Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Dragging Sarah Palin Through the Mud

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Blechhhh. This leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth.

She has to show up for her debate. No matter how hard she studies, there’s no way Sarah Palin can win that debate. No matter how bright and shiny and colourful, no matter how pretty the music, the advertisements they run cannot make up for her TOTAL LACK of EXPERIENCE and UTTER ABSENCE of READINESS for the office they’re trying to sell the American people.

Dragging her through the mud will make US look bad. Not her.

THINK, people. BE SMART about this.

Sigh.

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  2. If it’s the beauty pageant cracks, I agree.

    <

    p>If it’s Palin’s lack of interest in national affairs, disastrous tenure as small-town mayor, or ethically suspect dealings as governor, I think that’s all fair game.

    <

    p>Mind you, this is all fun to talk about, but within a week this will all be forgotten as attention rightly turns to the top of the ticket on both sides.

      • Otherwise you’re making everyone feel bad for no reason.

        <

        p>I don’t like feeling bad, Maryscott O’Connor, so please be clearer and more explicit.

      • I can’t claim that I read every diary and post on BMG, but I think I’ve been keeping up with the Palin threads. If the baby thing was even mentioned here, I missed it (have seen it beaten to death elsewhere).

        <

        p>As Kbusch said, it would help if you were more explicit and I’ll add that you should provide references to postings that you found offensive.

      • The evidence is pretty strong. Unlike the Swiftboaters, who just made shit up, it really looks like she actually lied to cover up the fact that her daughter had a child, at 16. You can say that’s “mudslinging;” I call it Republican ‘family values’ hypocrisy.

        <

        p>We’ve gone election after election being the nice Democrats who don’t fight back, fire with fire. Enough. We’re going to fight back, with everything we’ve got, especially when it’s the truth. At the very least, we need to investigate this, because the evidence is pretty damn overwhelming.  

        • It would seem to me that those who attended the speech in Texas or flew back with her to Alaska would have noticed that she was ostentatiously not pregnant. I’d assume that a fake tummy would be hard to get past airport security.

          <

          p>You didn’t source the photos on your site.

          • It would seem to me that those who attended the speech in Texas or flew back with her to Alaska would have noticed that she was ostentatiously not pregnant. I’d assume that a fake tummy would be hard to get past airport security.

            <

            p>Indeed, it would. That’s why, from what I remember reading in the diary, she never felt it necessary to inform the airlines that she was, in fact, in labor. In fact, let’s ignore my patchy memory and lift a quote straight from the diary:

            <

            p>

            Sarah did not inform the airline of her condition.

            <

            p>So, what’s more likely? A pregnant woman, who’s water broke and was in labor for likely at least an hour (she had a keynote speech before she took her flight, after all)… and flew for 8 hours, plus a stopover in Seattle… and then got to Alaska, finally, only to skip the better-equipped Anchorage hospitals for a 45 minute drive to a small clinic…

            <

            p>Or that Palin covered for her daughter? Honestly, I’m picking B.

            <

            p>And, yes, I sourced my photos. Just follow the links. I’ve yet to read a blog that includes a bibliography; that’s why we link things. The photos came from the Dkos diary. If you want to write a diary asking for new blogging conventions, I’m more than happy to participate, but I’ve  sourced everything I can ever think of that I’ve put on my blog. I don’t appreciate being called a plagiarist, thank you very much. Next time click the link, first.  

            • I’m not asking for new blogging conventions.

              <

              p>As a lot depends on photos, getting specific sourcing on them seemed more important to me. I guess you did implicitly source them. Sorry if I offended you.

            • Is her daughter pregnant?  Yes.

              <

              p>Was there a bizarre conspiracy?  No.

              <

              p>I do not think you have much personal expertise in how women behave while in labor, and think you should offer a silent, mental apology to the Governor, and proceed with more caution next time.  You are better than these comments.

              • When their water breaks, they generally get to the hospital.  Babies arrive on their own schedule, and the descisions made by Sarah Palin to fly home and have the baby there put her and her baby in danger of a mid-air delivery by a stewardess-midwife.  Given that she chose the route she chose, it’s no wonder people specuate as to a reason.

                <

                p>For the record, I’ve been opposed to this line of inquiry from the start – there are better ways to take her down than speculating about her baby.

          • The whole point is that she never appeared pregnant, even to her staff, right up until the end.  The photo on Kos is not taken of her just prior to this last pregnancy, if it’s a photo of her at all, i.e., shopped.  

            <

            p>The truth will find its way out.  The $$$ will become too high for some of the folks in Alaska to resist if there’s anything to this.  

        • and some of the commentary.

          <

          p>The diary makes it somewhat more plausible but it’s not convincing. There are certainly a number of odd facts:

          • The newspaper report that everyone expressed surprise at her pregnancy. You’d think her staff would have noticed.
          • The daughter’s over-extended absence for mono — long past the normal amount of time and the fact that mono is so typically used to hide pregnancies.
          • The very obscure hospital used to give birth to a premature infant.
          • The weirdness that everyone has commented on of taking an airplane flight after breaking water.

          These are all suggestive of a story, but Gov. Palin was not out of the public eye in the lead up to the birth.

            • I’m sorry, but that doesn’t answer away the fact that a 43 year old pregnant mother would skip going to the hospital immediately to give a speech in Texas, then skip going to the hospital again and take a flight to Alaska, completely with a stop in Seattle… where she again decided against a hospital. No one noticed she was in labor during the flight? I’ve obviously never been in labor, but I’ve heard from numerous women that there’s no pain a man can experience that can possibly compare. I’ll take their word for it. This story doesn’t add up.

              <

              p>At the very least, her judgement as a parent should be called into question for risking the life of her unborn child – something she values over the life of a rape victim – for a plane ride to Alaska. Not. Adding. Up. She very easily could have been wearing a suit in that photo, because I could point to numerous others around the same time where she is very clearly ready to run a marathon.  

            • Don’t worry about it. This story isn’t going beyond the blogs until there’s more evidence to it. I wouldn’t advocate it going beyon there until then, either. I consider this an open source investigation of what really happened – and I look forward to the results of tens of thousands of eyes looking for the answer, because it will be found.  

            • This picture was taken ~20 days before the one you posted. Now, I’m no expert, but I’ve never seen a women’s belly expand that much in that short a time… I still think that this isn’t out of the realm of plausibility, never mind possibility. Finally, per the very dkos thread you pointed out, the photo was initially posted as being from March 5, 2005. Only later was it updated to be April 13th, 2008. It could have been an error, but it’s just another part of the story that makes it hard for all of this to add up.

              <

              p>

              <

              p> That said, I hope my suspicions are wrong. If she really was pregnant, it’s an even worse story. She thinks a fetus has more rights than a raped, pregnant woman… yet would delay her visit to a hospital, while in labor, for 14-15 hours while she gives a speech, drives to the airport, gets on the plane to Alaska (from Texas), stops over at Seattle (where, again, she could have went to a hospital), then bypasses the Anchorage hospitals for a backwater clinic? If she truly was pregnant, at 43 with a future baby that had Down Syndrome, that shows a catastrophic failure to observe good judgement.

              <

              p>

              <

              p>If she truly values the life of an ‘unborn child’ as paramount, she has a strange way of showing it. McCain wanted to compare Obama to Britney Spears. Well, this incident with Palin is not unsimilar to Britney driving her car with her infant on her lap. Nor is it all that different from when Michael Jackson dangled his child over several stories. No matter how this story is sliced, it is a story.

          • These are all suggestive of a story, but Gov. Palin was not out of the public eye in the lead up to the birth.

            <

            p>that’s supposed to mean that none of this is possible?

            <

            p>The evidence is pretty darn good. I admit it’s not “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but this is a developing story. If true, it would be the ultimate revelation of hypocrisy by the Republican ‘right-to-life’ wingers that have had an iron fist on government for more than a decade. We’ve taken the best they can throw at us, it’s time to throw it – and their hypocrisy – right back at them.

            <

            p>Women, at 43, don’t get pregnant. Coming from my mother, who specializes in fertility, literally 1-2% of women at 43 are able to successfully become pregnant – even with in vitro fertilization. 45-55% of them will successfully birth the child. I’m no math genius, but that means about .5%-1% of 43 year olds could have a child to begin with… and it’s only even feasible if they went through in vitro. Would a winger like this the sort of person even go to a fertility clinic? She doesn’t believe in evolution or birth control, I’d be shocked if she didn’t think such practices were against god’s will.

            <

            p>Add that to everything else – the bizare flight, the backwater clinic where she could potentially control the situation, the pictures that clearly show that there’s almost no chance that she’s pregnant, while also showing that her daughter very well could have been…

            <

            p>I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I can’t see how you could dismiss this because she was under the ‘public’s eye.’ Plenty can be buried while in the public’s eye with a controlled image and money. I’m not saying that what I’ve alleged definitely happened, but you have to admit that there’s at least a significant likelihood that it did.  

            • Women, at 43, don’t get pregnant. Coming from my mother, who specializes in fertility, literally 1-2% of women at 43 are able to successfully become pregnant – even with in vitro fertilization. 45-55% of them will successfully birth the child. I’m no math genius, but that means about .5%-1% of 43 year olds could have a child to begin with… and it’s only even feasible if they went through in vitro.

              <

              p>Probability of a child born to a 15-19 year old teenager having Down Syndrome:  0.08%, or 1 in 1,250.

              <

              p>Probability of a child born to a 44 year old woman having Down Syndrome:  2.5%.  

              <

              p>These statistics have as little meaning for the Palin situation as yours do, because the probability that a child was born is now 100%, as is the probability that he has Down Syndrome.

              <

              p>For myself, I’m not dismissing anything, & I’ll admit to a fair bit of puerile googling.  However, I see no good coming from frothing at the mouth about this.  If the rumors are true, they will not remain hidden for long.  If they are false, they will soon be discredited.  

              <

              p>I agree with MSOC on this.  There are so many substantive issues on which to discredit McCain’s choice of running mate.  With Palin as your bait, you could be doing your part to throw the Democratic ticket into a dangerous trap.

              • I’m not exactly advocating Keith Olberman to focus 15 minutes Monday on how Sarah Palin may or may not have been covering for her daughter. Obviously, there is no smoking gun yet. As I’ve said elsewhere, I view these blogs as an open source investigation.

                <

                p>In fact, I hope I am wrong, because the fact that she’d fly 14-15 hours, in labor with a fetus that had down syndrome shows an amazing lack of judgement… and that is an absolutely fair story that is far from a trap.

                <

                p>In any event, don’t be worried. A few blog posts investigating this possibility won’t “throw the Democratic ticket into a dangerous trap,” or cost the election in any way whatsoever. To believe so would be placing our self-importance to an absurd level. We just aren’t that big of a deal… Now, if Brian Williams came out with a prime-time story on it a la Dan Rather in 2000, you could have reason to worry, but the chances of that happening are probably more slim than a 43 year old getting pregnant without invitro and having identical septuplets.  

            • about women who start having children early and have successive pregnancies and whether or not fertility can exist post-40.  Apart from a 1990 study by Colin Newell that suggested that, my own family has provided me with the data.   A famiy of 8 sisters who had 8-10 kids a piece, continued fertility into their forties.  We had a situation where a mother and daughter had children at the same time.  And this wasn’t turn of the century; their kids now in their 30s – 50s.

              <

              p>I have to tell you, Ryan, I am completely skeeved by this discussion.  The fact that bloggers are picking this apart has been picked up by Drudge – which means its going to go everywhere.  The voters the Dems are trying to appeal to will not be amused.  

              <

              p>

              • When Brian Williams reports this story without anymore evidence than I have. The Drudge picks up thousands of stories, a tiny percentage of them gets through the media. If Rush Limbaugh spouts this stuff, it doesn’t effect the election. Meanwhile, just look at today’s relevation to this story… clearly, there was something to it. There may even be more. This was a total news-day victory.  

                • is not impressed that bloggers accused Sarah Palin of lying about her daughter’s pregnancy, faked her own and claimed the baby as hers.  Of course – this wasn’t the case at all…and he even suggested that there could be a backlash if people keep this up.

                  <

                  p>What I find interesting is the people who claimed that Hillary would literally do and say anything to win…are now willing to do and say anything to win.  They’re willing to out a 17-year old’s pregnancy to score cheap political points.  It’s kind of gross.  

                • They’re willing to out a 17-year old’s pregnancy to score cheap political points.  It’s kind of gross.

                  <

                  p>That’s not what it was. The pressure obviously forced them to do it, but I had no idea she was currently pregnant. Nor did I even out her – I never used her name, not once. It was always about the Governor and how she decided to raise/not raise her family. Normally, that may be off the table, but this is a “family values” candidate. Hypocrisy is decidedly on the table. They wouldn’t stop a second from pushing a story like this even if it were completely false – the fact that something came of this story makes it all the more compelling.

                  <

                  p>Politics is a dirty game. If Palin wasn’t prepared to take it, she shouldn’t have accepted the nomination. She had to have known this was going to come out; it was her decision to run.  

                • I do.  I remember what 17 was like for my gay bro, too.  I  don’t think I would want any minute of the awkwardness, despair and pain put on public parade…and now we have a whole bunch of freakin adults salivating because a 17 year old was misfortunate enough to get pregnant and have her mother run for vice president.  

                  <

                  p>Politics is a dirty game…but that doesn’t give us license to enjoy a “victory dance” on this poor kid’s head.  This kid was essentially outed because the lefty bloggers kept up the conspiracy theory on her mother – and the mother had to reveal the truth – that she did in fact have a child with Downs in April AND that it was her own.  And that her daughter was pregnant.  I disagree profoundly that a “family values” candidate in being hypocritical when her 17 year old gets pregnant.  There but for the grace of God go I!  Kids make mistakes all the time – it doesn’t make them bad people.  My grandmother used to say that there were worse things than having a little bundle come home under your arms.  Braude even pointed out that Alaska was much like agricultural states in which people did get married/had children much younger than urban areas.  

                  <

                  p>I think the slippery slope towards “bad people” happens when one loses their moral compass in the name of politics.  When one really IS willing to do or say anything to win.  With so much other stuff to toss at Ms. Palin…why take the road through the sewer?

                • I’m saying she’s a bad choice for VP and to potentially lead this country, should anything happen to a 72 year old cancer survivor.

                  <

                  p>I’m really sorry her daughter’s been mixed up in all of this; I’ve done my part, as best I can, by not using her name. But, as many have already said (and I, elsewhere), if she didn’t want her daughter’s pregnancy to be an issue during the campaign – she didn’t have to accept McCain’s offer. She chose her ambitions over her family – she made the bed she lies in.  

            • Jeez, are you overheated.

              <

              p>Open-source investigation sounds like the right thing here.

              <

              p>Given the tilted media playing field, the right gets to air rumors because “people” are saying things, e.g., Drudge. When the left airs rumors, it’s because we’re partisan fanatics who don’t care about truth. Remember Bush’s national guard service and how the press handled that? Somehow it became a story about Dan Rather not about George Bush.

              <

              p>I don’t think we differ. I think you agree this is not beyond a reasonable doubt. It also seems to me as if a lot of obvious witnesses haven’t been contacted.

              • I was heated last night. Too many people want to dismiss this kind of thing, regardless of whether it’s true or not. I don’t think we should peddle in lies, but anything that’s true is fair game in taking down the Republicans, as far as I’m concerned – especially when it’s not coming from Obama’s campaign itself. But, as I inferred, I was probably too heated last night. My apologies.  

      • There is a lot to question about Palin, and we don’t need to stretch this far.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that evidence simply isn’t here for this story.

        <

        p>This is not the angle to pursue.

      • Judging this woman’s GYNECOLOGICAL and OBSTETRICAL DECISIONS under the aegis of judging her fitness as a VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE?

        IF IT WERE THE REPUBLICANS SAYING THESE THINGS and SHE WERE A DEMOCRAT?

        On a fundamental level, we don’t expect Democrats to do the things that Palin claims to have done. It runs against typical liberal ethics.

  3. So…why is that, in itself, bad?

    <

    p>You’re trying to convince someone which way to vote in an election. So, you have to convince them that your guy is better than their guy.

    <

    p>So, you can promote your guy or take down their guy.

    <

    p>Now, I sure do wish there was more to promote about Barack Obama. You can see my previous post about his energy policy to illustrate why you can only go so far with that.

    <

    p>Obama’s domestic policies are a mixed bag. His tax structure makes sense, and is a lot more progressive than that of McCain. His focus on “green-collar jobs” is fine, and he seems to be stronger on labor protections. On the telecom bill, he showed some disturbing anti-privacy leanings.

    <

    p>His foreign policy is much worse. He supports an increase in the military budget, is far too belligerant against Iran and Pakistan (frequently violating the UN charting in being so), and supports a residual force in Iraq.

    <

    p>So there’s a limit, for me, to how much I can talk about how swell a guy Barack Obama is.

    <

    p>And so what I do, in my life, is try to convince people that McCain and Palin have ridiculous policies and are very, very bad choices. And so yeah, people need to know about Palin’s lying, about her lack of knowledge about Iraq, her “teach the controversy” stance. People need to know just how militant McCain is, his blatant disregard for the sovereignty of the Iraqi government (versus Obama’s slightly less blatant disregard), his warlike stance toward Russia, his tax cuts for the rich. His lies, his distortions.

    <

    p>Negative campaigning is not bad because it’s negative campaigning. It’s bad if it’s wrong, if it’s spreading lies, or whatnot. Here, it’s a key element of what has to be done.

  4. He has to show up for his debate. No matter how hard he studies, there’s no way Barack Obama can win that debate. No matter how bright and shiny and colourful, no matter how pretty the music, the advertisements they run cannot make up for his TOTAL LACK of EXPERIENCE and UTTER ABSENCE of READINESS for the office they’re trying to sell the American people.

    <

    p>Funny how easy that was.

    • Obama has nothing going for him on foreign policy. I mean, the only way he could come out looking good is if he had somehow made the right decision on the major foreign policy of the decade, which would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, while John McCain and Joe Biden, with all their vaunted experience, somehow got it wrong.

      <

      p>But that’s crazy talk.

      • It’s too bad that people get judged on the results instead of the intent. It is also true that often it takes a while for the true results to become apparent so history is usually better to people than the current time inhabitants.

        • if you knew what you were talking about here, but I don’t think you do from this comment.

          • I was trying to talk about demredsox comment about Obama’s clairvoyance concerning the Iraq War vote and how “…would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, while John McCain and Joe Biden, with all their vaunted experience, somehow got it wrong.” Sometimes leaders get things wrong and sometimes they get it right. The “God” of the democratic party (JFK) is held up as an icon for many issues but do you remember the “Bay of pigs” fiasco?

            <

            p>You can skip commenting on this but I really wish you would reply about what we have to do to fix all the “waste” in our government.

              • Clairvoyance (from 17th century French with clair meaning “clear” and voyance meaning “visibility”) is the apparent ability to gain information about an object, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses.

                • Armed with a modest reading knowledge of French, I didn’t need to be told about the etymology of “clairvoyance”, thank you very much. However, either you don’t understand its English meaning or are given to ignorant statements about the nature of the opposition to the Iraq war.

                • Two scenarios and yes there are many other possibilities…

                  <

                  p>Yours (BO was right)… The US Intelligence services were wrong and Saddam did not have WMD. We got to war there and depose Saddam, bring democracy to the middle east, establish a base of operations in Iraq, 4,000 US soldiers die…

                  <

                  p>Mine (BO was wrong)… Saddam does have WMD. Israel gets bombed with a nuc and hundreds of thousands of Israelis die, nuclear contamination is spread over middle east and Asia, US responds with possible Nuc stike or NUc bomb gets delivered to US city and …

                  <

                  p>Which scenarios would you rather be wrong about?

                  <

                  p>Also, when “diplomacy” keeps being brought up… how many people died in Darfur while “diplomats” sat around the table and talked? Exactly what has Iran done in response to diplomacy? In scietific work, retrospective studies are always so obvious in their criticism of data and hypotheisis, but the real challenges lie in “prospective” work without the benefit of the unknown. Drug companies waste decades and billions of dollars on drug candidates which fail. Upon examnation of the drug compound “after failure” it becomes easily discernable why the drug was either toxic, unabsorbable, insoluable or simple ineffective. But only after it fails and more data is available. Humans are spared the effects of this bad drug because we have the luxury of time and testing (more data).

                  <

                  p>It is always easy to be a “Monday morning quarterback” but remember sometimes people aren’t right, they are lucky!

  5. By all means let’s not get personal but let’s not hold back either.

    <

    p>I disagree w/ the pundits saying Biden can’t play too hard or else look like he’s bullying a poor helpless woman. If he stays at his own podium (unlike that NY clown who got up in Hillary’s face), and speaks more to the audience and less to her, he should not hold back. Of course she could be utterly discredited by then anyway.  

  6. I’m not really offended by it, just irritated.  It’s a cheap and ineffective way to try to make your point.  (Plus, I like to take a look at bluemassgroup on my lunch hour at work; if this kind of language catches on, the site may become blocked by the corporate bots.)

  7. We don’t have to drag anybody through the mud.  The Illuminati already knows it’s Obama.  Would they miss the golden opportunity to steer America into complete oblivion by fully utilizing the irrationality of a backlash against Bush and eight years of neo-cons.

    • Where I can sign up for the Illuminati newsletter.  One that explains how a backlash against Bush is “irrational”.  Do I get a free tote bag?

      • Does anyone else in the US Government have culpability for anything? Does the US Congress get a free ride from all you partisans with regard to any issue? Seriously, the US Senate has been abysmal concerning so many different issues, including the war, Social Security, Immigration… and we all just blurt out the occasional critique but then quickly join hands to blame Bush for everything wrong in the world.

        <

        p>Let’s start blaming people where blame is due. And not just with a little whiff of discontent and automatically re-elect, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

        • I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. There are a lot of things to blame Bush for and this site has been careful not to add anything extra or unjustified.

          • and only yourself. This site has blamed him for everything except for fathering Sarah’s daughter’s baby, but I’m sure that is coming. Unless of course you are being sarcastic (you?).

            • You are making a ridiculous unsubstantiated charge. If you want to be ridiculous and insubstantial, that’s your choice. I know how you don’t like high standards.

  8. I just wanted to point out, in addition to my earlier comment, that I completely disagree with this diary (now that I know what you’re talking about, from reading the comments).

    <

    p>What’s the difference between evidence and mudslinging? Are we supposed to ignore stories because they reveal flaws? The Republicans don’t do that for us, why do we need to run our elections at higher difficulty levels? There’s a reason why 2 Republicans have been elected President for every 1 Democrat: we have too many people in our party who think we have to be ‘nice,’ even at the cost of protecting people from the truth.

    <

    p>If she covered up her daughter’s pregnancy and lied to the voters about that, the public deserves to know. Furthermore, if she did lie about it and covered it up, it very well could be illegal (I’m no lawyer, but I have a hard time believing covering up the birth of a child – and the identity of the child’s mother – is legal).

    <

    p>So, please consider the fact that just because you’re uncomfortable with a certain subject, it doesn’t mean we should cover up the skeletons that Republicans leave in their closets. They keep our metaphorical closets freaking wiretapped, rest assured.  

    • I’m uncomfortable with Palin ending up a net positive for McCain because Democrats throw disgusting mud at her.  If there’s truth to this story, let the Enquirer find it, that’s what they do.  Pushing a Matt Drudge story should be beneath Democratic activists who have better things to do — the bridge to nowhere story, her reactionary creationism, her poor turn at mayoralty, her ignorance of national issues.  The last thing we need is to recast this woebegone reactionary as a sympathetic figure.

      <

      p>Palin should be the gift that keeps on giving.  New this afternoon: she thinks the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance.  But a few lefties hellbent or muckraking is going to drown it out, especially now that further sacking of Alaska’s archives are turning up more and more pictures of a rather pregnant Governor Palin.

      <

      p>If we debate the issues, we win.  If we debate the qualifications, we win.

      <

      p>If we debate crap like this, we lose when we’re wrong, and lose when we’re right.

      • First off, we can’t give the Republicans any grounds. Anything that’s true and factual and has potential to hurt the Republicans is fair ground – even if it is slinging mud. Being the ‘nice’ party that was above the fray has been an electoral disaster for us, for a very long time. We simply can’t afford to have an American-President view of politics any more. Sorry.

        <

        p>We’ve been giving the Republicans a handicap for as long as I can possibly remember – despite the fact that they’re the party that usually wins. This isn’t a game of golf – and that’s not even the way the game of golf is played (if it were, we’d be getting the handicaps). Politics effect our lives, so we have to be prepared to fight fire with fire.

        <

        p>That said, I certainly do not advocate this story being pushed by the Democratic Party or onto the media in anyway, whatsoever, at this point (and not ever by the Obama campaign – that’s why groups like MoveOn exist). It quite simply is not ready for prime time. I absolutely agree that this is an extrordinary story that requires extrordinary evidence, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to find that evidence. And if that evidence isn’t found – and the chances of her being pregnant are beyond a reasonable doubt – then it shouldn’t prevent us from then going on the attack, questioning her judgement, a la Britney Spears with her infant on her lap driving the car, for avoiding a hospital for 14-15 hours while she delivered a keynote speech and took a flight, with a stopover, to Alaska in labor. That’s absolutely fair game and ready for cable news on Monday.  

        • Nothing says “gotcha” like a couple months of raking a mother over the coals, and then have pics of her giving birth a few days before the election.

          <

          p>Heck, the McCain team might have planted it! Now that’s really going down the conspiracy theory road (although I wouldn’t put it past them).

        • I’m not saying “bring a knife to a gun fight” but I would suggest making sure the gun is at least loaded if we’re going to be waving it around.

          <

          p>I’m just thinking it’s awfully tough to fake a pregnancy while a public figure…there’s plenty of video and still pictures of her at the time out there, just a atter of finding them.  On the other hand, much of this case seems to be built around an airline crew who would be in real trouble if they’d knowingly allowed a very pregnant public figure to board their aircraft.

          • it’s awfully tough – and let’s not do it in the MSM. You won’t see me forwarding any of this information to Globe writers anytime soon…

            <

            p>But the airline story is absolutely fair game – and I suspect will be picked up given this most recent news about the Palin campaign announcing her daughter is pregnant.  

          • waving a gun around?

            <

            p>We’re not making speeches. We’re not running ads. We’re not writing letters to the editor. We’re just writing about it on a blog.

            • It’s a common metaphor that Democrats “bring a knife to a gun fight”, i.e., they don’t play dirty enough or tough enough to win.  See Kerry, John re Swiftboating.  However, to extend the metaphor, a gun is only useful in a fight if it’s loaded.  And ginning up an extended character attack on a rumor with shaky substantiation reminds me of calling for a showdown while carrying an empty gun.

              • … there is little confidence in the MSM to get to the bottom of this and that blogger speculation is looked on negatively and framed as character assassination, where is the investigation going to happen.  I suppose that what I’d like to see is that if the MSM won’t get to the bottom of it the collective blogger journalism of TPM would be the place I’d like to see work on this.

                • I do find myself wondering what affect this sudden national attention is having on what I would guess is a mainly unknown, small, and insular political and media network in Alaska.  Are they closing ranks to outsiders, or enjoying their moment in the sun?

  9. Thanks for this and the other posts. I’m curious, MSO, why you started to post on BMG. I thought you lived out in California, so why pick a Massachusetts blog to cross-post your opinion on national politics. There’s nothing wrong with your posting here at all — quite the opposite. Just wondering why.

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