Answering some Questions

An email came in this morning which asked several questions that have been coming up frequently in my mail, so I thought I'd just use it here, and answer as best I can.

As a 46 year old mother of three kids ages 6 1/2 and younger, I've known from the moment Palin burst into my consciousness that something is just not right with her fifth baby story. My husband thinks I am crazy and that there is no way this sort of complex deception could be maintained for so long, particularly in light of the increased scrutiny since the VP selection. But I know there is something so not right going on here and it needs to come out before Election Day. Please keep doing what you are doing, presenting a rational, intelligent and even cautious examination of the facts surrounding this bizarre situation.
Some questions I have that I'd like to see addressed at your website:
-- where is Bristol Palin and why have there been no (or few) photos of her since the convention in Saint Paul? Has the McCain campaign given any explanation?
-- where is baby Trig while his "mother" is out giving race-baiting speeches all over the country and watching the second Presidential debate at a party at a bar in North Carolina? Is he getting the care and attention appropriate for a special needs six month old?
-- is there anything in the "Troopergate" findings that could shed light on the baby Trig questions?

The first comment I'd like to make regards her husband's comment that he thinks she is "crazy" because nothing this complicated could be maintained this long. I believe that one of the issues with the birth is that it really was not that complex. It's important to remember that at the time all of this was going on she was the longest of shots for the V.P slot. No one could have guessed the kind of scrutiny that her choices last April would be subjected to now. I speculate that the plan was actually quite simple, and very few people knew for sure. (It may have even involved a private home birth, something that only fell through when labor began 4-5 weeks early. This would also explain why the use of Mat-Su feels so clumsy... because it was a last minute choice selected for privacy purposes.)

We know that rumors existed before the birth - before Palin even announced her pregnancy - that Bristol was pregnant. We know that there was disbelief in certain circles - especially among young people who had known Bristol - and there was gossip before the birth - and after - that as soon as Sarah announced her pregnancy, that she was covering for Bristol. But very few people were close enough to Gov. Palin and her family really to KNOW for sure what is going on, and since the "circle of trust" was very small, no one was talking. Two, three, four, five people really can keep a secret if they want to. Realistically, if one had a sympathetic birth attendant who was willing to falsify a birth certificate, you'd only need one or two people outside immediate family to be in on it.

Would some state staff members suspect? They would have to. Many of them would have been women who had had children themselves, and women who are 7 1/2 to 8 months pregnant move in a certain way, they hold their backs in a certain way, they go to the bathroom a lot. Your breasts hurt. Your baby's head is sitting right on your cervix, and if he moves in a certain way you can get very sharp pains. By the time I was seven months with my fourth pregnancy I was having Braxton Hicks contractions strong enough that I had to stop what I was doing and take a breath. Was Sarah Palin doing any of this? Doesn't really sound like it. But yet no one was in a position to look her in the eye and say, "I don't think you're really pregnant." I mean, how do you say that to the Governor? And some, who were undoubtedly loyal, could have understood what was happening but were willing to go along with it.

And then the baby was born, and anyone who suspected still did not have enough proof to "out" the story. Because, again, the number of people who knew for sure was very small.

As to your specific questions, first, where is Bristol? (Who according to the McCain campaign should now be nearly 6 1/2 months - i.e, VISIBLY - pregnant. Unless she takes after her mother of course. If so, then she'll have another two to three weeks of not looking pregnant at all!) Bristol did appear to travel with the family for the first week or so of the campaign, between the RNC and when Sarah Palin came back to Alaska to see her son off. The last official press siting of her is on September 13th at her mother's rally in Anchorage. Here's a (rather sad) description written by someone who observed Bristol carefully on that day.

...sitting three-quarters of the way up the bleacher was Bristol Palin and her eighteen-year-old impregnator, Levi Johnston. Once I noticed them, I kept my eye on Bristol and Levi. What I learned provoked an odd empathy for the awful pickle Wasilla High School's hockey stick wielding homeboy now finds himself in.

Bristol and Levi sat shoulder-to-shoulder. But not once did they look at each other, speak to each other, or in any way acknowledge each other's physical presence. Not once. For an entire hour. Instead, Bristol stared straight ahead and Levi had the glazed look of a trapped feral animal.

Then when Sarah wound up her autograph signing and the people sitting in front of him on the bleacher began climbing down, Levi stood up and, without looking at or speaking to his betrothed, turned in the opposite direction and walked away.

As far as I can determine this is the last time Bristol has been seen in public, now almost one month ago. She was NOT at the VP debate, or at least not on stage with the rest of the family. Frankly, I don't know where this poor child is, and I personally resent Palin dragging the rest of her kids around like accessories (glasses, check, purse, check, Trig, check) when it would be "off limits" to ask anything about Bristol.

Second, regarding your question about Trig. It appears as if Trig, Piper, and Willow are all traveling with the campaign. If you really watch the news sites, you'll see shots of them virtually every day. Down's babies do need therapy in the first year of their lives to help them meet developmental milestones. Is he getting it? My guess would be probably. The campaign is certainly well-funded enough for them to arrange to have a full time medical professional knowledgeable about Down's infants to travel with them, and this is also something that would look really bad it if would come out that it was not happening. So my guess is that hopefully yes, this child is getting the therapy he needs. Of course this doesn't address the overall issue of using your kids as campaign props to begin with... when's the last time you saw the Obama children? (You haven't because they are in school in Chicago.)

Third, regarding your question about Troopergate. I don't know that much about it... Mudflats blog and website are the source for anything you EVER would want to know about that. However, Troopergate is not really that current in many ways. The initial incidents - the custody battle and conflicts with Trooper Wooten - happened many years ago, long before Sarah Palin became governor. The core of Troopergate as I understand it is that once Sarah Palin became governor, she is alleged to have pressured the "powers that be" to have him fired. So I don't really see any connection to a baby born last spring. However, just as an aside, there were allegations and complaints made that Sarah was not putting Trig in an "approved car seat."

This has come out recently as part of Todd Palin's sworn deposition. Here's the quote from the Anchorage Daily News.

On the car seat, Monegan sent an e-mail to the governor on June 30, 12 days before he lost his job, that said: "Via a soon-to-be-retiring legislator, we received a complaint that had you driving with Trig not in an approved car seat; if this is so that would be awkward in many ways."

The governor fired back from her private e-mail account: "I've never driven Trig anywhere without a new, approved car seat. I want to know who said otherwise -- pls provide me that info now."

Todd Palin, in his sworn statement, said this was a "false rumor," and that the governor was a passenger in a truck, "on a private farm road without traffic at low speed."

Now, I for one don't believe Sarah or any mother or grandmother would drive around with a three month old infant NOT in a car seat. Sarah Palin is very concerned about her image. This is one of the reasons I have never believed her birth story... can you imagine the headlines if she had given birth on an airplane? I never for one second believed that she would have risked that kind of awful humiliation even if she'd known for a fact that her chances of delivering were only 1%. Well, the same applies here. Even if she would not care for the child at all (and I don't believe that) the headlines and negative publicity should the governor's child be seriously hurt in a car accident and be found to not have been in a car seat would be horrific. So for that simple reason alone, I doubt it.

However, I do find it curious that Sarah needed to ask "who said otherwise" when Todd seemed to know a whole lot about the incident - a private road in a truck - etc. That would imply some closed event with friends. Well, then who would have reported it?