Monday, September 29, 2008

Still spinnin'

Yet another example of Sarah Palin's spin machine reared its ugly head today. As I was reviewing the very helpful transcript that I had prepared of Palin's long interview with the Anchorage Daily News on 4/22 ( you can find it on my website, here) I ran across the following exchange.

Reporter: In the family statement that was issued by… it said through early testing you knew you would have some special needs.

Palin: Right…

Reporter: Can you explain?

Palin: Right, yeah, well, He’s got that extra chromosome, he has Down’s Syndrome. And, um, ya can’t tell at this stage by looking ya know but, um, there are some characteristics there that I think will become more apparent...


Did you catch that? "You can't tell at this stage by looking." Really?

Here's what Palin said in early September about the scene at her hospital bedside.

As Todd and their three daughters gathered around the bedside (Track, an Army private, listened in by phone from his base in Fairbanks), Willow said of the new arrival, "He looks like he has Down syndrome."

Palin, who says her own qualms were laid to rest "the minute [Trig] was born," felt a lump in her throat. "If he does, you know you will still love him, Willow. It'll be okay."

Willow pressed: "But why didn't you tell us?"

Palin admitted she didn't know how to break the news. "I was a little shocked," says Willow "but I don't care – he's my brother and I love him."


Actually, come to think of it, "spin" is when you sort of shade reality to suit your purposes, put a different slant or interpretation on something. When you tell someone in April that your son had no visible signs of Down's at birth (which IS accurate; sometimes it's really hard to spot) and then in September, you're relating touching stories of siblings at a hospital bedside, that's not spin. That's a lie.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This whole story is so perplexing.

On the one hand, one would think it couldn't possibly be true because no one, not even Sarah Palin, would be so reckless to accept the VP nomination if it were true.

On the other hand, none of the details about the birth add up. In addition to the other details that don't add up, I find it especially perplexing that the birth wasn't listed on the hospital website with the other births that day (especially after Sarah Palin made such a big deal about having the baby at that hospital and no other hospital) and that suddenly the doctor is no longer affiliated with that hospital.

Maybe your husband, who is a doctor, can comment on this, but here is a doctor in this small town in Alaska who apparently has had privileges for years at this local hospital and suddenly she drops her affiliation (or at least that is what I read). Why would she suddenly drop her affiliation with what I think is the closest local hospital to her practice?

My concern, like everyone else's, is if Palin would lie to us about this, what wouldn't she lie about? And if it weren't true, wouldn't she want to put an end to the rumors and engender trust by having her doctor make a statement?

Paula said...

In a report here

http://www.insideedition.com/news.aspx?storyID=2073

Sarah claims she found out Trig had Downs at 13 weeks. Various other sources have reported that it was through an amnio that it was diagnosed. Amnios are generally done at 16-20 weeks because the risks are much higher before 15 weeks. An amnio would be performed at 13 weeks only if there is a history or expectation of genetic abnormalities, and if termination is a possibility. She claims it was done in December. But if her due date was May 18th, as she claims, then she'd have been 13 weeks between November 10th - 17th. And although her kids would have had 6 months to mentally prepare for a downs sibling, she chose to keep it between her and her husband so that they alone could prepare. Instead she chose to dump the awful news on her other 4 children when the baby was born.

Anonymous said...

Here's what a doctor on one medical Web site had to say about early amnios:

"Most amniocentesis is done at 16-18 weeks. Late amniocentesis is
often done in the third trimester to determine fetal lung maturity if
early delivery is indicated. Some centers are performing
amniocentesis as early as 12 weeks but the pregnancy loss rate is
higher."

If she's pro-life, she wouldn't have wanted a diagnostic test done if it risked the babies life, and if she did want it done she surely would have chosen to wait until it was safe as possible, which is after the sixteenth week.

From all I've read, most practitioners won't even offer amnio earlier than sixteen weeks, as the early ones are considered experimental.

I really wish someone would point blank ask this woman about this birth. It frustrates me beyond all measure that she's so obviously lying about something like this...

Anonymous said...

Here's another idea. If Sarah is Trig's mom, maybe she didn't want a 5th child, and went for early amnio in hopes that there would be a miscarriage, and took that long flight after leaking amnio fluid for the same reason.