There are so many things to talk about regarding Sarah Palin- every time she opens her mouth a mixture of evil and stupid pours out- so for the life of me, I can not figure out the infatuation with Trig, either pro or con. It just makes no sense to me. She has a baby, she loves it, and she, like every other politician, used her kids as props.
Someone explain.
Persia
Because she’s a woman, therefore she must be doing something wrong with her kids. Probably several somethings.
demkat620
I don’t get it either. And the only one who seems to care is Sully.
The kid’s hers let it go at that.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s the implausible set of circumstances surrounding Palin’s pregnancy with Trig. This should be a pretty straightforward thing, but when you have someone like Palin who has serious problems maintaining a straightforward narrative, one that is in consonance with timelines and facts, questions will be asked.
The entire “fly back to Alaska from Texas after her water broke” thing, for example. That her staff didn’t notice she was that far along. That she claims she’s released records that don’t seem to have been actually released.
This is pretty much part of the same pattern that arose from her interview with Katie Couric; somehow, a very straightforward question that is one of the most slow softballs any media type could toss at her is transformed, in Palin’s mind, into a “gotcha” question. “What newspapers and magazines do you read to stay informed?” “All of them.” Huh?
WyldPirate
Because she secretly holds the poor child up as the only example on Earth of another human being that she can probably outscore on an intelligence test?
(Ducks and runs for cover.)
Yutsano
@demkat620: I’m not even worried about the paternity issue, although the e-mails suggest the traveling back from a conference in Texas just to have Trig in Alaska is a big whopper. Not that I’m surprised, most airlines won’t let a pregnant woman fly in her third trimester.
gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
Maybe she models herself after the C-SPAN Washington Journal hosts, who seem to have all the newspapers out at the start of the show’s Open Phones segment and they refer to all those articles.
With media consolidation, I mean how hard can it really be to keep up with all the newspapers and magazines?
karen marie
“Every other politician” does not use their children as props, and few use them as blatantly as Palin.
As for Palin loving Trig, she sure has a funny way of showing it. Dragging him around, first on the campaign trail, then on her book tour, inappropriately clothed, without his hearing aids and glasses, does not reflect the kind of care a loving mother should provide to any child, much less one with Downs Syndrome.
Palin is a prime example of a bad parent.
KG
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, that’s pretty much my thoughts on it.
The pro side is pretty obvious too, she’s prolife and proved it by having a kid that one of those godless liberals wouldn’t have… At least in the minds of her believers
chopper
@Yutsano:
this. just because the conspiracy theories about trig not being her son are horseshit doesn’t mean that her story about the circumstances under which the kid was born isn’t plain wacky.
that’s always going to be a curiosity.
aimai
I think people have a hard time separating their feelings for Palin the political figure and Palin the person. And that’s because she’s pretty horrible on both counts–in her private life she’s been shown to be incompetent as a parent, incurious and incapable as a student, vindictive as a public figure with respect to her own ex family members and constituents. Its hard not to read that stuff back into her relationships with her children (some of them even relate directly to her relationships with her children). But I tend to resist going there with respect to trig. Not because I don’t think she is (avowedly) a terrible mother. If I believed the story she peddled about trig’s birth I’d indict her as a terrible mother regardless of her political views–and she would too if the same story were told of a liberal political figure. On the other hand, I see no reason to fault her for leaving Trig behind with other people to raise him while she’s out on the campaign trail. Frankly, its probably better for him. She’s an atrocious mother to the older kids if the way they are turning out is any proof.
aimai
KG
@gene108: You know, the more I think about it, the more slack I’d be willing t give her (if she hadn’t shown herself to be a gritted since), that as a governor she probably received news summaries and might not ave known which papers the stories came from. But that’s probably giving her way too much credit
Some Guy
I think, in line with karen marie, it is that she is one of the few women to have ever run for such high office and the first of that small crew to use her children as props. And not just as soft, fuzzy signifiers of all things wholesome, but as specific icons of ideological premises that she endorses.
It matters quite a bit that she is a woman doing this as opposed to a man. Alan Keyes using the “moral” lessons he inflicted on his daughter regarding abortion would not sound the same coming from Palin.
There is also the weirdness fomented by Sullivan about whether or not it is really Palin’s child. Again, if it was the Todd running, that speculation might still be of interest to some, but not in the same way with Palin.
Usage of children as props is not the same regardless of the gender of the politician, the office under consideration, and the manner in which the child is folded into political rhetoric. On all those counts, taken in totality, Palin is sui generis.
Yutsano
@aimai: Trig is the Palin I feel the most sympathy for. His life will be very interesting as the youngest child in a family where raising children does not seem to be a priority. It would make me laugh to no end if the state of Alaska takes him away from her.
Florida Mom
This post in a response to one of Sully’s made a lot of sense to me. And I think it sums up what many of the Trig truthers are really bothered about.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/04/trig-again.html
Yup. Yup. Yup.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing with her pregnancy with Trig was, she has stated that she knew he was a risk for Down’s, yet she takes all these actions that compound the risks. It just does not make sense given the narrative she’s trying to push on her pregnancy with Trig.
Her story would be, IMHO, much more touching and sympathetic if she wasn’t so bloody busy trying to score political points with it.
It’s just part of her overall gestalt of animal cunning in the service of grifting.
demkat620
@Yutsano: Well that I get. I was high risk with my technically second pregnancy(I had a complicated miscarriage for my first) The doctor gave me a lot of restrictions.
I just really doubt we will ever find anything really crazy just stupid and I don’t think it should become like another bigfoot story.
TreeBeard
Some blame has to go on the need for a 24-hour news cycle in the US to be sensational*. They need a source of outrage, so whether it is Trig Palin or Obama sneaking out for his daughters’ soccer games, someone is out there trying to generate outrage.
Which is goddamn annoying, looking at all of this from across the pond. I don’t even know the name of David Cameron’s kids. I don’t even know if Brown, Blair, Clegg, Major have kids. I know Thatcher had a son, only because he was involved in some trouble in Africa or Central Asia or something.
On the other hand I know the names of Every American president’s children since GHW Bush. Plus the children of McCain and Palin. And I’m only 28.
*Not that we don’t have the Daily Mail and its ilk here, but they have their place and people KNOW their place in the scheme of news and information.
Freddie deBoer
It drives web traffic. Unfortunately.
Tim, Interrupted
This country is so fucked up politically and socially, and a nice illustration of that fact is the twisted way politicians have come to be expected to present themselves and their family as some kind of ideal package to which all should aspire.
As we well know, as often as not this “package” is false and bullshit. Besides which, who the fuck cares about some person’s family in relation to the job they are hired to do?
I don’t screen my plumber for the quality of his family. I don’t care how wholesome is the family life of my mechanic; I just want elected officials to do their fucking job.
I wish ALL politicians would leave their families out of the spotlight, off the campaign trail and out of our faces.
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
If that were the case, then the straightforward, honest, and perfectly understandable answer is “my staff prepares news summaries for me, and so I can’t tell you specifically what paper or magazine they were based on.”
Then she follows up, also quite plausibly and understandably, with “I’ll have to get them to provide me with source information in the future, so I can better answer this question if it’s asked again.”
Instead, in the aftermath, she gets defensive, as in tossing up a Maginot Line, about what to me is one of the most innocuous questions a politician will ever get.
Elizabelle
She’s weaponized Trig.
He’s not just a toddler, he’s “proof” and a living reminder that moderate/liberal/non-conservative women abort their Down Syndrome babies.
That is a tenet of pro-life, conservative ideology.
Sarah Palin polarizes everything she touches, and Trig is no exception.
FlipYrWhig
My theory about the birth story is that it was very, very important to have Trig born in Alaska because of Todd’s Alaska-independence views. If he’s born somewhere else, he won’t be a REAL Alaskan.
Yutsano
@demkat620: Apparently the e-mail release is incomplete and redacted. So whatever is lurking under the black pen is what basically Palin doesn’t want us to see. That may spark curiosity in some enterprising young reporter. Or it may just get accepted and we move on to the next shiny object du jour.
KG
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, and I think that is the answer that every other politician gives, which leads to the question being cut in the editing process. That’s why I said, it probably gives her too much credit and since we’ve established that she’s a grifter, I could buy it as an actual answer
Amir_Khalid
Why is there a public fascination with Trig’s sister Bristol, for that matter? The main event is, and ever shall be, their mother. They are but sideshows.
One thing’s for sure, though: Sarah works the hell out of her kids as side attractions, far more than most politicians do. Bristol only got as far as she did on DWTS because of her mother’s fan base; she doesn’t have one of her own. Trig gets carried on his mother’s hip as a prop to gain her sympathy and admiration. Piper gets dragged into a bus tour, and in an unguarded moment is photographed glowering resentfully at Sarah (at least that one knows what’s what).
This fascination with Sarah Palin’s children is really no more than an extension of the fascination with Sarah Palin herself. They’d be better off not having to face it, and if Sarah really cared about being a mother she’d be shielding them from it. But she’s a grifter, to whom any publicity is good publicity. So she keeps them in the public eye. And the mass media, ever eager for celebrities to write about, happily obliges her. The only Palin she wouldn’t dare exploit in this fashion is Michael Palin.
Elizabelle
@Florida Mom:
I think she was trying to lose Trig, very honestly. “How tragic for our Sarah. A late miscarriage for this valiant, pro-life woman.”
No woman who wants to give her special needs infant a fighting chance chooses any of those actions.
(Driving past a better-equipped hospital, closer to the airport? Come on.)
Groucho48
I always figured she suffers panic attacks when she is out of her cocoon of family and sycophants and that’s what happened to her when her water broke and she was away from most of her support system.
I can kind of sympathize with that. Not enough to let it just slide, as there was a baby at risk involved. But, that’s not the kind of thing you like to see in a President, who has to make all those 3 A.M. decisions.
Kane
In most cases the “infatuation” is not with Trig. Rather, the continued focus on the birth stems from a desire to simply know the truth. There’s also a sense of frustration that some have with the media that they are willing to blindly accept Palin’s birth story, even though the story is sketchy at best.
When Sarah Palin was running for the office of mayor in Wasilla, she demanded that her opponent publicy provide his marriage license to prove that he and his wife were actually married, which he did. When the kerfuffle surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate was going on, she was demanding that Obama produce his long form birth certificate, which he did.
Palin has publicy said that she has already released the birth certificate, which she has not. To end all the talk and speculation and “infatuation”, all she needs to do is to reveal the medical records to the media. And yet, she refuses to do so. Why can’t the media hold Sarah Palin to the same standards that she holds others to?
AAA Bonds
MAYBE BECAUSE YOU POST ABOUT TRIG JOHN, MAYBE GOD IS PUNISHING YOU
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
It’s interesting that the link supports your view that Palin “weaponized” Trig, and was imagining even during the pregnancy how Trig’s birth and childhood can be parlayed into a political advantage.
The kid was a prop before he was even born.
And her fans love her for it.
kdaug
Who gives a fuck? Srsly?
None of my goddamned business, from where I sit.
Comrade Kevin
@FlipYrWhig: by that measure, Sarah Palin isn’t a real Alaskan either, considering she was born in Idaho.
kdaug
@Tim, Interrupted: Dittoed.
Zam
The problem is how she uses him as a prop. Most politicians just have their children there to show their family values, she uses hers to claim that liberals abort down syndrome babies.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Persia:
of course, if she were a man, the answer would be simple. rehab! because everything is a disease or a condition, or a syndrome, why not possibly inattentive mothering.
Brachiator
Well, yeah, every politician pretty much uses his or her family as props. That goes with the territory.
But Trig, as a Downs Syndrome child, represents issues that go far beyond the political, or even Palin’s stupidity or mendacity.
@Elizabelle:
Women have children with Downs Syndrome, autism, Aspergers and other conditions every day.
The decision of whether to continue a pregnancy is often difficult and heart wrenching for families.
George Will has a son with Downs Syndrome. The great scientist Stephen Jay Gould leaves behind an autistic child.
Both men have written about their deep love for their developmentally disabled children. They didn’t write anything here about politics.
And no matter what you think about Palin, at the end of the day, she and her husband have Trig to love and to take care of.
Florida Mom
@Elizabelle…I honestly can’t begin to surmise what she was thinking or hoping. Something is seriously wrong with the whole picture regarding Trig, but exactly what I’m not sure.
I keep checking the Alaskan blogs on a regular basis in hopes of finding the sordid details made public, whatever those entail. Mostly because I am sick to death of her and her family and would like them all to just go to hell away. I could care less if she keeps grifting with her PAC’s so long as that screeching voice of hers is silenced.
PeakVT
I think @Elizabelle nails the right’s fascination with Trig: Sarah turned him into a tribal icon.
kay
@Kane:
Because people don’t have to affirmatively disprove rumors. It works the other way.
I know it doesn’t work that way for Andrew Sullivan (Trig) and Sarah Palin (Obama), but they’re both wrong. Profoundly misguided. Confused.
The phrase goes “put up or shut up” for a reason. The speaker has to put up, not the one gossiped about. I know we (well, they) got it wrong with Obama’s birth certificate, but that was a horrible shameful episode in media/conservative insanity and recklessness and I’d prefer if it not become the rule. Incidentally, you’ll remember media and conservatives were dead wrong about Obama, so that national embarrassment we were all forced to endure should act as a brake, not a reason to continue down that road.
Alex S.
@Elizabelle:
Wow, quite a statement, but you might be right.
kdaug
@kay:
Sorry kay, really think that train’s left the station.
We’ll see where it goes, but I’ve got my bets.
UncertaintyVicePrincipal
Not only does she use her baby as a prop much more than most other politicians, she uses him in that patented Palinesque way that involves the double-edged technique of putting him in the spotlight to get as much attention as possible from journalists, and then complaining that her children are “out of bounds”.
It’s what she does in general; make millions through nothing else but media attention, and then complain about the media as if it’s her enemy, getting her supporters to actually say things like: “Poor Sarah, if the media would only leave her alone!”
It’s her scam. That is her, to a tea.
cleek
don’t care. have no interest in her or her personal life.
kay
@kdaug:
Candidates must reveal both their birth certificates and their children’s birth certificates. Oh, and medical records pertaining to pregnancy, but of course only women are going to be revealing those.
Nothing bad and stupid and endless could come out of that precedent. No, sir.
PurpleGirl
@efgoldman: Yes, they bring the child/children up to the dais for the victory/lose pictures but most politicians try to keep their kids otherwise hidden for the most part.
Kane
@John:
When you think about it, there really isn’t much to talk about. Sarah Palin is pulp.
Lolis
I think it is more of a scandal that Sarah and Todd Palin have raised the ten-year-old (Piper?) to have absolutely no manners.
Anne Laurie
“Trig Palin: questions remain” has become the right-wing’s version of “Al Gore said he invented the internet”. The nuances of what was actually said, and how much of what may have been said might have been true, are not important — it’s just an ever-ready stick with which to beat a (perceived) key member of The Other Side.
(In Andrew Sullivan’s case, the ‘other side’ is not right-wing American politicians, it’s ‘politicians wanting to be taken seriously even though they have an icky, mysterious hole where their penis should be’. He’s determined to keep the gay-men-are-phobic-about-vaginas meme going strong, no matter how little support he gets.)
kay
@Lolis:
I think the question is why Todd Palin spent all day in the governor’s office, which he did. He attended meetings, etc.
It wasn’t in the emails. It was revealed several years ago, when Palin was dinged for improperly using her office to have a state trooper fired on a personal family vendetta.
Media never followed up, and it’s curious. Her unelected husband was co-governing that state. There were pages of testimony on it, in the report.
I think it’s worth at least a discussion or a debate. He went to work with her, and not in some traditional spousal adjunct function, either. What was that all about?
pragmatism
A frothy mixture of evil and stoopid is an opiate for the real ‘murican masses.
Brachiator
@Kane:
As far as I can tell, most of the speculation and infatuation over this issues comes down to Andrew Sullivan’s vagina envy.
@kay:
Bingo! The mindless insistence that endless stupid rumors, speculations and fantasies must be resolved by the disclosure of medical and other records to the press is primitive and stupid. And as you note it is very telling that some of this crap would put extra burdens on women.
Why don’t we make male political figures submit to DNA tests so that we can be sure that they are the biological fathers of their children?
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Elizabelle:
This is why the fundies instantly fell in
loverapture with her — even before she mangled a single word.Fundies know pols are phony on abortion. They know Reagan, the Bush family, et al. are notorious flip-flopping opportunists on abortion. But they have no choice but to go with the ones who at least provide lip service. But then came Sarah, someone who not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. They were orgasmic. They had actually found a true believer, just like them.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig:
There is that, as a reason why Trig had to be born in Alaska, but there may be another angle to that.
That being born in Alaska made Trig’s access to the North Slope oil royalty yearly payoff a given.
It’s true that the Palins are flush now, but back then, not so much.
kay
@Brachiator:
Parentage, generally, is a can of worms. But, it’s an old question, right? There’s some history there. None of it good. Lineage is important to our deeply conventional traditionalist media corps, and Sullivan is part of that. I myself take everyone at their word on that issue. It works better in real life.
lamh34
actually, i would say that unlike a lot of pols, POTUS and FLOTUS even during the campaign made a point of NOT using Malia and Sasha as props. Other than that Access Hollywood interview (which I believe I read somewhere, the Obamas regretted having the girls be a part of it) and their appearances at the DNC in ’08, the Obama’s seem to limit the girls exposure to only be at times when they would be expected to be a purely family oriented functions.
So not all pols “pimp out” their kids such as Palin did. She had that kid perched on her hip at the beginning of every rally and handed him off to whomever once the speech began.
How many rallies and speeches did Obama and Michelle give and you could probably count on one hand how many times the girls were on stage or even at the venue.
Snarkworth
I wonder what Sullivan would do if, like the dog who finally catches the car, he succeeded in proving that Trig was not Palin’s birth child. Aside from all the secretive coverup stuff, what would her ultimate crime be?
That she adopted a special needs child and tried to keep it secret?
Doesn’t seem to merit all the tinfoil.
Tehanu
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
Yes, and consistent with the rest of the “pro-life” crowd, the moment the kid was born, her behavior shows that she could care less about him after he was a fetus. “Don’t murder your baby! We’ll make sure that it and you both die of starvation in the street after it comes out of your body!”
Brachiator
@kay: RE: Why don’t we make male political figures submit to DNA tests so that we can be sure that they are the biological fathers of their children?
Originally, I was going to use the example of the bride of the heir to the throne having to prove that she was a virgin. But even the British had the sense to get rid of this primitive tradition, and no one much talks about the fact that Kate Middleton had boyfriends before she settled on William or that they, gasp, lived together before getting married. Sullivan probably collapsed in a heap over the throwing over of tradition.
But more seriously, I think that in originally trying to stay above the birther crap, Obama recognized that he was trying to protect the dignity of the presidency. I can only imagine the crap that will be thrown at future nonwhite, female and gay presidential candidates.
Janet Strange
@Villago Delenda Est: All of those things have occurred to me.
1. She’s lying about when she went into labor because that “finished her speech and flew back from Texas while in labor” makes her seem heroic tough (which is how she sees herself).
2. And/or she hoped to lose the child and get credit for her pro-life walking the walk without actually having to raise a special needs child.
3. Or she just a terrible mother who takes risks with her baby for no apparent reason – not going to an NICU is nuts, imo.
4. Or she wanted the permanent fund money for another kid. Which btw, in 2008 was $2069 PLUS $1200 “resource rebate.” Not all that much until you consider she and Todd would be collecting that check every year for many years – it really adds up. They are grifters, more than anything else.
Or some combination of the above.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
… and, when that son was born, Serious Conservative Pundit George Will went from writing ‘People who have defective kids shouldn’t expect the rest of us to pay for their expensive hobby offspring’ thinkpieces to writing ‘Don’t we, as a society, owe these sweet innocents every penny it may take to give them the best possible life?’ thumbsuckers, without so much as an I-have-had-reason-to-reconsider dime on which to spin his 180. Did Andrew Sullivan feel the need to bring up this apostasy on his friend George’s part every time his name was mentioned for the next quarter-century? No, Andrew did not, but of course George Will goes to the same cocktail parties as Sully, and also he had the good taste to be born with a penis, so that’s okay!
James E. Powell
@Brachiator:
Brachiator
@Snarkworth:
The “secret” might be that Trig was really Bristol Palin’s child. Or some other soap opera-ish conspiratorial fantasy. Needing to knowing the “truth” of this absolutely trivial nonsense keeps Sullivan up at night.
FlipYrWhig
@Comrade Kevin: That’s why in my (admittedly cockamamie) theory it’s primarily Todd’s hangup. But Sarah knows she’ll never be a Real Alaskan, and feels kinda self-conscious about that, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make sure her kids are. If you think of their allegiance as being to Alaska as a “country” in its own right — a special, “chosen” one, like Israel-on-the-Tundra — it makes a little more sense. Not a lot, but a little.
Cassidy
Fuck her. She’s a mean, vindictive bitch who wants us to think her family is the model of family values. Fuck her.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s an interesting angle too…
Cassidy
And stop pretending that this is because she’s a woman in politics or some other form of misogyny. It’s because it’s her. That’s it.
Amir_Khalid
@Snarkworth:
When it comes to Trig Palin’s birth Andrew Sullivan is really on a fishing expedition. He says Sarah’s story doesn’t add up, but is there more to it than Sarah misremembering or embellishing the details? We know she does that a lot. He has yet to point to a plausible birth mother for Trig Palin other than Sarah herself. (He has never shown that Bristol was pregnant at a time consistent with Trig’s date of birth, so it’s I’m pretty sure it’s not her.) He doesn’t offer a narrative of his own, backed by evidence, that Sarah faked her pregnancy and adopted someone else’s baby, or that she faked the location of Trig’s birth, or whatever it is he thinks she actually did.
That dog is not within a mile of catching any car.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie: RE: George Will has a son with Downs Syndrome.
With all due respect, I think you are making shit up here.
I don’t share Will’s religious or political beliefs, but his convictions here come from his Catholic background, and his written op ed pieces on this focus squarely on the rights of people with disabilities to exist in this society, not the economics of it.
I really don’t care what Sullivan thinks about any of this.
This is also why I mentioned Stephen Jay Gould. The issue of society’s responsibility to people with disabilities is not entirely ideological. But even people who find a way to provide for their children’s financial independence can not always shield them from societal bigotry, and the expectation that these people should be hidden away somewhere.
@James E. Powell: RE:The decision of whether to continue a pregnancy is often difficult and heart wrenching for families.
No, this is how human beings look at it.
People struggled over these decisions long before Palin popped up on the scene, and they will be dealing with them long after she has been dropped onto the dustbin of history.
Anne Laurie
@Cassidy:
That’s like saying that the Birfers would’ve reacted the same way to a white Democratic candidate that they did to Obama. Fox News would’ve instructed them to hate on Obama in any case, but the whole “not one of us” meme was much stronger because Barack Obama is not pale-skinned (as is ‘correct’, or at least ‘normal’, for an American presidential candidate). Us Democrats & members of the reality-based community would hate Palin regardless of her gender, but the peculiar intensity of the Trigsters (some of whom are nominally on her side of the political aisle) has to do with the fact that ‘normal’ presidential candidates have a Y chromosome.
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Go read what Will wrote in the early 1980s, before his son was born. (I’m already late for an appointment, but I remember some DFH publication — the Nation? — pointing out that Will dramatically revised his opinion on public support of special education once he, or rather his offspring, had skin in the game.)
Ella in New Mexico
Sorry, John but as long as Sarah Palin continues to roll her money-making bus “through towns and cities ringin’ them bells and whistles for freedum”, as long as she is still being held up as a potential candidate for the Presidency and thus has a hand in shaping the Republican side of the ticket, and as long as she is still cashing in and banking it all for future trouble-making schemes, she absolutely should be held up to scrutiny, on this issue and any others.
The truth is, her Trig story reeks of lies upon distortions upon coverups, for whatever reason. There’s some evidence that she may have just outright faked a pregnancy. Even stronger evidence that she doctored legal documents and intimidated others into keeping quiet– While she was a sitting governor.
Face it: she’s a conniving criminal, at least narcissistic and possibly a sociopath. It is precisely BECAUSE she has a vagina and a uterus and gave birth she is getting a pass here–you even assume she is a loving and good parent to a special needs child, when she has spent the majority of his life ON THE FRIGGIN ROAD.
If Anthony Weiner may be unfit for office for acting like a teenage horn dog, then I think the Sarah Palin/Trig mystery is worth delving into.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anne Laurie:
Well, the entire “he wasn’t born in the US!” thing was the “reasonable” hook into the entire issue of his illegitimacy as President. Because, you know, he doesn’t look like us. He’s got a melanin saturation problem, you see.
The fact of the matter is, Bill Clinton was a vile usurper, too. Ever since the reign of Ronaldus Maximus, the White House has been sacred GOP, and GOP only, ground, as far as the 27% are concerned. As another commenter has said, the most egregious change in meaning of the name of a political party has been the transformation of a party called “Republican” into one that consists of monarchists.
It’s just with Bill Clinton, they didn’t have the race anchor to make it work…or a “questionable” birth in an “exotic” locale. But boy howdy, they went after Clinton every other way they possibly could…real estate swindler (too bad Clinton was the one swindled…), drug dealer, horndog, rapist, anything they could hope to pin on him. A full scale cottage industry sprung up in the 90’s of various grifters looking to cash in on Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
If it had been Hilary Clinton in 2008, not Barack Obama, we would have seen quite the rerun of all this.
Brian
If some right-winger wanted to sneak on the Balloon Juice blog, and write a post for the express purpose of outing 90% of the left-wing commentariat as both consumed with hate and intellectually challenged, he could not have done better than the spectacle above.
Sir Sully would be proud.
Bmaccnm
@Florida Mom: Late again, but Sarah Palin makes major bank off her Mama Grizzly image. As a NICU nurse, nurse-midwife, and mother of a kid who needed major surgery immediately after birth, Sarah Grizzly’s behavior toward this baby, and all of her children, causes me to doubt her veracity and her judgement. The airplane ride with broken water story was the first red flag for me. No caring, intelligent mother does that. None. Nothing she could do would redeem her for me. If she didn’t bill herself as ferociously protective of her family, I might cut her some slack, but she wants to present herself as on a higher plane than me, or my tribe, then fuck her. She needs to walk the talk, and she doesn’t.
Bmaccnm
@Brian: No. Sarah’s entire persona is Grizzly MILF. That’s her act. She doesn’t have positions on policy or development other than “Grab it all.” Sarah presenting herself as ideal American Mother is the same as GWB presenting himself as a by-his-bootstraps American Success story. It’s crap, and we are allowed to call her on her crap.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie: RE: With all due respect, I think you are making shit up here.
I don’t share Will’s religious or political beliefs, but his convictions here come from his Catholic background, and his written op ed pieces on this focus squarely on the rights of people with disabilities to exist in this society, not the economics of it.
Will’s son was born in 1972 not the early 1980s. And Will writes about how in 1972, some medical authorities thought it natural that a “defective” child would be discreetly discarded by his parents.
The irony is that it is still the case that too often people’s pets are treated with more dignity than developmentally disabled people.
@Brian:
Sir Sully? Please tell me that Sullivan did not get on the recent Queen’s List to be honored with a knighthood or some other bauble.
gil mann
Hey, your monocle fell in my soup.
James E. Powell
@Brachiator:
If only that were true. Scan the developments with respect to abortion rights in the state legislatures. Palin and those who hold with her do not believe a decision, that is a choice, should be legal.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not quite the same. With Clinton there was a lot of crap about him not being the right kind of fella to be elected president because of his supposed lack of morals and integrity.
There are people who think that Obama should not be president solely because of his race, who do all they can to forget that he was elected or still jump through hoops to declare that he is “really” not the president or that his election was by definition illegitimate. There are even people who try to see Sarah Palin as somehow the Shadow President of the United States of Real American White People(tm).
This builds on the old Clinton hate and the hatred of Democrats, but it is not exactly the same thing.
Hell, there were even some Democrats who had some odd order of precedence in their heads. And so they intimated that we should have a woman president first, and then maybe a Jewish president, and then maybe we might be ready for a black president.
Also, had Hillary Clinton been elected, aside from the typical Clinton bashing, I think that there would be people who would go nuts over the idea of a woman president of the United States. This also puts an interesting twist on all the Palin love coming from her acolytes, since she demolishes some of the respect for patriarchal tradition that some conservatives express so vehemently.
cckids
I find myself conflicted about the whole pregnancy/Trig stuff. I’ve spent a frankly stupid amount of time on the Alaska blogs looking at the preg.pics; and truly, I think she faked it. 40+ year old having her 5th child & she doesn’t show until the 7th month?? Gotta call BS, especially given the pics of her at 5-6 months with earlier pregnancies, where she is huge.
But really, while it is conspiracy pr0n, if she is found out, what will happen? She’ll get props for taking in the poor little angel, it will be spun so that again, Saint Sarah the Perpetually Offended is the victim.
To me, as the parent of a severely disabled child, the real issue is the treatment of Trig–as others have noted, the hauling him around as a trophy. She rarely seems connected or interested in him or to her other kids, they are just there to prove that she’s supermom.
Sarah could do so much good, with her national megaphone, to raise awareness of all kinds of issues regarding family members with disabilities. She’s chosen to do nothing. Even when she raised the “retarded” word, (which is a red flag to most parents), she used it only as a political tool. Think of the current PSAs running, with Jane Lynch, to try to get kids to stop using the word. Sarah couldn’t be bothered.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Villago Delenda Est:
nail on the head, keep your government hands off trigs government health insurance.
ericblair
@Anne Laurie:
Basic gooper thought process. Like Nancy Reagan and her support for stem cell research with Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Yes, it’s good that they support necessary research and social services and we all hope they can be as effective as possible in that, but it’s also pretty clear that if they or their loved ones weren’t directly affected they wouldn’t care.
Skin in the game is exactly right, and that seems to be the root of their obsession with the concept for taxes or healthcare spending or anything else. They have a hell of a hard time giving a shit about things that don’t directly benefit them, and in fact are usually hostile to others getting something they don’t. So they can’t seem to imagine that other people might be different.
Keb
Her pregnancy story is preposterous. She does tell lies for the oddest reasons. If you buy her story than her sheer recklessness disqualifies from any responsible public position. Keep after her Sully.
Brachiator
@ericblair:
Except that what Ann Laurie wrote about Will is factually incorrect. George Will’s son was born in 1972, so he did not have a 1980s change of heart subsequent to his son’s birth, or at least not based on what she alludes to here.
And Nancy defied the GOP on Alzheimer’s and I don’t know that she had any change of heart over this subsequent to her husband’s diagnosis.
@James E. Powell: RE: No, this is how human beings look at it.
I was referring to the personal decisions that people make in their own houses, not just the political machinations in a statehouse. And it is clearly not just about abortion rights (though I agree with your larger point here), but about the rights of developmentally disabled people. And here, a lot of people have dirty hands, not just conservatives.
Cassidy
@Anne Laurie: No it isn’t. The two have nothing to do with one another. The attacks on Obama stem from a barely concealed and well documented history of bigotry among the right. The attacks on Palin are not par for the course unless you’re a firebagger and see misogyny in everything.
James E. Powell
@Brachiator:
Okay, I get that. But the even larger point, or perhaps related point, is that the right-wing position on pretty much everything is that if anything happens to a person that causes them to have needs above the average it is that person’s sack of rocks to tote. It’s not our problem and you probably did something to deserve it. This position holds until the particular problem happens to the right-winger at which point we get a 180.
The even larger point is that it’s not just right-wingers, it’s not just special needs children, it’s the attitude of selfishness coupled with duplicity. It is rife in our consumer culture. Right-wingers would not be successful at marketing the attitude if it weren’t already planted in the culture.
Barney
The explanation is simple: the link goes through to the Daily Mail, a UK tabloid that will put any gossip on its website if it thinks it can tug at the heartstrings of its female readers.
As an example: in the side bar on the right, you find a picture of Kate Middleton talking to 2 young children (one of whom was one of her bridesmaids), and the Mail claims this shows she is ‘broody’. The Mail makes Entertainment Tonight look like hard-hitting journalism.
Violet
If we’re going to use Anthony Weiner’s dick pics and Twitter activity as examples of poor judgment, then using Palin’s decisions during her pregnancy and birth, as well as her treatment of Trig, as examples of her poor judgment and is acceptable.
Both are activities that don’t affect us or the country at all. Yet these people hold, or want to hold (maybe in Sarah’s case), positions in the government. Part of how we make decisions about them is to look at their judgment on things, in all variety of situations. Both of them exhibited very poor judgment.
madmommy
As others have said, the birth story, which she has stuck to and seems quite proud of, stinks to high heaven. No sane woman, knowing she is carrying a special needs child who will likely need intervention at birth does what she said she did. It makes no sense at all. None. The only reason for her to do what she did is she was hoping to induce a miscarriage. It speaks to her complete lack of good judgment and sense. How she has acted since then just confirms that she is not competent to be dogcatcher, much less the President of the United States.
Jade Jordan
The story is so much bigger and complex. You cannot understand it unless you have a lot of time to devote to what is likely one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated in politics.
What started as a mom pretending to be pregnant to cover for a wild pregnant teen. Ballooned into a multi-dimensional mess because she was nominated for the VP.
There is a Babygate movie coming out. If you have lots of time and are interested visit these sites for babygate info:
Palins Deceptions, Palingates, and Immoral Minority
Villago Delenda Est
@Jade Jordan:
While that’s a plausible explanation for all this, it simply hasn’t been established. Furthermore, when she was named VP nominee, she came out and paraded an obviously pregnant, and unmarried, Bristol in front of the press, along with her boyfriend who says he is the father of the child.
Which tends to contraindicate that Trig is actually Bristol’s child, since Sarah didn’t try to hide Bristol in the summer of ’08. But then again, who can say? The duplicity runs strong in the Palin clan.
Umbrella
@Elizabelle: I can’t believe it never crossed my mind, but that makes more sense than anything else. Imagine making her political commitments at the expense of a child’s very life…get the political points, get the sympathy points, and lose someone that’s going to demand more of her time than she has to give.
Geez. I hope that’s not true, because if it is, she is stone cold.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Yutsano: The most interesting part of the email release to me is that I saw it reported that the analysts at Crivella West, who have some significant experience with document production, noted that they have NEVER seen such a complete and thorough set of redactions. So some of what’s below the black must be pretty interesting.
pattonbt
@Villago Delenda Est: Don’t forget white trash.
Yutsano
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Ooh. The haxxors are about to go into overdrive over that little revelation. That also suggests Sister Sarah has a lot more details out there she’s covering up.
Villago Delenda Est
@pattonbt:
It’s funny how they couldn’t stop attacking Clinton for being a “hillbilly”, but they sure do get indignant if you dare to call the Palins “white trash”.
Also, can you possibly imagine the hue and cry that would ensue if one of the Obama daughters were in a family way and not lawfully wed? Yet they give Bristol a free pass, AND a 250k a year “position” as an abstinence spokesmodel, of all things?
Caren
Her “wild ride” story changes, and recently Trig was suddenly born i Anchorage instead of Mat-Su.
If it’s true, then she was trying to lose Trig. If it’s not true, then Trigs date of birth could be different–DS babies are generally smaller and Trig was supposedly premature. It’s possible, if way out there, that Trig is notSarahs baby.
I don’t care about that so much, as long as they take care of him. I think they love him now.
But that “wild ride” bullshit…I don’t believe it. I it’s just Sarah making up a story that she thinks makes her sound cool. Either the lying or the attempt to lose a baby while maintaining her ‘pro-life’ cred make her unqualified for higher office.
Another reason for the Wild Ride could be insuance, though. When I was pregnant, my insurance companies always had clauses that said if I gave birth more than 150 miles from home, my bills would not be covered. Maybe her high risk pregnancy with its possibly high costs made her desperate to get back home so the birth would be covered.
Caren
Her “wild ride” story changes, and recently Trig was suddenly born i Anchorage instead of Mat-Su.
If it’s true, then she was trying to lose Trig. If it’s not true, then Trigs date of birth could be different–DS babies are generally smaller and Trig was supposedly premature. It’s possible, if way out there, that Trig is notSarahs baby.
I don’t care about that so much, as long as they take care of him. I think they love him now.
But that “wild ride” bullshit…I don’t believe it. I it’s just Sarah making up a story that she thinks makes her sound cool. Either the lying or the attempt to lose a baby while maintaining her ‘pro-life’ cred make her unqualified for higher office.
Another reason for the Wild Ride could be insuance, though. When I was pregnant, my insurance companies always had clauses that said if I gave birth more than 150 miles from home, my bills would not be covered. Maybe her high risk pregnancy with its possibly high costs made her desperate to get back home so the birth would be covered.
serena1313
I did not read all of the posts, so what I have to say may have already been addressed.
I stumbled on the Trig story sometime after the 2008 campaign:
First of all the reason this is a big deal is *if* Sarah Palin is not Trig’s actual birth mother — which there is more than enough circumstantial as well as hard evidence that exists to raise questions — then she perpetuated a hoax on the American people.
One of the damning pieces of evidence includes photographs of Sarah Palin during her alleged pregnancy.
Not only was Sarah during her alleged pregnancy seen in the photos bending down, sitting in positions that are impossible for most pregnant women, walking in high heels, etc. but her tummy was as flat as it is now — that is up until her 7th month. What woman do you know goes from flat to huge in 5 days time during her 7th month? What woman do you know changes the details of giving birth or forgets the name of the city? Or gets pregnant after having a tubal ligation?
And there might be more than 1 baby who was presented as Trig to the public. Photographs depict one baby with a ruffled ear and another with a ‘normal’ ear. The sizes of the babies differ as well. There are way too many discrepancies in Sarah’s story that cannot be chalked-up to coincidences or mistakes or any other excuses.
While none of the evidence is conclusive, there is enough — more than — evidence — to raise serious questions about Sarah’s alleged pregnancy. All she has to do is produce Trig’s birth certificate and all the questions would simply disappear. Yet despite her protestations to the contrary, sister Sarah has not done so.
No one would have thought any less of her if she had simply adopted the baby. But by her own volition, Sarah has repeatedly stated she is Trig’s mother. There is a world of difference between “Trig is my child” and “I gave birth to Trig”.
So if that turns out to be another one of her fictitious narratives, it reinforces the commonly-held belief that Sarah Palin has no business being anywhere near the levers of power.
The American people have a right to know, at this point, if Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy. A hoax of this magnitude cannot be dismissed. Until she shows definitive proof, i.e. Trig’s birth certificate, suspicions about her character & integrity, her ability to be forthcoming, honest, et al rightfully abound.
I did not read all of the posts, so what I have to say may have already been addressed.
I stumbled on the Trig story sometime after the 2008 campaign:
First of all the reason this is a big deal is if Sarah Palin is not Trig’s actual birth mother — which there is more than enough circumstantial as well as hard evidence that exists to raise questions — then she perpetuated a hoax on the American people.
One of the many damning pieces of evidence includes photographs of Sarah Palin during her alleged pregnancy.
Not only was Sarah seen in the photos bending down, sitting in positions that are impossible for most pregnant women, walking in high heels, etc. but her tummy was as flat as it is now — that is up until her 7th month. What woman do you know goes from flat to huge in 5 days time during her 7th month and then flat again? What woman do you know changes the details of giving birth or forgets the name of the city her child is born? Or gets pregnant after having a tubal ligation?
Notably, too, there might be more than 1 baby who was presented as Trig to the public. Photographs depict one baby with a ruffled ear and another with a ‘normal’ ear. The sizes of the babies differ as well. There are way too many discrepancies in Sarah’s story that cannot be chalked-up to coincidences or mistakes or explained away.
While none of the evidence is conclusive, there is more than enough evidence to raise serious questions about Sarah’s alleged pregnancy. All she has to do is produce Trig’s birth certificate and all the questions would simply disappear. Yet despite her protestations to the contrary, sister Sarah has not done so.
No one would have thought any less of her if she had simply adopted the baby. But by her own volition, Sarah has repeatedly stated she is Trig’s mother. However, there is a world of difference between “Trig is my child” and “I gave birth to Trig”.
So if this turns out to be another one of her fictitious narratives, it reinforces the commonly-held belief that Sarah Palin has no business being anywhere near the levers of power. She simply cannot be trusted.
Furthermore the American people have a right to know, at this point, if Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy. A hoax of this magnitude cannot be dismissed under any circumstances.
Until she shows definitive proof, i.e. Trig’s birth certificate, suspicions about her character & integrity, and her ability to be honest & forthcoming, etc. etc. etc. rightfully abound.
serena1313
Excuse the repetition:
I was trying to edit my comment without realizing it would turn into a double post.
kay
@serena1313:
Nah. I’d bet my house that Palin is listed as the mother and her husband is listed as the father. Her husband would be the presumptive father, because they were married at the time if the birth.
I just feel as if birthers have made the birth certificate process more mysterious and arbitrary than it is. Children have fairly extensive documentation of parentage, since about 1994. IMO, it has nothing to do with “who’s your daddy” but instead has to do with property rights and child support, but that’s neither here nor there.
Palin has already submitted the baby’s birth certificate to at least 4 state agencies, I’ll bet, because he’s disabled. If he’s on SSI, there’s actually a payee on his behalf (Palin and her husband).
Further, Palin’s daughter was involved in a custody dispute with the father of her child (Levi). Because they weren’t married, they had to submit documentation of that baby, and Bristol herself had to reveal any other children she may have had.
You’re talking about a conspiracy theory that involves at least 50 people, many of whom are state actors. It’s preposterous, just like the fake-controversy that media and conservatives created around Obama’s birth was preposterous.
kay
@serena1313:
I do think the fact that media dismissed the fake-questions around Palin’s parentage of her baby while media entertained and promoted (for years) the fake-questions around Obama’s parentage is really, really interesting.
It says something about how conservatives get traction with outright lies, and it also says something about race and gender, and how race trumps gender as a measure of “outsiderness”.
Someone should do a book or study on birtherism, re: both Palin and Obama. This parentage stuff runs deep.
Original Lee
@Snarkworth: If it were just that, it wouldn’t be a problem. But to pretend to be pregnant before you adopt a special needs child speaks to me of a mental imbalance that is problematic, to say the least, in someone who can push the Big Red Button.
Gerard
The level of drool and bile in this thread is tsunamic. Rarely does one see a blogger baiting his own troll pack but in this case it has worked very well indeed.
Blue Galangal
Really, Gerard? It’s “bile” to say that a politician’s story doesn’t add up?
Quick, someone! Call CBS, ABC, and don’t forget Breitbart!
serena1313
@kay:
Kay, I’d agree under different circumstances. But given the fact that Sarah Palin, unlike President Obama who had released his birth certificate and later the long form, has not released Trig’s birth certificate it doesn’t make sense.
IF — with emphasis on if — Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy and had instead simply adopted Trig, why then would she claim she was the mother?
Furthermore when you consider that Sarah has made a career and millions of dollars deceiving people it really comes down to a matter of principle. At least IMHO.
Snarkworth
Original and Serena, only reason for fibbing about it is if the birth family’s privacy was part of the adoption agreement, and she figured it would be simpler to say the baby was hers. This was, after all, before her VP performance. Plus, she doesn’t seem like the type who thinks things through.