Have you heard the rumor about Sarah Palin’s youngest child, Trig?
I hadn’t until this morning, when I caught it via MightyGodKing.
Apparently, there’s a rumor Trig Palin might, in fact, be the child of Bristol Palin, Sarah’s oldest daughter.
Some of the details certainly make one wonder.
The official version of the story seems to be that Palin’s water broke while she was in Texas, at which time she flew back home to Alaska to give birth to her youngest child. If she did so, I’m relatively certain she would have had to take a private jet; commercial airlines prohibit women more than 8 months pregnant from flying.
But let’s say they made an exception because she’s governess of Alaska.
Still, her oldest daughter, Bristol, had been removed from her school for 4 to 5 months already, with a “prolonged case of mono.”
The other thing is that, even according to the Anchorage Daily News, when she announced in March that she was 7 months along, she “simply [didn’t] look pregnant”. She claims to have disguised it well.
The Moderate Voice vets both Palin and the story here.
I’m not convinced it’s true, but then, I’m not convinced it matters, either. I thought she was both batshit crazy and less than qualified for the gig before I heard any of the above rumors, and I still do. I think this whole back-and-forth argument between GOP supporters and McCain Democrats and PUMA supporters on one hand and Obama supporters on the other is silly, because I don’t think experience has very much to do with one’s ability to get a job done. Obama and Palin are, arguably, on equal level concerning experience, but Obama’s qualification vastly outpace Palin’s, and I think that’s what counts. Obama was the Illinois senator, and as such participated in national policy; Palin is governor of a state whose population is less than Brooklyn’s and may have participated in regional policy, there in Alaska, but isn’t Alaska a bit of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind state, anyway? People note it’s the largest, but Manhattan is more populous and impressive, no?
If it is true, however, I wonder if it plays into her anti-women’s rights beliefs. Keeping secret one’s daughter’s teenage pregnancy and then adopting the child as one’s own while actively concealing the entire thing seems somehow related to the “let’s all sweep sexuality under the rug, because the only real way to educate teenagers is to teach them abstinence. We won’t acknowledge sex education, we won’t dispense condoms to populations that might use them, and we will consistently teach that sex and its consequences are utterly shameful” belief system many fetus-rights activists seem to share.
What do you think? Would it make a difference, if true?
August 31, 2008 at 7:52 am
I think it is no ones business. As usual
politics are full of gossip, inuendos and filthy rumors. What do you care?
August 31, 2008 at 7:57 am
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
August 31, 2008 at 8:13 am
this mono story is reminiscent of the 1950’s where girls were sent to those ‘hospitals’ outside their city limits to have their babies and to avoid controversy. you know, the 1950’s where women were not allowed to use birth control — kind of like 2008 in the PALIN home..
I’d like say this story is nobody’s business and the Palins should have their privacy respected, but several things do make this one a legitimate public matter:
1) One of Palin’s great claims to character among the Republican anti-abortion base in the last few days is that she bore a baby even after the fetus tested for Down syndrome. If she is lying, she is lying about a significant part of her political claim to fame.
2) She is already suspected of lying about firing the state Safety Commissioner in “troopergate.” A pattern of lies would be an indicator of character.
3) Most of all, as an anti-abortion executive, she would make the private lives and pregnancy decisions of every other woman in America a public matter potentially enforcable with poilice and jails. This obviates any claim to her own pregnancy decisions being accorded any privacy respect. “If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.”
4) Palin is not just anti-abortion, she is anti-birth-control, and an opponent of sex education for teens other than abstinence-only. So her 15- or 16-year-old accidently becoming pregnant is very relevant, since she wants to keep the knowledge and devices to prevent pregnancy out of the hands of every *other* teenage girl in America.
Apparently she and her family chose the traditional Catholic/Evangelical way: take the girl out of school for months claiming she has mono, have the baby in secret, and make up lies to cover it up.
Not everyone wants to (or can afford) to take this route. In particular, maybe Bristol would have preferred to have her child openly and without fear or shame. Maybe others want to make their decisions without terror of the law and the state persecution the religions conservatives would apply.
AND no airline would knowingly fly a pregnant woman whose bag of water has broken!!!
Thirdly, delivering a speech and then flying several hours to Alaska to deliver a baby when Palin could have delivered at any number of fine hospitals in Texas is an act of endangering the life of the child.
August 31, 2008 at 8:19 am
Whether the gossip related to the daughter is true or not my main concern is that Sarah Palin is choosing to leave a 4 month old, special needs, child to accept a vice presidency position. Where are her priorities? This son, whether biological or adopted, will not stop growing up and where will his mother be? She is campaigning and, if elected, will be serving as VP, not giving her time and attention to this child. I, a mother of four, find it a very poor choice being made by Palin. Pro choice may be admirable but making a child a priority is necessary. Why birth that child if you choose to set it aside to be raised by someone else. This child should be number one for her right now. National political office should be put off for a later date, when her children are older. Additionally, I feel sorry for her teenage daughters who unfortunately will become the ones responsible for caring for Trig. I chose to be a mother and have chosen each time to fulfill my responsibility to care for my children. Isn’t that the way parenting is supposed to be done? Motherhood doesn’t stop with giving birth!
August 31, 2008 at 8:34 am
@Pat: unfortunately, both governorship and vice-presidentship are extraordinarily public positions, which, in fact, sort of does make it everyone’s business. I’m actually normally one to say that I don’t care about people’s personal lives (Clinton and Edwards spring to mind), but on the other hand, this seems to go hand-in-hand with her stances on the issues.
@Kristin: that was a really good breakdown of just how it affects or informs her positions, too, and why it might, in fact, matter. Because if she is the sort of conservative, anti-women’s rights, Evangelical Christian who actively opposes sex education for teenagers in favor of parents’ right to educate their children concerning such matters as they see fit, it speaks to parents’ actual ability to do so.
@Martha: I had a friend who made a similar argument concerning Edwards, that his priority at this point should not have been national politics but rather caring for his wife. I was a staunch supporter of Edwards, so it’s not something I’d argue in this case. Then again, in this case, I wonder about her qualifications to provide care and education child every bit as much as I wonder about her qualifications to provide leadership on a national level. All that said, I agree with you, mostly.
August 31, 2008 at 8:52 am
Hey dufus,you didn’t want my reply?
August 31, 2008 at 8:54 am
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.
She arrived in Alaska and gave birth the next morning.
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.
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.
August 31, 2008 at 9:05 am
@harddriller: read the comments policy. If you’re going to contribute, do so, but no namecalling and the like. And if you’re not going to follow that, you simply don’t belong here. Further commenting like you’re currently doing will simply be deleted. I’m only letting that one remain to answer your question. But “dufus?”
Are you 7?
@Rob: I love your mother solely for saying the story is “fishier than tuna.” Which it is, for all the reasons you so enumerated. Thanks for that.
August 31, 2008 at 9:32 am
I love the phrase “fisher than tuna “
August 31, 2008 at 11:34 am
also, she flew 6 different times in 2 days, 1/2 of which her water was leaking… first off, it is nearly impossible for her to have gotten pregnant in the first place, she had about a 1-2% without fertility (which she did not have), 2ndly, she would have had a 54% chance of having a miscarriage because of her age, add on top of that, her 5th child with downs syndrome — this isn’t about the kid being born with a 6th toe on his left foot… she flew from alaska to tx, water breaks, gives speech, then flies from tx to seattle, then seattle to alaska, then still doesn’t go to the nearest hospital, but then flies to the small town where she was mayor to her good old doctor and gives birth in a rinky dink hospital that has no natal ICU — also, as far as my digging has come up with, she never transferred power to the lt gov which i imagine would have been required because she would be incapitated during labor and child birth.
August 31, 2008 at 11:52 am
After announcing she was 7 months pregnant, there are pictures posted of Palin with legs crossed, leaning forward over one knee, casually speaking in a microphone. She appears at a governors conference in Washington around this time, not looking pregnant, a video interview shows a 6 month pregnant (not exactly appearing to be pregnant-possibly just hiding some middle-aged spread in a zipped up jacket)sprinting in high heeled boots around Juneau, giving a tour-guided interview, talking about the great gut thrashing, thigh burning jogging in the area.
Here is a picture of Sarah Palin when she really was pregnant:
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080831/480/529a19dfc6774f308117d4be16d30c8d/
August 31, 2008 at 12:20 pm
@Jen: yeah, it just gets fishier.
@truthseeker: thanks for that picture. I’d been looking for one.
August 31, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Sarah Palin is not the pregnant lady in that picture, you idiot – she is STANDING NEXT TO the pregnant lady! Get glasses!
August 31, 2008 at 1:11 pm
@ashe: so you’re saying Palin is the one looking away from the camera, and so who can’t really be identified? Because the AP caption reads “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pregnant.”
Maybe they’re both pregnant?
And again with the name-calling. What is it with name-calling? Can PUMA supporters not avoid using words like “idiots” and “dipshits”?
Stop.
September 1, 2008 at 11:59 pm
If nothing more, if the story is true that Bristol Palin is the mother of Trig, it shows Sarah Palin to be a liar of the first degree. It also means that Bristol Palin would be put in the position to have to lie about the fact that she is the mother – perhaps for the rest of her life. It would mean that Bristol Palin would not have the right and privilege of raising her own son. And, if it is true that Bristol Palin is the true mother, and now must uphold this terrible lie, the fact is that the whole lie was perpetrated on the public for none other than public relations reasons – so that Sarah Palin would not be embarassed in her position as Governor. In addition, if Bristol Palin is the true mother, it is possible that Bristol wished to terminate the pregnancy with Trig – either because she would have been only 16 at the time of conception, and/or after learning that the unborn fetus would be a Down’s Syndrome child. However, it is possible that because Sarah Palin is a strict anti-abortionist, and for Bristol to have an abortion would have caused Sarah Palin tremendous embarassment with Conservatives, because of these things Bristol may have been instructed by her mother/parents that she could not have an abortion.
Do you think that these are issues that are unimportant and should not be discussed for a Vice-Presidential candidate of the United States of America? I think that they are very important.
Pat B.
Pennsylvania
September 2, 2008 at 10:24 am
There are several aspects of the allegations to address.
First the missing baby bump. I am a mother of four and can honestly say that I never looked pregnant until the bitter end of my first two pregancies. My boys took a toll and my baby bump did betray me much earlier. Either way, it seemed that overnight the evidence of my growing belly appeared, so that doesn’t raise an eyebrow.
Second, the quick return to work. I had my oldest child on a Saturday and was back to school seven days later. My second daughter was born on a Monday so I missed my quiz for Monday and was excused and back in class on Wednesday. The third child I was not in school, but helping my cousin clean, one week was all I allowed myself. Finally, the fourth addition was born on a Saturday but I had a major test over the muscular system, so I was back to lab on Tuesday for the exam. I am FINALLY done with nursing school, by the way. Four births and back to school or work immediately, so hearing that the Governor was only allowing herself three days doesn’t give me a smoking gun that she faked the pregancy.
Third, hiding the pregnancy. This is an easy one for me. My first pregnacy was a set of twins, I lost one and blessedly kept the other fetus. Three miscarriages to finally diagnosis a hormone imbalance. We more than fixed the problem, as evidence by children two, three and four. I kept my pregnancy secret until 14-15 weeks for fear of miscarriage. I believe it highly probable that the pregnacy was hidden for fear of miscarriage, at 17 weeks the first set of diagnostic tests revealed possible Down’s further secrecy. People are cruel, why open yourself to an additional emotional hay-day of media attention with a troubled pregancy and a less than jubulient outcome.
Finally, the daughter missing school for mononucleosis. Well, this is a toss up for me. I had Infectious Mononucleosis my Junior year in High School. I missed 6 weeks of school, my liver and spleen were both enlarged, I was fatigued. I missed from the second week of October to the last two weeks of school. Back to school in January, it totally whipped me, so I missed two more weeks of school in January. Finally back to school in late January, I would still possibly miss a day every couple of weeks. I felt like a whimp until several years later my cousin had a similar bout. We both agree and have come across others, it took us months to get over mono and have our full physical abilities back. So, I do believe it highly possible this young lady had a serious time with the disease. Changing schools is the only aspect that raises an eyebrow, unless it was to do with missed days and school policy.
Her honesty is a question, well be honest, you agree or disagree with her stance on abortion, birth control, abstinance, sex education, name it and this just fuels your views.
Everyone believes their idea of the perfect mom, dad, governor, president is the correct one. So, to not be hypocritical, I like her, I support her and think she does meet the criteria of being an average working family. I have a teenage daughter that was taught abstinence, I taught her about birth control, I pleaded with her to be selective in something that can only be given once. Above and beyond locking her up or arranged marriages, her choices are hers to make and she lives with the consequences and the rewards.
She is no more an embarassment to the conservative group than President Clinton was to the Liberals for not having sex in the oval office, John Edward’s love child or Ted Kennedy’s little accident.
As for all the comments, it boils down to this. You are either conservative, liberal, or moderate. You have most likely already made your choice and now you need to justify your choice. I decide based on the platform, I downloaded the 90+ page GOP platform in 2004 and the 45 page DNC platform. I made my decision based on the issues. I will do the same again this time around, but based on the rhetoric already, I have a strong suspicion where my loyalties will be found.
Elizabeth
Georgia