Sunday, September 07, 2008

Rebuttals to anti-Palin claims

To be fair, this is a rebuttal page to the anti-Palin rumors that have gotten about. It will take some effort to sort out all the facts on this sort of thing.

5 comments:

Doctor Logic said...

I think it quite plausible that Trig is Bristol's son.

From what I have read, Bristol was taken out of school about 7-8 months before Trig was born because she had mono.

Sarah did not show and everyone was shocked she was 7 months pregnant.

The story of her labor is bizarre. Her water broke, she gave a 45 minute speech, hopped on an 8 hour flight to Anchorage, then drove 45 minutes to her home town's hospital.

It would seem somewhat improbable that any given teen would have a teen pregnancy. Except that Bristol is apparently the type of teen who would become pregnant out of wedlock.

The McCain campaign issued a press release before any major blogger or any print news source printed the rumor. (The original rumor appeared in the diary of a reader on a major blog, not on a blog contributor post.) The story about the rumor wasn't out in the mainstream press until the McCain-Palin campaign issued the press release. (Easy to rebut this if you can find a print story dated before the press release.) The campaign made this an issue in a brilliant attempt to turn a liability into a strength.

In the release, they explain that Trig cannot be Bristol's because Bristol is "about 5 months pregnant." But, um, Trig was born April 18th.

Sarah is back at work 3 days after giving birth.

Trig was due in mid-May. He is out and about with his mother after 3 days. Is that normal for premies? Maybe they just didn't really know when the baby was due. Which makes one wonder why an amniotic fluid leak was no big deal.

Sarah appears on a talk show late in her pregnancy, seated, leaning far forward. Something extremely difficult to do late in a pregnancy. In the video, she mentions that she has children, but not that she is pregnant.

All of these pieces of evidence are circumstantial. None by themselves is particularly significant. Taken together, it all looks very very fishy. It's not as if faking pregnancy is unheard of. It's not like resurrection or something. ;)

It's fortunate for McCain that the press is being so friendly to the Palins on this issue. The press only speaks about the rumor, not about the many facts that gave birth to the rumor.

philip m said...

doctor logic,

You do realize that April 18th is less than five months ago? Of course the report said *about* five months, but what teen after getting unexpectedly pregnant at age 16 with a baby with down's syndrome, in the process gaining probably a full understanding of the ramifications and disapproval from her parents, is going to turn around and have unprotected sex again a few days later?

But that's not even what most makes your forced speculation so improbable...the fact is, if Bristol had Trig and Sarah didn't, somewhere someone saw Bristol give birth to a baby in mid-April, and there was never a situation where Sarah gave birth. The story of how one could pull that off would make a great plot for a novel, I'm sure.

Doctor Logic said...

Philip,

You're absolutely right. It would make an interesting novel.

I think the McCain people must want this rumor kept alive so they can portray the press as evil. If they wanted to squelch the rumor, why give the press the justification they needed to write about the rumor by mentioning it in the press release? Th press was afraid to mention it before that. And why claim the rumor is disproved by Bristol's new pregnancy when the time line doesn't debunk the story? Indeed, the McCain press release breathes new life into the story.

Edwardtbabinski said...

Palin's playing the old "confidentiality card" with her past emails, emails that have nothing to do with terrorism or national security, emails even sent to non-governmental personnel http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/98016/sarah_palin%27s_shocking_secret_emails/

Why are we letting public figures, especially people destined to possibly be a heart-beat away from the presidency, hit us with this "it's a secret" excuse?

I though it sucked when W. got into the White House and declared so many of his Dad's presidential papers unavailable to the public, which makes me suspect that the Bush family are hiding more than we'll ever know, perhaps more than was hide on the Nixon tapes after they were finally revealled so many decades later.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Logic,

I wonder how you explain the breast feeding that's been going on during the campaign on behalf of Palin? Numerous aids have spoken about it. And, my friends wife was pulling weeds in her garden less than 72 hours afer giving birth. Down syndrome chances increase with age. Yeah, Bristol gives birth and then goes out and gets pregnant again in less than a month. That's harder to do than going back to work in 72 hours! You libs are so funny. Don't know enough about kids and pregancy because you kill your babies too soon to experience anything.

Oh, and here's the one-stop-shop for all your Palin rumors

http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/09/06/palin-rumors/