts attention from the actual story and discredits the source so that any future reporting on the story remains suspect. (As a bonus, intimidate other media outlets away from any attempts to follow up on the original story.)

So, if one believes that this story is true and not just a smear along the lines of "Obama is a secret Muslim," one must ask oneself how such a scandal could have possibly escaped the notice of the GOP political machine, and allow for the possibility that it didn't escape their notice, but that they already know about this (hell, they may have planted this story themselves) and have the spin on it prepared so that it will break their way. Courageous mother bear stands up for her cub, takes one for the team etc etc blah blah family values. Something like that. (Or alternatively, "liberal attack machine smears mother of Down's Syndrome child.")

There are serious perils in pursuing rumor and innuendo in an attempt to smear one's opponent, and in the era of Karl Rove politics it's reasonable to assume that there may be more to this sort of whispering campaign than meets the eye. To say nothing of the basic human decency angle: Making accusations like this absent any evidence makes the left look like bullies and hypocrites.

The alternative here (again, for those who believe this story is anything more than a vicious internet rumor) is that McCain's campaign didn't vet this woman at all.

@69:

In the interests of fairness - yes, Moonbats, even SLOG can be fair sometimes - McCain was only personally responsible for ditching three planes.

The fourth loss was the result of an errant missile from another fighter misfiring while he and his plane were awaiting takeoff aboard the U.S.S. Forrestal. The missile hit McCain's jet, but he was able to escape before it exploded; an accident, which, if I recall correctly, resulted in the deaths of several hundred sailors, making it one of the worst ship-board disasters of the Viet Nam war.

But still, if it had been any other pilot, one say, without two four-star admirals in the family, they would have been pulled from flight status after two losses, and a third loss would probably have resulted in complete revokation of their accreditation.

So, while McSame may throw down the "I was a POW for 5 1/2 years" card at-will, the truth is, he NEVER would have been shot down in the first place, if his daddy & grampy hadn't pulled rank.

@76:

But we already KNOW McSame's people didn't have a chance to fully vet Palin. From what we're hearing coming out of his campaign, he met with her for only slightly more than an hour, and never indicated to anyone she was his pick until right before the announcement was made; hardly sufficient time to allow for the sort of extensive background check one would expect in anticipation of such an unprecedented decision.

Regardless of the outcome of this latest brou-ha, whether the rumor proves to be true or no, it once again reflects poorly on McSame's rash, impulsive decision-making skills, and his refusal to consult with his advisors before making them.

All of which sounds frighteningly familiar...

Obviously a conspiracy by the blogosewer to discredit the blogosewer.

Trust no-one!

@78: I guess what I'm saying, Comte, is that it frankly seems incredible to me that savvy campaigners like the GOP (say what you want about their competence at governing, there's no denying their skill at campaigning) would miss a scandal like this. I suppose it's possible, but it seems unlikely.

The spin on Hurricane Gustav and the GOP convention turning into a Red Cross fundraising drive (the irony of the party in power soliciting donations to a NGO to respond to a natural disaster that falls under the purview of FEMA might be lost on a lot of people here) will be that they are in fact Compassionate Conservatives. The spin on this scandal will be that Democrats and their proxies are heartless hypocrites.

Even if the Palin story turns out to be true, the tone of the Democratic response will be crucial. Appearing to capitalize on the misfortunes of others, in either of today's big stories, undercuts Obama's message of unity and compassion. And as the Hillary Wars have illustrated, Obama will be held accountable for the words and actions of his perceived surrogates.

Caution is called for here. Journalists and would-be journalists would be well-served to check their facts before running a salacious story.

Reactions from the right:

Michelle Malkin's blog:

Palin attacks counterproductive as well as moronic

Shot in the Dark:

Let The Backfire Begin

...What if she lived her family values in a way that Joe Biden hasn’t even thought about fabulizing from whole cloth yet?

Not that I want to dignify this rumor with the faintest shred of a presumption of legitimacy - the “writer’s” “case” is that dull-witted - but if it’s true, I think it is even further proof that Sarah Palin is the real thing.

And that hurts the ticket not at all.

Newsbusters:

Stooping to Lowest Level: Democratic Claim of Palin's 'Faked Pregnancy' Gaining Steam

And kind of on and on like that. Good job guys.

Palin during her first pregnancy -

http://www.spartacuslives.org/files/images/1stchild.jpg

Palin 34 days before the birth of her last child.

http://www.spartacuslives.org/files/images/5thPregnancy.jpg

This Palin carrying her 3rd daughter, Trixie, if my sources are correct.

Just two observations. Pregnancy issues are essentially the domain of women, the women in a family.

Have any of you liberal men ever scored right wing men who preach on abortions they will never contemplate or have? Sure.

Remember, pregnancy is not a male community issue, never, ever.

If this saga is true, the women of the family delt with it in their way. Not an uncommon solution.

This attack dog stuff from men will backfire big time - she may become the political heroine of the moment if you keep it up.

Real life sories, real life drama, the hard choices and the untidy solutions.

Just what did Biden have for breakfast?

Some of you are brain dead when it comes to media and are far from any the complicated textures of real life families.

PREGNANCIES ARE WOMEN"S ISSUE _ BEWARE OBAMA

I hear what you're saying @80, and I agree completely in that attacking Palin directly on this - at least until there's some definitive evidence one way or the other - is counter-productive.

Attacking McSame for his shoot-from-the-hip, throw-the-dice-and-hope-it's-not-snake-eyes decision-making style, on the other hand, should be the entire point, so far as Democrats are concerned.

@83 - Blank screen. Could there be an error in your tiny url?

"A vote for change(lings)" is the best line ever.

@34

Please explain your tagline: "PREGNANCIES ARE WOMEN"S [sic] ISSUES _ BEWARE OBAMA."

Do you mean that only women like you, presumably a GOP conservative, should be granted the power to criminalize other women who make reproductive decisions differing from yours? Are you suggesting that Obama is a threat to America because he wouldn't work to overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion illegal in all cases, including rape and rape and medical threats to the mother's life?

I fail to understand the logic of your tagline. Please advise.

Kos's dates on the pictures were wrong, sadly. (I loved the raising-her-daughter's-baby story!) The picture showing Bristol with a "baby bump" is from a family photo session in 2006:

http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8334949p-8231037c.html

(Notice same clothes on Willow, Piper, and Sarah. First Dude has a jacket on in this one.)

Sarah Palin's appearance (skinny!) and behavior (weird!) during her pregnancy with Trig still have to be explained, though. AND the Alaskan locals are saying that they've known for a while that Bristol is CURRENTLY pregnant. That would explain the absence from the last few months of school, etc. Onstage during her mom's acceptance speech on Friday, Bristol's belly was obscured by Trig and a sizable baby blanket, but Meghan McCain posted a backstage profile shot on her blog. Check out the picture captioned "Getting ready for the People Magazine photo shoot":
http://www.mccainblogette.com/postings/083008_0928.shtml

Bumpy, indeed. Look for Bristol in the coming weeks. She'll be the one in the background, holding the baby.

I am totally pro choice, as is every woman I know.

The point is that abortion is essentially a womans issue. We have scorned the right wing for parading men to prattle on the issue as if it were ever to be something they would directly face.

Now, it seems to me, male liberals are proceeding to be the experts on pregnancy. In the same vein - she should have done this, who, what, when and where. They need to shut up.

This pick for VP is to cement evangelical support and message to several sectors of women ... how strange to hear males raging about mom and daughter stuff and getting pregnant.

Geez, and it will backfire. Their old boy chatter is better focused on money for prostate cancer and penis jokes.

By the way, the right of choice is to choose not to abort as well in the personal sense.

I think if Obama turns these male idiots loose - that is a political mistake.

I seriously doubt Obama is ever going to piont a finger at her and accuse her of covering up her daughter's pregnancy. This is just an excersize in noting the typical hypocracy of the republican party. She is a bible thumping right winger, like that reverend with the passive ass fucking/crystal meth addiction and foot tapping tearoom sex addict Craig. Its just funny how these people are. It will not make it into the debate.

Bristol is currently pregnant - WOW - how strange for pretty and fertile 18 year old women

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ who the fuck cares

@ #69,

I don't think this is "fishier than tuna" at all. Sarah Palin is a politician who spouts abortion is murder, even if the fetus is damaged. Well we all know how hypocritical Republicans are in that "my abortion is the only moral abortion" kind of way.

Palin is going to be the Tom Eagleton of the GOP.

"Palin didn't announce that she was preggers to her staffers for several months even though nothing sells in politics, especially in winger land, like motherhood."

She wouldn't announce the pregnancy until the results from the amniocentesis came back. She probably planned on having an abortion, but maybe the news leaked out and she couldn't arrange a "miscarriage" at the nearest Planned Parenthood. She was very thin, but she may have been starving herself in hopes that she could "accidentally" lose the baby.

"...Her water broke and even though she supposedly knew that the baby was going to have Down's Syndrome, which also brings with it possible severe complications, she made the speech and then, after getting the okay to FLY FOR 12 HOURS BACK TO ALASKA despite the threat of sepsis, which could have killed both her and the child...and gave birth the next morning in a podunk hospital with no NICU (Natal Intensive Care Unit)...to try to head off possible complications."

Yes, complications that could kill her "special" child, because a good god-fearing woman would never have an abortion. Afterward she would wail publicly and loudly about how the child's death was the "will of god" or "god's plan".

I don't know how "Palin is going to be the Tom Eagleton of the GOP" got in there. Sorry.

@93,

Yeah, but Down's can be detected by the fourth month, which would also enable Palin to get a completely legal and easy elective abortion. At seven months, she would've had to get a late-term abortion, and there are very few clinics in the country that performs those.

It seems more possible that she opted out of an abortion for religious reasons, but still did everything she could to lose the baby by other means, in such a way that makes it look like the will of God. And that possibility occurred to me too when I heard the story about her water breaking.

Judah @ #7

You know, the complaints about Palin include that she is pro-life even in cases of rape and incest; that complaint is based on remarks she made about her daughter, that if it was her daughter, she would help take care of the child.

Having yet to verify exactly what that quote said—hearing it fifth-hand through media reports of her opponents isn't exactly helpful—I'm not ready to tack Palin to the shed over this one.

Furthermore, your right-wing advocacy is hollow. It's not about the idea of teen sex that people would crucify Palin. It would be about being an evil, lying religious freak, and even more so if her daughter has been victimized by the father of the child and not just her mother's political needs.

Sorry @84 I must be cynical ass hole on this one and say pregnency is the womans issue until the child support checks have to be made.

I'm not exactly sure what the answer is ... and I would rather have it be the womans choice a zillion fold over the no choice arguement, but sometimes, and more often than women want to admit, women will have their child at ANY COST. Cost to society, cost to the individual and COST TO THE CHILD. A child can be, and maybe is mostly treated, as an outlet of of captive unconditional love.

Anyways ... carry on about Palin. The details may be a useless and polarizing distraction, but a tasty bit of gossip.

@33: The proper course of action would have been for them to eat the retarded baby before anyone knew about it.

I've always assumed that the people who say they spit a beverage onto their monitor from laughing were full of crap- until I just did it. Funniest thing I've read in a week, at least.