Going Out on a Limb Here

Like most of us who have followed Sarah Palin's rise (and now fall) over the last ten months (joining our colleagues in Alaska who have been watching more or less in horror for two additional years) the events of the last seventy two hours have taken our breath away. My good friend at Mudflats tried to post a summary of all that has happened, and ended up concluding:

Between the news of Palin’s resignation, the reaction of the mainstream media, the blogosphere, the Tweets, the Facebook updates, the threats of legal action against bloggers and the press, the statements from attorneys, and all the rest, I don’t think a single person on the face of the Earth could do a real wrap-up.

She's right of course.

But I am going out on a limb here. Something doesn't add up for me. I know that yesterday I was in there with the rest of them talking about Housegate and IRS and FBI and, to make it clear, I think there is some sort of investigation on-going. Rumors are rarely complete fabrications (where there's smoke, there's either fire or smoke, so it's usually something) and the rumors of a financial investigation into Palin have been so loud and so persistent coming from Wasilla that it's hard for me to believe personally that there is not something there.

But that having been said, again, somethin' just ain't right. Palin assured us that she had been planning this for weeks, but if that was the case, why did Todd leave town for the fishing season and then have to fly home to be there on Friday? (Sarah says this in her speech, though that line is not in the official transcript.) Why did Sarah "Tweet" as recently as 3:53 PM on June 29:

I dont support Waxman-Markey bill; I'll work w/AK Senators & others to address concerns, lacks flexibility needed to protect enviro & develp

and at 10:59 AM on Jul 1:

Congratulations to Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan as he is sworn in today! I look forward to working with him.

Does this sound to you like someone who is on the verge of resgining? It doesn't really to me.

Consider the following:

1. Todd himself was not back in Wasilla until Thursday night. Here it is in Palin's own words: "And I'm thankful that Todd flew in last night from commercial fishing grounds in Bristol Bay to stand by my side, as always."
2. Meghan Stapleton, Palin's poodle, who has been at her side almost continually for months was not even in Alaska on Friday. She was in New York.
3. Sarah had just hired a new press secretary in the past month, long time friend (and author of great reads "Why Men Hate Going to Church" and "How Women Help Men Find God") David Murrow. Snark aside, reading Murrow's info, he seems like a pretty straight-forward up-front nice guy. How bizarre, even cruel, that she'd bring someone new on if she were seriously contemplating leaving within weeks. Murrow posted to his own social networking site on Wednesday that he was "contemplating life's ironies."
4. Family members got no notice until the night before. According to People magazine, Todd called his father on Thursday night, and asked him if he could be at the Palin's home for a press conference on Friday, but even he was not told - the night before - that Sarah was resigning. Jim Palin declined, stating he had another commitment (which appears to be "fishing" from the People article, but hey, this is Alaska).
5. Senator Mark Begich who met with her on Wednesday for 45 minutes has stated she gave no indication whatsoever.
6. Sean Parnell, the Lieutenant Governor who will be taking over for her on July 26th, was not informed until Wednesday evening. Again, if this was in the works for weeks, how bizarre it would be for him not to be in the inner circle.

All of these things tell me one consistent story. The decision was abrupt, very abrupt. I am speculating that there was a "trigger" of some sort, and that trigger was sudden and very recent. Her closest inner circle, even her family members, were in the dark until the final hour. And I - and many others - have observed that at the news conference, she appeared ragged, disjointed, almost frantic. She gasped. Her speech delivery, which is never the best, was positively scary.

And at least once, she reminded us that she was being truthful. What? Who had suggested that she wasn't being truthful?

So why? What is it?

There are rumors of a fight between Bristol and Sarah in the previous week over Bristol's unwillingness to continue to do publicity "tours." Is this code for unwillingness to continue the charade about Babygate?

Fellow blogger Celtic Diva had finally raised the $5000.00 plus dollars required by the state for "photocopying costs" associated with receiving Palin's emails and has turned in the official request. A lot of people (myself included) have wondered if there is something in those emails that will be the nail in the coffin, even though, interestingly, Ms. Diva herself doubts that that is the case.

And last - but I don't think least - Levi Johnston is in New York, in the final stages of negotiating a book deal. I have been assured privately that once the deal is inked new information will be made available. I do not know what that information is, but I can make some real good guesses - and so can all of you.

I think this might be a very big week.

**UPDATE** 

Tweet, tweet! I've succumbed to calls to join Twitter and have now linked it in my sidebar on the right hand of the page.

The username is palinsdeception

Thanks for those who've urged me to do this and to readers like Mel, who pointed to the NYT op-ed I just referenced in my second official "tweet."

Some Musings for a Sunday Morning

It just gets more and more interesting. Yesterday, Gov. Palin's legal counsel released a sharply worded statement denying that the Palins were under federal investigation for criminal wrongdoing. I am sure of few of this blog's readers are wondering if I know anything about this.

Here's my answer:

I have over the months developed numerous contacts in Alaska. Over the past 6-8 weeks, I have heard a very consistent story. Palin was under investigation, and it had nothing to do with "babygate." It was big, it was federal, and it was financial. Is this true, or is it a rumor, spread from one source, designed to harm the Palins? I don't know. I will, however, add the following comments.

1. I have received many tips during the time I have been running the blog and website. Some have been worth following up, most have been nonsense. But three separate contacts stand out, and that is why, IF this turns out to be something to do with the building of the house, I will not be at all surprised. These three were all surprisingly similar. They were all Wasilla/Palmer/"Valley" residents. I know they are not the same person three times, since in all cases, the people were not only willing but EAGER to provide me with all personal information, name, address, phone number, where they worked. Hell, they would have given me shoe size if I asked, I suspect. All three checked out. And all three told me basically the same thing. They could not help me with the baby story, but what I needed to look at were the issues surrounding the building of the house. At least one of these tips came in before the election in November.

Here's a quote from an email in February. "Forget Trig. The house will put her in jail."

In each case, I thanked the person for the information, but told them that the baby story was my focus, and that I felt I did not have the time, financial resources, or geographic ability to look into this. I referred them, in each case, to someone in Alaska that I felt could help them. If anything came of any of these people, I do not know.

But I can say, with absolute certainly, that long before June 2009, Wasilla residents were willing to go on record - with their real names and phone numbers and personal info - that there were irregularities, and serious ones, about the building of the Palins' house in 2002. Whether they were lying, I do not know. Whether they were wrong, I do not know. But this issue is not some fantasy, created by pajama clad bloggers, after Palin's resignation two days ago.

And this, going on record with a real name, is something I have never been able to get anyone in Wasilla who knows anything about the baby to do.

2. However, the rumors that I have heard have all consistently said that the investigation is federal. Irregularities with building materials and permits in Wasilla would not be federal, it would be state, as far as I can see, though I am not a lawyer or an accountant and perhaps there is something I do not understand. The F.B.I. has released a statement saying that they are not investigating Palin. This, theoretically, would leave the I.R.S. True? Not true? I don't know, and I want to make it clear that I do not, but that's the bottom line. If it IS federal, and the FBI is not involved, then the only plausible alternative is I.R.S.

Here's a second musing for Sunday morning:

I find it beyond curious that after nearly ten months of myself and others stating, with various degrees of certainty, that Palin's birth story was bogus, not one person has ever even been threatened with any sort of legal action. (There were rumors that Palin threatened the Anchorage Daily News with a lawsuit in January, but as far as I know that was never confirmed, and she certainly never had her legal counsel release any sort of public statement on the matter.) Numerous people have gone so far as to call Sarah Palin a liar openly.

And for those who say that it's because the birth story is below Palin's radar, I say, that's a load of horse hooey. Palin has referred to it in interviews numerous times. It is very clear that these stories have bothered her a great deal.

Truth is an absolute defense against libel. You can't just "sue for libel," and state that the other party is lying. You have to prove it. The Palins would be forced to produce a birth certificate, medical records, and probably a DNA test. The defense would be able to subpoena Cathy Baldwin Johnson (YAY!), the flight attendants on the airplane, possibly school records for both Bristol and Willow, any and all previously unreleased photos and video from the conference in Texas... lots and lots and lots of wonderful things.

Perhaps all of the rumors about criminal investigation and Housegate are false. Maybe Sarah Palin did resign as governor simply because, as she said, the negative media scrutiny had pushed her family over the edge and she believes that because of it she can no longer be effective for Alaska.

But sue anyone over "Babygate?" I'm waiting.

Palin quits. We won't.

Sarah Palin's unexpected and bizarre announcement that she is resigning her office as Governor of Alaska has raised many questions. Is she quitting because she can make more money in the private sector? Is she quitting because - unable to take the heat from pajama clad bloggers - she is fleeing the kitchen? Could it be Levi's book deal? Or - as some have indicated - is she is quitting ahead of a looming legal scandal. 

Our loyal readers have been abuzz pondering these questions. And they've had one for us, too: Does Sarah's resignation mean the search for the truth behind Trig Palin's birth is over?

The answer to that question is a resounding "No!"

Here's why: Covering criminal scandals is squarely in the media's comfort zone. After all, shady accounting and redirected funds - should that be the case - are far easier to question and report on than gestational and birth issues. They involve adults doing bad things, not children manipulated and victimized by power-hungry parents.

I and many others are convinced that elements of the mainstream media either have known or strongly suspected the truth about Trig's birth all along and have become strange bedfellows with conservative elements of the GOP who also know the truth. 

The media and even some Republicans will likely both breathe a sigh of relief if the current rumor turns out to be true. Criminal activity will be the death knell of their rising-star-turned-party-embarrassment.  She will be done, without their having to wade into that other scandal - the one I'm convinced they know about but are too squeamish to reveal.

But as Sarah weakens, I'm convinced that those who feared her will become more bold, more willing to tell what they know about her claims of birthing Trig. If they do, at some point the media will no longer be able to ignore it. And I think it will prove to be a far bigger scandal that even the one we're hearing rumors about now.

Criminal activity is one thing; passing off someone else's baby as yours for political gain is something else. If it can be proven that Sarah did not give birth to Trig, then the question will then be "What did the GOP know and when did they know it?" 

That's a whopper of a question, and the answer might not only irreparably tarnish Sarah Palin, but also destroy the careers of those who selected her and glibly reassured the nation that she had the experience, character and temperament to lead.

If that's the case, the rumored criminal charges may be the tip of the iceberg; the really damaging part may be what's beneath the surface, that thing they're still refusing to see: Babygate.

That's why we won't quit, even if Sarah has.

Palin Resigns

It is surreal. She's resigning.

I am watching Palin's speech. She is hanging on by the ragged edge. She's babbling, gasping, rambling, making no sense whatsoever. I've been watching Palin for ten months. She has never sounded more unhinged to me.

"The world apparently needs more Trigs." is among some of the more bizarre things she said.

Now we've switched from the basketball analogy to the football field. No hockey analogy yet.

Updates will follow.

I think the iceberg is about to hit.

**UPDATE**

Here's Sarah Palin's  official announcement from the governor's Web site, from which she also gleaned much of her speech. 

Here is the press release.

**UPDATE II**

Meg Stapleton weighs in and all I can say is, with friends like these does Sarah really needs enemies? This makes two rambling, bizarre explanations of Sarah's decision.

**UPDATE III**
The videos are now uploaded to YouTube

Pulling A Palin: My Response to Progressive Alaska Part One

Over the week or so, I will post on this blog a multi part series. Today's installment is the first.

In January, Alaskan Blogger Celtic Diva published a "guest post" by a Labor and Delivery nurse named Lee Tompkins entitled The Birth of a Conspiracy; Delivering the Real Issue. Several days ago, a second Alaskan blog, Progressive Alaska, reprinted this post in toto. The theme of this post was simple: both the original writer and Phil at Progressive Alaska believe that the focus on Palin's birth story should be squarely on what they consider the "real issue," which is the very poor judgment she showed in traveling while allegedly in labor with Trig. They believe that Palin's terrible choices so endangered her child that on that basis alone she should be disqualified from any serious consideration for public office.

Both believe Sarah Palin's birth story, specifically that Trig was born to Sarah on April 18, 2008, after a trip back from Texas that I have chosen to call "The Wild Ride." (For those who don't know, I based that moniker on a quaint Disney theme park ride, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, still operational at Disneyland (and, according to Wikipedia, one of the few remaining attractions that was present at the 1955 opening) but removed from Disney World in 1998. The concept of the ride was based on Kenneth Grahame's children's book The Wind in the Willows, from which Disney had made a cartoon in 1949.)

While Phil at Progressive Alaska obviously continues to take this position (he reprinted this post barely a week ago) i.e., that Trig is Sarah's and was born April 18, 2009, from private conversation with Celtic Diva (again, original source of the post last January though she did not write it), while she may be unsure of the whole truth regarding Trig's birth, she now personally entertains at least some doubts that it occurred as Palin reported. Would she, today, late June 2009, post Ms. Tompkins' guest blog? I don't know but I intend to ask her.

Most of Palin's supporters will not intelligently debate the evidence at all. Their tactics are few - but very consistent - whenever the pregnancy story is discussed. It takes only a moment for a reasonable-sounding authoritative voice, without citing any specifics, to label a theory like ours "irresponsible, incorrect, poorly researched, sensationalistic," or - simply - "bad." It takes much longer to refute these charges. Points, often boring ones, must be made individually. Specific examples, requiring serious research into dates, times, places, and statements, must be discussed. Obstetric minutiae is of little interest to most people, and actually unpleasant to discuss for many.

These are some of the favorite tactics used:
1. Their favorite red herring is Obama's birth certificate. "There's the real story," we are assured solemnly. There may be a story there. I don't know - I haven't looked into it at all. But what I do know is that regardless of where, when, or to whom Barack Obama was born, it's got nothing to do with Sarah Palin.
2. A tactic of "redirection" is employed whenever specific obstetrical facets are considered. Everyone seems to know someone that "never looked pregnant with a fifth child," or whose water broke and she didn't go into labor. All that tells us is that it is "possible" that some aspects of Sarah Palin's story might be true based on others' similar experiences. It does not prove that they are.
3. They simply refuse to believe the evidence in front of their eyes. Shown documented photographs from unimpeachable sources, these folks simply allege (with no proof whatsoever) that the documentation is wrong or suspect and then, because they cannot "verify" the source of the evidence, they will not discuss anything further.
4. The last bastion: Sarah's story is true because Sarah wouldn't lie.

When one (or all) of the four tactics above are employed, it's impossible to have an honest debate with a legitimate exchange of ideas. With Ms. Tompkins post, I can. I can debate her reasoning with my own. What I intend to do here is to go through Ms. Tompkins' post point by point and do my best to, if not refute each one, then at least put forth why I think the real evidence indicates something different: specifically, that Sarah Palin did NOT give birth to Trig Palin on April 18th, 2008. I intend to quote large sections (indicated by blocks) of the original post, though not all of it, just because of length considerations.

Let me say categorically that I think the widely disseminated rumor that Sarah Palin is not the mother of her child Trig is totally false, although I know many well-informed and well-educated people who believe otherwise, and I certainly understand their theory.

I'm going to spend some time discussing the reasons why I think the Palin faked pregnancy story is not true, but first I think it is of interest to comment on why this story has really caught hold of the imagination of many.

... the general public disliked Sarah Palin and when the bizarre circumstances of the birth of her child Trig became generally known, the public wanted to believe that she was capable of faking a pregnancy in order to bolster her standing as a "family values" candidate by avoiding the baggage of a daughter who was about to become an unwed teenage mother. Avoiding that didn't quite work out for Palin as it turned out, but that didn't stop a vocal minority of conspiracy theorists to believe Palin capable of such chicanery earlier. The public wanted to believe the worst of Sarah Palin.

I've stated this before, but I will repeat it for the purposes of this post. I have done more than anyone regarding "Babygate," and while I can't speak for others, I can certainly speak for myself. My initial interest in the story had nothing to do with wanting to "believe the worst" about or discrediting Gov. Palin. I'd never heard of her. I was an Obama supporter and doubt that anything could have made me vote for the Republican ticket but I certainly did not dislike Sarah Palin on any sort of visceral level. In fact when I first heard that a mother of five had been chosen, I was rather thrilled and very very happy for her. I was eager to learn more about her.

In an ironic sense, I set out to defend her, feeling that she specifically and women in general are not well-served when such an unlikely and implausible childbirth story is disseminated. My initial interest stemmed from my desire to set the record straight. Some dim-witted young male reporter who probably barely understood how babies get in much less how they get out, I assumed, had gotten his facts wrong. No experienced mother, having had four prior births, would fly ten hours at 35 weeks while leaking amniotic fluid. Ludicrous. Crazy. Didn't happen.

This was my original premise and it had nothing to do with Sarah Palin at all. It was only after I understood that this WAS her story and she WAS sticking to it, that my B.S. meter went off the chart.

....the evidence very strongly suggests is that Palin was guilty of recklessly endangering the life of her unborn child, which to me is far worse than faking a pregnancy, to protect her political ambition and perhaps the reputation of her daughter. It's just not as sexy of a story, not one the public could latch onto with such fervor. Discussing ruptured membranes ain't exactly something to talk about at the dinner table. And since "life imitates art more than art imitates life" it's highly doubtful the Desperate Housewives' writers will be opening next season with one of the wives flying transcontinentally with preterm premature rupture of membranes.

The public couldn't understand why anyone would do anything other than take the greatest of care and every absolute precaution with the health of a special needs child, whose parent should have been their greatest advocate and protector.

The faked pregnancy theory was easier to believe. And so it was born...

I agree, I think recklessly endangering a child would be worse than faking a pregnancy. Much worse in fact. Where we differ is that I don't think Palin actually did that.

I do not believe that Sarah Palin, under any circumstances, would have risked giving birth on an airplane. Whether she would have been motivated to avoid this by concern for her child (hopefully) or fear of criticism and embarrassment doesn't really matter in the end. What matters is that the consequences of giving birth under such circumstances probably would have been career-ending.

I do not think she would have taken this risk. More to the point, I do not believe she DID take this risk. She was absolutely positive she would not have a baby on the airplane. And how could she be positive? The same way I am positive every time I fly that I will not have a baby on an airplane. I am not pregnant.

We are "working" this story knowing how it ends. We know that Sarah Palin did NOT have a child on an airplane on April 17th 2008. But at 2 PM that afternoon, when Sarah Palin would have been walking down that jetway, she could NOT have known what the next ten hours would hold. If Sarah Palin was 35 weeks pregnant on April 17th, given her obstetric history, not only was it possible she would give birth within ten hours of her membranes rupturing, it was probable. She would had to have guessed, getting on the airplane, that there was a very fair chance she'd have the baby in the air.

She should have known that the odds were against her, and if she did not, any credible doctor would have made it immediately, explicitly, abundantly clear. Several different versions of how much contact she had with her doctor and when that contact occurred on that day have circulated. But if Sarah Palin had been pregnant and had been leaking amniotic fluid, no doctor in the world would have ever told her it was alright even to consider getting on an airplane. Any physician would have made it clear that, if you're leaking amniotic fluid, you have a very high chance of having the baby before you get back to Alaska, certainly BETTER THAN 50/50. That information would have stopped Palin cold. Let's be reasonable. It would stop anyone.

The primary risk she would never take is to her own public image. She cares about what people think - very much. No professional woman - and certainly not the narcissistic governor of Alaska - would have risked for a second the absolutely appalling level of scrutiny and social embarrassment that would have resulted if she had given birth on the airplane... and that is if things came out well. If her preterm baby had been harmed by the choice, she could have been charged with child endangerment and prosecuted!

I have personally seen a baby born after two hours of membrane rupture and one - yes you're reading right - ONE contraction. Palin had boasted, prior to April 18th, about how easy her birth had been with Piper six years earlier, reminding people that after Piper had been born, she'd gone back to work the next day. Sarah Palin may not know the ins and outs of African politics, but she's a practical-minded woman who had given birth four times. She knows where babies come from and just exactly what is involved in getting them out. Do THAT on an airplane? Never. Not in a million years did she chance it.

I have never looked at a map and checked proximity of the hotel where Palin was staying in Texas to a hospital, but in a large urban area, surely she could not have been more than, say, ten minutes away from a good hospital where she could have gone in a hurry. I can accept - and always have - that someone in Palin's position might try to give the speech. MIGHT, though the image of an amniotic fluid "leak" turning into a full-fledged rupture while on stage certainly would have dissuaded me personally. (If you wonder what I'm talking about, dump approximately one and a half quarts of yellowish pinkish kinda funky smelling liquid between YOUR legs all at once. Now picture this happening WHILE giving a speech to other governors. Hmmm. Sort of wrecks the professional aura, doesn't it?)

But no one will ever convince me - ever! - that the image-conscious governor of Alaska risked having to lie down in public, spread her legs, and grunting and panting in a messy puddle of amniotic fluid, mucous, blood, urine and possibly either the baby's excrement, her own, or both, push her baby out on the carpet in the aisle. Risked her own health and her baby's. Risked the public criticism she would have come under for inconveniencing hundreds of other passengers. And taken this chance not once, but twice, on two separate four hour flights.

Would she ever have been able to overcome the eye rolling and snickers? I don't think so. "Oh yeah, Sarah Palin. She's that Governor that had a baby in first class. YUCK YUCK YUCK. Good thing it wasn't coach. HAR HAR HAR." "Didjya hear the one about the Governor that had the baby..." And on and on and on. Millions of people who had never heard of Sarah Palin would have, all at once, and not in a good way. "Pulling a Palin" (or something comparable) probably would have become - for generations - a synonym for: stupidest choice imaginable.

My "comeback" to Ms. Tompkins is that I believe that the faked pregnancy theory (which of course means she was never actually at risk for having a baby on the plane) is in fact far more plausible than suggesting that she risked the incredible level of scrutiny and criticism, possibly career ending, that she would have come under if she'd given birth somewhere over Canada.

And consider this: If you are going to put this forward - that Sarah Palin recklessly endangered the life of her child - you're going to have to be able to offer some plausible explanation for why she did it. That has never happened. Sarah Palin has NEVER offered any credible or even remotely believable explanation as to WHY. WHAT was her utterly compelling reason for getting on the airplane? WHY did she chance this medically risky and humiliating scenario?

So that her child could be born in Alaska.

This is the only reason she has ever offered. So that her child could be born in Alaska. (Or to quote the succinct Todd, "You can't have a fish picker [commercial fisherman] from Texas.") This makes no sense. It is in fact one of the dumbest things I have ever heard.

Having a baby on an airplane would almost certainly have ended Sarah Palin's political career, just due to the embarrassment and the criticism she would have come under for inconveniencing the other passengers. If the baby had come to harm, it would definitely had ended her career and might have opened her up to prosecution. If the events of April 17, 2008 occurred as described, at 2 PM on that day when she got an airplane to return to Alaska, she could not know what would happen during the next eight hours. This is the risk the Sarah Palin would not take. This is the risk she did not take.


PART 2 COMING SOON.

Wonkette

Although many others who blog about issues concerning Sarah Palin have mentioned this already, I sure cannot let it pass.

The political blog, Wonkette, yesterday, while jumping with both feet onto the Desecration of Holy Child Special Needs Trig bandwagon, casually called him Bristol Palin's son.

Yes, that's right. "See that photoshop up there of Governor Palin with Bristol Palin’s child, Trig? "

Not one of the comments (and there are many) have yet called them on it. They've not bothered to "correct" it. Not even, an "Oops, our bad. It was just a typo. LOL."

Nothing.

Good Grief

That's all I can say.

Sarah Palin's (big) mouth (a.k.a. Meghan Stapleton) is at it again, releasing a statement today that can only be considered more stupid than her last statement - and that one was pretty dumb. I did not do a blog post here on the statement released several days ago, but several other bloggers did, for example, here, so I recommend you take a gander.

However, today's statement was so ridiculous that I cannot let it pass. I just can't. I'm helpless in the face of the sheer stupidity. (And remember - this person gets paid for saying things like this. She probably sits around and thinks and after, oh, two or three hours of thinking she comes up with something profound. Like this one.)

Several days ago this caricature appeared on the Internet.

The original source for this apparently was a blog called "Crooks and Liars." Now this looks like David Letterman to me, and the tags on the what I *think* is the original posting of the cartoon SAY "David Letterman." However, according to numerous people this is NOT David Letterman cradled tenderly in Gov. Palin's arms, but Eddie Burke, a conservative Alaska radio talk "personality."

It doesn't matter who it is supposed to be. The fact is that it's a political cartoon and it's damn funny.

(Update: I have just figured out the sequence here. The original posting was this cartoon shown above. No objections or comments came from the Palin camp at that time. Then, an Alaskan Blogger, Celtic Diva, as part of a fundraiser, created a spoof of the cartoon, in which she did used a photoshopped photo in which the face of Eddie Burke was used. The original image was David Letterman and it was a cartoon; the image that Miss Meg issued a statement regarding was the photo.)

But not to Meghan the Mouth. She posted the following statement to Sarah Palin's Facebook page:

Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother's love for a special needs child.

The mere idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling. To learn that two Alaskans did it is absolutely sickening. Linda Kellen Biegel, the official Democrat Party blogger for Alaska, should be ashamed of herself and the Democratic National Committee should be ashamed for promoting this website and encouraging this atrocious behavior.

Babies and children are off limits. It is past time to restore decency in politics and real tolerance for all Americans. The Obama Administration sets the moral compass for its party. We ask that special needs children be loved, respected and accepted and that this type of degeneracy be condemned.

Now, we digress to a bit of etymology. "Desecration" comes to us from Latin, as so many of our best words do. It comes from "de," which means to do the opposite of, and "secrare," which means to make holy. (Sacred comes from this same Latin word, of course, though that word comes to English via a slightly different path.)

ONLY a religiously recognized holy image or place can be desecrated. Surely she misspoke. Surely in the heat of the moment she said "desecrate" when she really meant "change" or "photoshopped," right? But no, because Ms. Stapleton actually continues this analogy of holiness when, in the same paragraph, she uses the word "iconic." An icon is also a religious picture of a holy person.

So there we have it: an iconic representation of "mother and child" has been desecrated. Don't they burn people at the stake for that? Maybe in Alaska.

If this weren't all so sad, it would be hilarious. Obviously, having failed to keep herself in the public's eye any longer via the Willow/Bristol/David Letterman brouhaha, Sarah Palin is turning to another "offense," this one involving another child, Trig.

Oh, excuse me. The special needs child Trig. And we know that he is special needs child Trig because they tell us he is special needs child Trig three times in three paragraphs.

"The idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling." No it's not. This is a political spoof and a funny one. Trig is not in the cartoon or the photo. Trig's clothes might be, but Trig is not. Whether you are talking about the original cartoon or the subsequent photo, someone else's head is on a baby's body being held by a Sarah Palin.

But again we have the pious stand: Babies and children are off limits.

Well, they might be now, but they weren't when Sarah Palin needed to use her seventeen year old daughter to prove that she, Sarah, had to be Trig's mother, instead of, oh, releasing a birth certificate. They weren't the countless times Sarah Palin trit-trotted onto a stage in spike heels, carrying a five month old (oh, excuse me, special needs five month old) like a sack of (special needs) potatoes then passing him off like a (special needs) football.

But that, I guess, was then and this is now. And now, given the opportunity to rile the rabble with yet another imagined slur to yet another Palin child, (this one special needs - Did we mention that?) into the fray they go.

Good Grief.

The Diminishment of Sarah Palin

There's no questioning that life for Sarah Palin must feel very much like a pressure cooker.

Politicians of any stripe feel the heat, but for scandal-plagued Alaskan governor that heat must be intense. Eighteen ethics charges have led to a huge legal debt. The party that once treated her as a rising star seems rather less enamored with her today. Her repeated efforts to keep herself in the news about anything but state business has raised mounting criticism in Alaska. Her public feud with the Johnstons and subsequent revelations have tarnished the holier-than-thou family image she sought to project on the campaign trail. And then, of course, there are the ongoing questions about her claim that she gave birth to Trig.

For Sarah Palin, the heat must be intense. Perched on the cusp of her political future, she looks down to see wolves snapping at her heels. The fact that she's been throwing them red meat since the beginning is of no consequence.  The truth is that this seems to be getting to her.

Some of our readers and researchers have observed both on the blog and over at Team Truther that the stress seems to be showing in Sarah's physical appearance. In this June 17 groundbreaking ceremony at Goose Creek Prison, she looks alarmingly thin:

Even more alarming is this screen shot captured by fellow blogger Enneologic, which highlights Sarah's nearly skeletal hands:

Some could argue that Sarah's marked weight loss could be just a symptom of the vanity she displayed on the campaign trail. Thin is in, after all. But she's always been svelte, and her appearance has gone far beyond that.

There have been hints and whispers that something else is looming, something big, something that has her more worried than ever. We've heard nothing verifiable of what this may be. And besides, from the beginning our focus has been squarely on seeking the truth about Sarah's claims to be the birth mother of Trig.

And that is where it will remain, because even if Sarah is physically diminishing, among her base she looms larger than life. And that's reason enough for us to continue with this quest.

An Interesting Slip?

I had wanted to make this blog post before announcing our new discussion board "Team Truther," but I did not get to it. Please read the post below this one as well, if you have not - on the announcing of our new board.

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In the last 2-3 days, there have been two comments made by players in this drama to press that have been noticed as - perhaps - being indicative of what we believe the "real story," may be, specifically that Bristol Palin is the mother of both Trig Palin and Tripp Johnston.

One comment, I believe, is NOT significant, but the other may be. First, let's talk about Levi's comment, as quoted in the Daily Beast, that his "boys" were going to be "so mad" when they saw the new clothing he'd acquired in Los Angeles. While it's easy to jump on this, and say, "Boys! He said 'boys'!", I believe that in this context Levi is referring to "male friends." My daughters frequently say that they are doing somthing with "my girls," to mean that they are socializing that evening with an all-female group. (Not large groups of granddaughters that I am somehow unaware of!) Infants and toddlers are not going to be "mad" about parental clothing choices, and I find the idea that he was talking about babies when he said this implausible.

The second comment, however, is, I think, far more worthy of comment. Buried deep in the transcript of Sarah Palin's interview with Wolf Blitzer is the following sentence, regarding the identity of the daughter that David Letterman's joke referred to: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of her young family.

"Family." That word choice is very very interesting.

Long Long Ago and Far Far Away, I was a student. I studied, not medicine or science (areas of endeavor that would ultimately have helped me in what I ended up doing professionally) but history and linguistics. Linguistics is, as we always tried to explain to other tipsy undergrads in bars, the study of "Language" with a capital "L" NOT languages, with a small "l." Although as an adult, I have never done anything with my linguistics degree professionally, nuances of language and grammar have always fascinated me.

To a native speaker of English, I believe "family" in this context implies more than one child. It's a collective noun that implies a group. Now, if someone says, "John and Sue are starting a family," we all know that this means they are having their first baby, because they are having the FIRST member of what might become a group.

But when someone is staying home, taking care of a "young family," this means children. If she had ONE baby, I believe a native English speaker would say, "at home with her baby." The natural way for Gov. Palin to have expressed this would have been: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of her new baby. Or even: It wasn't my older daughter, who's in college and taking care of Tripp.

Of course - this proves nothing. Those of us who doubt Palin's birth tale need no more proof; those who think she walks on water will find this - at best - an insignificant slip of the tongue, and at worst we'll get the typical comments: "Oh, I say 'family' all the time when I mean one child." Yeah, right. And I'm sure you say this to your friend who is nine months pregnant with her fifth eight pound child and who doesn't look pregnant at all! Amazing.

A nail in the coffin? Probably not. An interesting slip o' the tongue to file away? Definitely.

Team Truther

Team Truther? What's that?

A new and, we hope, exciting evolution of PalinDeception.com.

The facts are well-known: I am Audrey, a mother of six, childbirth educator and author, lactation consultant married to a physician. I started this website in September 2008 when I found the birth story told by Alaskan Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin completely unbelievable. I doubted the story from day one and have never wavered from this.

It was obvious from the beginning that I was not alone in finding this story utterly ludicrous. What began as a website raising questions about Palin’s dubious birth story quickly developed such a strong following that a blog was added to keep up with all the developments surrounding the controversy. The blog exploded with readers, with several of my posts receiving more than 500 comments. Over the subsequent months, a group of loyal and dedicated volunteers joined me to form a research team. Although a few people have had to leave the group due to other commitments, etc, the core of the research team (which is now eight people) has remained strikingly constant since November.

Now, more than nine months later, even more is required. Our loyal readers have in many ways become part of the research team. Again and again, they compile information and raise even more questions as the story unfolds. That is why we have decided to add a discussion forum, which we have called "Team Truther."

Team Truther may seem like a curious name since “truther” is generally considered a negative slur. It - along with its childish permutation "Troofer" - is used to disparage those of us who feel the American people are OWED (and I do not use that word lightly) a realistic and accurate explanation for the striking, even bizarre, inconsistencies in Palin's birth story. But if you're not a Truther, what are you? A Liar? (Yeah, that works for me.)

We are devoted to the continued pursuit of exposing Sarah Palin’s claim that the birth of Trig Palin occurred as she has claimed, and on the Palin Deception blog, we’ve limited discussion to topics directly related to this. And while the main focus of Team Truther WILL remain the issue of Trig’s birth, we will allow more latitude for discussion of other Palin-related issues. The rules will be more relaxed, too. We will aim for less moderation on the board than what exists on the blog – which has been the target of anti-truther spammers and Palinites.

The PalinDeception.com website AND blog are not going anywhere. The blog will of course still accept comments, and will remain the best place for longer, fully-researched posts on this issue. But this new discussion board, we hope, will become the go-to source for breaking developments on the case. The discussion board is a supplement for those who want to discuss things more in depth, offer up their own topics for discussion or even blog a little if they choose. Several of my researchers are eager to write their own blog posts, and they will bring new voices and points of view to our shared research.

Team Truther will have guidelines, however, and we expect contributors to honor them if we are to have the kind of open dialogue we would like to see take place.

In addition, I have made the decision to open a Cafe Press store, which will sell humorous merchandise - sweatshirts, mugs, hats, and the ever-popular canine T-shirts (I don't know how my dogs have survived without them) - related to our search. My out-of-pocket expenses related to this endeavor are now significant. Suggestions that I am funded by the DNC, President Obama, or, alternately, other Republicans who want to get rid of Palin, are all false. I am funded by myself. Period. I have resisted taking "donations," but think that a Cafe Press store (where I get a small commission) and the customer gets a T-shirt "feels" a bit different. (I pray that NO ONE will interpret this as criticism in any way of some fellow bloggers who have put up PayPal buttons, because none is intended! This is just what I personally feel more comfortable with.) The decision to open this store was not taken lightly, but my hope is that the sale of merchandise will begin to help me recoup a small percentage of my actual expenses.

To those readers both new and old, thank you for your support. We look forward to your participation in the new forum.

Sarah's Selective Outrage

Does anyone really believe Sarah Palin’s latest display of motherly indignation in the wake of Letterman’s admittedly unfunny comment directed at her daughter?

If they do, then they either a.) have short memories or b.) really don’t know much about Sarah Palin. Probably both.

It’s hard to top blogger Shannyn Moore’s assessment of Palin’s hypocrisy on what has become the Alaskan governor's latest Tour d'Outrage.

However, it's important to point out that, during the campaign, one SNL skit went so far as to suggest that Todd was "doing" the daughters. This SNL skit was far FAR more offensive than Letterman’s bad joke about Willow. Sarah's response? Boycott SNL advertisers? Media blitz? Whip the base into a foaming frenzy? No, actually, she appeared on the show one month later. Oh yeah, I think we all remember her Weekend Update with Seth Green.

But why is it that I REALLY want to get a vomit bag when Sarah drones on endlessly about protecting the young woman of America from exploitation? It's because this is the woman who, in late August, when confronted with ever-more-insistent demands for some proof, any proof at all that she herself had given birth to Trig four months earlier, "outed" her own minor child's pregnancy. She put 17 year old Bristol on a national stage in an ugly and ill-fitting dress, accompanied by a young man that her father reportedly had wanted his daughter to dump so much that he had offered to buy her a car. Instead of producing a birth certificate or a doctor, Sarah Palin made her daughter a walking punchline. How do you spell "exploit?" B - R - I - S - T - O - L

You gotta love these Palin family values. THEY are the joke. Or maybe not. Because they're not funny. And she's arguably done more damage to her children than any comedian ever could. You have to imagine that behind the scenes, her kids have expressed outrage at how they're privacy and dignity have been sacrificed for their mother's political gain. Unfortunately, when they complain, Sarah doesn't listen.

Which is why no one else should listen to her either.

New Section of Website Opening

As I mentioned several days ago, I have been working on linked "calendar" pages on the website proper. These pages, one per date for which we have news, events, pictures or video, will be accessible through a straightforward "calendar" interface.

The initial group of pages have been uploaded. More will be added daily.

In general, I will be working to update the website. The initial goal for this endeavor was that the website would be an online repository, easy to use, of all material we could locate on this topic. I have fallen dreadfully short of that goal as this blog has become the core of the endeavor and the website has languished.

But - as I said - we are moving to correct that. New material, whether it's already existing data that is scattered all over this blog and the Internet (just what I hoped to avoid by STARTING the website in the first place) OR new material that we actually prepare de novo for the website, will be added regularly. We will begin moving aggressively towards my goal of making palindeception.com a truly usable archive for this information.

To access the new pages, simply go to the main page of the website, and click on the "Palin Pregnancy Photos" link.

A Bit of a New Direction

Almost exactly nine months ago, I woke up one morning very pissed off. Something as plain as the hand in front of my eyes was being ignored by the main stream media to a degree I could not fathom.

And - since it occurred to me this morning - that nine months (rather incredibly) is the length of the average pregnancy, I thought it might be interesting to reflect this morning, on just how this "pregnancy" has gone.

Let's return to September 13, 2008, the day I launched the website. (The blog came a few days later.) It had been almost two weeks since John McCain had announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the initial hysterical joy over the announcement, even among the loyal base, was beginning to erode just a bit. The Charles Gibson interview on the 11th, while not the catastrophe that the Couric interview on September 24th would become, had certainly not not been a smashing success, either. Palin came across as vague, uninformed, and rather ineffective. She was noted most often for saying "Charlie" a lot. A real lot.

In other venues, questions about Palin's ethics, mostly vis a vis "Troopergate" (but including other issues as well) continued to dog the campaign. And of course, what has now been called "Babygate," simply would not die.

As I have said previously, my initial interest in the story had nothing to do with Palin or her politics. As a long time childbirth educator and author, I had always had a "pet peeve:" media misrepresentation of childbirth. Overall, books, movies and TV shows present birth in one of two ways: either impossibly sanitary and easy or staggeringly dangerous. Babies either fall out or die; in birth fiction, there seems often to be no middle ground, and believing either extreme does not help women have happy safe births.

My initial assumption upon hearing Palin's story of Trig's birth was that some male reporter had simply gotten the facts wrong because, of course, no experienced mother of four would get on an airplane, leaking amniotic fluid, eight months pregnant. Just didn't happen. Period.

I've said this before but it bears repeating: birth is not a tidy process. The Governor of Alaska did not risk having to lie down in the middle of an airplane aisle, rip off her panty hose, spread her legs, and push a baby out in a puddle of blood, mucous, amniotic fluid, and, quite possibly, either her own excrement or the baby's. If she were in fact leaking amniotic fluid, she knew before she got on the airplane to fly a total of more than eight hours, that this was a very real possibility. And it is because no one would confront her with this graphic and basic reality back in early September we are here today.

To this day, the only truly concrete statement from either of the Palins as to why Sarah made this choice has come from Todd: "You can't have a fish picker [commercial fisherman] from Texas." Good Lord. Which is more absurd, that anyone ever believed this lame explanation or that people apparently still do?

I knew as soon as I realized that Palin was sticking by this nonsensical version of events that there was a lie somewhere. I have never once wavered from that conviction in nine months. I wasn't sure exactly what, where, or why, but I knew it was a lie. I also could never put together in my mind why so few other people - smart people who, while perhaps not knowing quite as much about childbirth as I do, but who nevertheless have a good basic understanding - did not come out and say, unequivocally and simply, "This birth story does not pass any sort of credible scrutiny. We have a right to ask why. And these questions have nothing to do with Palin's daughter."

Nine months is a long time. Women who became pregnant when I started this website and blog are now having their babies. When I chose to begin collating the information about Palin's pregnancy (and initially, my endeavor was to be nothing more than a repository of documents, photos, and facts that at the time were spread all over the Internet) I did not dream it would be necessary even up until the point of the election, some seven weeks later. The idea that I would still be thinking about Sarah Palin's uterus nine MONTHS later would have nauseated me.

My good friend Gryphen at Immoral Minority said to me recently: Audrey, you don't have to prove anything else. You have proved that Sarah Palin was never pregnant. The problem now is getting people to listen. While I am not 100% sure he is right, I know in my heart that it's close.

So where are we going from here? First, look to this blog for much more frequent and probably shorter posts. When I started the blog, Trig Palin (based on his announced birth date) was approximately four and half months old. Now, he is 15 months old. Although I know there is still information out there for us to find, the plain fact is that it is becoming increasingly difficult. PD posts, while still mostly focusing on the central question of "Babygate," will begin delving into other areas of comment and research direction, often directly related to Palin's overall credibility. After all the blog is called "Palin Deceptions."

Secondly, we are revamping the website, something that has fallen horribly by the wayside as this blog has become the core of the endeavor. Very soon, we are opening a new area of the site, which will, in easy-to-use "calendar" fashion, have clickable links to many many days of Palin's late "pregnancy" with the associated photos. I still find myself astonished when I look at some of the photos, that she has gotten away with absurd lie for so long. When the photos - event after event of photos - are viewed in sequence it becomes laughable.

Look also for posts from others - members of the wonderful research team that have done so much to bring this story to the fore - as well as possibly "guest" posts by long time readers.

And... just as a closing statement... I know many readers have been curious about statements made on other blogs about icebergs and huge revelations and waves crashing onto the shore. (Well, maybe not waves...) Regardless, IS this story going to be over soon?

I think it may be. I think this baby is going to be born soon, and then we can all send a shower gift, and go home.

Bristol Palin: Homeschooler?

The Palins have certainly given the phrase “school choice” new meaning over the past few years. Since Sarah Palin was elected governor in 2006, her children have attended schools in Wasilla, Juneau, Anchorage, and Michigan. They have also been kept out of school for considerable periods of time, for example, during last fall's campaign, leading to a situation where seven year old Piper actually stated on camera to Matt Lauer that she was having a hard time catching up.

In several private conversations I have had with reporters and others in Alaska, I have been told that Gov. Palin had come under considerable, though mostly under the radar, scrutiny (even some criticism) regarding how inconsistently her children attended school, and how glibly they were moved from place to place. Track, for example, attended most of his senior year in Michigan, allegedly to play on a more prominent hockey team, but when his hockey prospects dimmed he was, in March of his senior year, brought back to Wasilla where he finished the year at Wasilla High School. Having shepherded six children through high school I cannot fathom a teen changing schools three quarters of the way through his senior year, but maybe that's just me being too picky or something.

Exact details concerning the whereabouts of Bristol Palin, however, have been harder to pin down. In particular, Bristol’s attendance during the 2007-08 school year has been questioned on this site and on others. This school year, of course, is the focus of our interest. Why?

1. Someone had to be pregnant with Trig Palin during most of what would have been the 2007 - 2008 school year. If it were not Sarah Palin, it had to be someone else. Period.
2. Photographs of Bristol Palin taken in September of 2007 when compared to June of 2007 show physical changes which are consistent with pregnancy. Does this prove she WAS pregnant? No. Does it suggest that she could have been? Yes.
3. "Something" appears to have happened in Bristol Palin's life during the summer of 2007. She went from being openly in school in the spring of 2007, attending First Family events (albeit reluctantly), posting frequently on social networking sites, working at a coffee shop in early summer of that year, to... as far as we can tell... dropping almost totally out of sight by early fall. She was photographed in Juneau in mid September 2007, then no other photograph of her exists until late April of 2008. ONE family photograph (containing Bristol) released by the Palin family to the media of "Christmas 2007" has been shown to actually have been taken Christmas 2006.
4. Rumors that Bristol Palin WAS pregnant were circulating in Alaska as early as December of 2007, long before Trig was allegedly born in April of 2008.

So obviously Bristol's school attendance during the fall of 2007 is of considerable interest to those of us who are trying to get solid answers to this mystery. Imagine our surprise, then, when out of the blue two days ago comes a totally new, previously unheard of revelation from Levi Johnston to GQ Magazine: he and Bristol, at some point during this 2007 - 2008 school year, homeschooled TOGETHER at the Palin home.

My initial response: Huh?

Her attendance during that year at both Wasilla and Anchorage West has been extensively questioned based on conflicting reports, and spotty information. Of course, neither school will (or should) give any information about a minor student "on the record." So what is known must be pieced together from media reports, which often contradict each other. Wasilla High Assistant Principal Mark Okeson told the media in September that Bristol had transferred to Anchorage “midyear”, though he admitted: “I never heard the story why.” This certainly makes it sound as if she attended Wasilla until Christmas 2007 and then left. The National Enquirer reported that Sarah banished Bristol to live with her Aunt Heather in Anchorage after learning of her pregnancy. And Kyle Hopkins at the Anchorage Daily News, speaking with Heather Bruce shortly after Sarah’s nomination, confirmed from Bristol's own aunt that Bristol attended Anchorage West “in the spring." Bristol's attendance was also confirmed by a private source who has stated to me that Bristol, a friend of her child's, attended Anchorage West in January and February, leaving some time before mid-March 2008.

Yet, the details surrounding the transition from Wasilla to Anchorage remain fuzzy. If Tripp was born at or close to full term in late December, 2008, Bristol could not have known about her pregnancy prior to either very late April or early May of 2008. Anchorage West's LAST day of school in 2008 was May 16th. So it is absurd to suggest that she lived with Heather Bruce AND went to school at any point during her pregnancy with Tripp. She didn't. If it is true that she lived with Heather Bruce while pregnant AND she attended school, it MUST refer to a prior pregnancy.

We do know from Sarah Palin’s interview with Alaska Magazine that, as of fall 2007, the plan at that point had been for Bristol to stay in Wasilla to finish out her high school career. If so, it would be understandable. Not many teenagers appreciate being taken away from friends, favorite teachers, and social events right in the middle of high school.

But, there may have been another option, and, based on Levi's recent statement to GQ, one that may well have been utilized by the Palins. In an article published by the Boston Herald on September 2, 2008, WHS principal Dwight Probasco stated that, while Levi did play for the Wasilla Warriors hockey team during the 2007-08 season, he was not attending classes that year--instead, he was homeschooled via the Mat-Su Correspondence Study School. Here's the exact quote:

Principal Dwight Probasco explained Levi’s decision to drop out: “School might have interfered with Levi’s moose-hunting, so he did a home school course. He continued to play on the ice hockey team, even though he stopped coming to classes two years ago. I understand he is now out of work.”

And now, a new article in GQ magazine not only confirms that Levi was homeschooling during that school year, but appears to impart some additional information that we had not heard before. Referring to Levi at that time:

“The previous year [this has to refer to 2007-2008] he’d been in a homeschool scenario. Alaska boasts the most lax homeschooling rules of any state in the union, in the sense that they have literally almost no rules. Levi was doing his learning online, through a Brigham Young University program. Unsupervised, at the Palins’ house, where Bristol Palin was homeschooling, too.”

The timeline for Bristol's homeschooling is--what a surprise--unclear. It is generally accepted, though, that she began attending Anchorage West at some point in 2008, so this article appears to be referring to the months prior to that. Read that again. This article is now strongly suggesting that Bristol was NOT in fact attending Wasilla High in the fall of 2007, but was "homeschooling."

Wow. Bristol Palin - popular, athletic, good student, missed all of her friends at Wasilla High SO much while in Juneau the previous spring that she decided to... home school? IN Wasilla? What's wrong with this picture?

And adding gasoline to the intrigue fire is a quote from Gov. Palin herself, in August of 2007, where she states specifically to interviewer Armstrong Williams that, the previous day, Bristol (and her siblings) had been registered for school. In fact, what Gov. Palin specifically says is, "Four kids, four different schools." No mention of homeschooling here whatsoever. (Forgive the digression, but I must point out another curious fact: the fourth kid can only be Track, and since he had graduated from high school the previous spring, this has to refer to registering for community college or some other higher education source. Yet... within a month he's changed his mind and has enlisted in the military. It's been suggested many places that Track's enlistment decision was abrupt, and motivated, at least in part, by something other than pure patriotism. This certainly seems to confirm that his mother, in August of 2007, had no clue he was about to enlist.)

Something just ain't right here, folks. Homeschooling is one of the button issues of the religious right. If Palin had homeschooled any of her children for any time at all, don't you think it would have been used during the campaign? Good grief, they used everything else they could find. But no... homeschool prior to the fall of 2008 was never mentioned once that I can find in connection with the Palin family.

I have suspected for a long time that Bristol Palin did not attend school in the fall of 2007, but have not been able to prove it. Does this chance comment from Levi Johnston (just keep talking, kid) provide conclusive proof? No. Does it bring us one step closer? I think so.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

As I have stated many times, it has always been my preference to focus on Gov. Palin's behavior and appearance regarding the "Who's Your Mommy? And What Does She Do?" conspiracy. I was - like so many other mothers - disgusted by Palin's behavior regarding her children during the campaign, first quite specifically her choosing to use the announcement of Bristol's then-current pregnancy as the direct - and sole - proof that Bristol could NOT be Trig's mother, meaning that Sarah then had to be, and second, the way she paraded and displayed the children like so many stage props. There's one video in particular in which she carries a rather inert Trig out on stage like a big stuffed doll, strides briskly around with him, then hands him off like a football. I literally cried when I saw it. (I can't find the link at the moment, but if I do I will update this post to include it.)

OK, rant over.

Anyway... I really have not wanted to focus on Palin's children but it has been inevitable that the children - in particular Bristol - had to be brought into the dialogue for the simple reason that Bristol was (and really continues to be) Sarah's only proof that she - and not Bristol - gave birth to Trig. No birth certificate, no doctor's statement, no happy family in the hospital photos, nothing. Just Bristol. (Oh, and "Sarah wouldn't lie." I guess we can't forget that.)

So Bristol's whereabouts, behavior, and appearance are regrettably "fair game." And recently, two discoveries have opened yet more legitimate queries into just where Bristol Palin was and what she was doing - and how she "looked" - in the fall of 2007.

When the rumors first hit the Internet the last few days of August, 2008 that Palin had faked a pregnancy to cover for Bristol, two photos were widely shown in which Bristol Palin purportedly had a "baby bump." The first, in which Bristol is wearing a green sweater, was taken at the Palin's home in Wasilla. I have felt confident dating this to 2006, based on the fact that we discovered another photo from the same shoot in which Todd is wearing a campaign button.

But the second photo was a bit more troublesome.



People said many different things about this photo. One of the first was that it was from February of 2008. (I always thought that was most unlikely unless Alaska is a whole lot warmer than I have been led to believe.) Fairly early on, a correspondent identified this photo as having been taken in Juneau - and sometime in the summer or early fall, as the mountain in the background - according to him - typically has snow on it by late September. That seemed reasonable, and from this we could date the picture with more accuracy. It had to be the summer / early fall of 2007. Why? In summer of 2006, Palin was not yet governor; by summer of 2008, Trig was born and he is not in the photo.

I have always been bothered by this photo because - frankly - I never thought that the person in the photo that HAD to be Bristol looked much like other photos available of her. And of course the reason we are looking at this photo is the alleged "baby bump." Is there one? Possibly, though it did not look much different than the picture I felt dated from 2006. What bothered me more - a lot more - was how different and frankly "fatter" her face looked! But all in all, it's hard to tell, and you can't deny that she does look "full" in the middle.

I never felt confident saying anything with any certainty, however, because dates just did not add up in my mind. Operating from the assumption that Trig was really "due" in mid May 2008 and born a month early, if this photo was taken "before the end of the September" whoever is pregnant here could only have been 4-6 weeks - at the most - too early to show no matter who it is.

But one rumor that has persisted since the onset of this investigation was that Trig was born much earlier than announced. People have based this on numerous (and frankly very divergent) "evidence," not the least being that Trig - from the very beginning of his public debut in September looked much older and larger than you would expect a baby who, on Sept 1, was 4 1/2 months old and had been born prematurely. Other researchers have found clear evidence of a jar of baby food for much older babies (nine months plus) in a photograph of Sarah's desk from August on 2008 when Trig would have been barely four months old. Numerous people have commented that Trig looked much older than his supposed nine months in a recent promotional video Sarah did for the Special Olympics.

And of course as was revealed on this blog several weeks ago - we have clear evidence that Bristol Palin's presence was "scrubbed" almost entirely from MySpace beginning approximately July 1, 2007. Why? We had our suspicions but could prove nothing.

However, with the discovery of some additional photos which clearly show that Bristol Palin experienced rather striking physical changes between June of 2007 and September of 2007 PLUS our discovery that the Palin family may have intentionally released a "Christmas 2007" photo which was actually from Christmas 2006, it's hard not to have our suspicion alert level go to orange, if not red.

Here's what we know:

Several weeks ago, an alert blog reader provided us with this link. Apparently, these photos have been available all along but languished, undiscovered, on a UK photo website. Here's the link and here's another. (For this second link, you need to enter the site and you can search either on photographer's name (Andrew Testa) or "Palin.")

These links were critical because it allowed us to date - absolutely - that the photo of the Palin family on the balcony was taken on September 13th (or 14th - there seems to be a bit of confusion about the date, but a one day discrepancy is not an issue.) We already had suspected this because Palin's agenda, released under a FOIA request, indicated that official family portraits had been taken in Juneau on these dates, but we could not prove that THIS photo was taken then. Now we could.

One thing that is striking about these photos is that Bristol clearly shows signs of a weight gain, both in her face and in her body, when you contrast these shots with ones taken of her only three months earlier, on June 10, 2007.



She is slim hipped, lean through the face, completely flat in the belly, and frankly not very large on top. And three months later - we have this:



This is another photograph that we recently ran across. It was - we think - supposed to have been the "official Palin family holiday portrait for Christmas 2007" and it was obviously taken the same day as all the other photos in September. It was released for use in the Alaska Business Journal's December issue, but I still have not been able to determine if it ever appeared on the state website, or any where else for that matter. It could have been - but considering the fact that we have never seen this photo before now, my guess is that sometime between when it was released to the Alaska Business Journal and Christmas, the Palins changed their mind about using it. Hmmm. Wonder why....

Want another comparison between June 10 and September 14? Here it is:



And this brings me to the second interesting little tidbit that my ever vigilant helpers discovered. One of the things that has always struck us is the complete dearth of any photos of Bristol Palin between (now we know) September 14, 2007 and April 25, 2008 (when she posed in a candid shot with Mercede Johnston before Mercede attended the prom at Burchell High School.)

Bristol supposedly went with her mother to New York City in October of 2007. She is mentioned briefly on the state of Alaska website as having attended a license plate art ceremony (now there's some fun!) in early January, 2008, and again - according to travel reimbursement forms Palin filed, Bristol was also supposed to have attended an American Heart Association event in Fairbanks in mid February, 2008 though no photos of Bristol that we can locate seem to exist for any of these. (Queries to the Heart Association about this event have been met with a surprisingly, even shocking amount of obfuscation and stonewalling. More on this in a future post.) But other than that, the public record is amazingly silent on the whereabouts of Bristol Palin between September 2007 and April 2008.

One "sole" official photo seemed to exist, this Palin family photo released in the Kaylene Johnson biography of Palin, and dated to Christmas 2007. Here - naysayers have claimed - HERE is a photo of Bristol. Nothing to see here. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, you Trig Truthers you.

Except, not so fast.

Here's the picture released in Kaylene Johnson's book:



It's clearly dated 2007.

But here's a picture released in another Palin biography, Lorenzo Benet's Trailblazer.




It's dated 2006. Every person in the photo is wearing the same clothes, so it's reasonable to assume it's from the same year. But which year is it? Who's wrong? Kaylene Johnson or Lorenzo Benet? How to know?

Conveniently, every year at the Governor's Mansion in Juneau, the Governor of Alaska hosts an open house. Many high quality and reliably dated pictures are available of this event from mainstream media for both years. Careful analysis of the photos have shown that the decorations - specifically ornaments on the wreath visible behind the Palin family - are consistent with 2006 NOT 2007. It's not easy to see in the photo released in the Benet book, but when you really look, the conclusion is obvious.

Here's the wreath from the Lorenzo Benet book:



Here's the wreath from Christmas 2006, according to the official state of Alaska website:



Here's the wreath from Christmas 2007, again from the official state site:



It's obvious that the wreath in the photos from both the Kaylene Johnson book and Lorenzo Benet book is from 2006. A "typo" on Kaylene Johnson's part? An OOPS on the Palin family's part? Whatever the answer, this photograph is not from 2007. It's from 2006. Yet another "possible" sighting of Bristol from the time period in question is proved false.

So - what can we conclude?

1. In spite of rigorous efforts to locate one, not a single piece of photographic evidence exists of Bristol Palin from mid September 2007 until April 2008. This is a girl who had many friends with social networking pages. This is the daughter of the governor of Alaska, who prior to this time, had required her daughter to attend numerous "First Family" events.

2. Photographs that do exist show a striking amount of physical change in Bristol Palin during the early months of the time when "someone" would have been pregnant with Trig.

3. The one photograph ever released "officially" by Palin which purported to show her daughter in December of 2007 was misdated. By whom, we do not know.

Stay tuned...

Good Morning Chuckle

My email box is filled with queries about the recently revealed "Christmas - 2007" photograph of the Palin family, which was actually taken in September 2007. A post about this photograph (putting it into a context) is the works.

Meanwhile, just so you can spit YOUR coffee all over YOUR computer screen (you were warned - best to put the cup down now) I'd like to share the following letter. It was written by "Sarah Stelfox" hailing from Alberta, in a "letter to the editor" response to Vanity Fair's recent article on Sarah Palin.

I completely disagree with James Wolcott's description of Sarah Palin as "Margaret Thatcher with moose antlers," a term that is unfair to Ms. Thatcher, in particular, and moose in general. On second thought, I may have to allow the moose bit - for two reasons. Number one: Here in the Canadian Foothills, moose have a regrettable tendency to wander along the roadside, and when a car approaches, they panic, leave the shoulder, and run straight down the center of the road, oblivious to the fact that the car is both faster and stronger than they are. Number two: Although moose often have long legs and an impressive rack, their communication skills leave a lot to be desired, which makes them well suited to a solitary life in the bush, but somewhat awkward in urban settings, where logic and complete sentences are required.

Thank you Sarah Stelfox. We could not have said it better.

Enough is Enough

The Palin Deception website began seven and a half months ago, and the blog only very shortly after the site. Since the very beginning of my efforts to document the bizarre inconsistencies, troubling anomalies, and reasonable questions about Sarah Palin's alleged pregnancy (as well as the outright lies told by her directly,) I have attempted to rely heavily on the considerable photographic evidence available that she was never pregnant. To that end, on this blog and website, we have published literally scores of photographs in which her appearance is completely inconsistent with a forty-four year old woman five, six, seven, eight months pregnant with her fifth child. By and large, the main stream media has ignored this evidence.

This is made all the more ironic because the "Sarah Palin had Trig because Sarah Palin wouldn't lie" contingent has chosen to use a single "conclusive" photograph repeatedly to prove that Palin WAS pregnant, in spite of the fact that everyone must recognize logically that it is easy to appear pregnant if you are NOT (think of how many times it has been done convincingly on film and in theater) but it is nearly impossible to NOT look pregnant if you definitely are.



This photograph was allegedly taken on April 13, 2008, five days prior to Trig's birth. The problems with this photograph have been discussed in the past, in numerous posts on this blog, (here and here) but I will summarize the strongest points again.
1. The photo was released nowhere until after her VP nomination in late August.
2. The photo was released anonymously on Flickr in low resolution by one "Erik99559" to an account that was created solely to release this photo (and one other taken simultaneously.) Andrea Gusty (the reporter also shown in the photo,) in January did state publicly that the photo was taken with her camera, but she never explained who Erik is or was, why this photo was released only to Flickr, or why this was done anonymously four and a half months after the photo was taken. It also doesn't explain why, quietly, some time in the last six weeks, the account and photos just disappeared.
3. The photo was taken by a camera whose date was intentionally altered.
4. The photo was altered after it was uploaded to Flickr to lower the resolution.

Yet this single photo has been viewed as absolute proof positive that Palin was pregnant, and anyone who questions it is a "truther," "nut-job," "left wing looney" or worse. (Believe me, much worse - you should see my mail.)

Today, yet another photo has surfaced which - in my opinion - shows conclusively that Sarah Palin was faking a pregnancy in April of 2008, and frankly doing a fairly crappy job of it. This photo was taken on April 8, 2008 - exactly five days prior to the photo with Andrea Gusty in which she is conspicuously (even largely) pregnant and ten days prior to the announced birth date of Trig Palin. No, it's not terribly clear, and all we have is a photo of a photo, but in my opinion it's clear enough.



It was taken by a teacher, of a chance encounter between two students with Gov. Palin on a set of stairs of the capitol building in Juneau. Again, we see the floppy print scarf, tied in a full way, (again also begging the question why she continued to wear scarves - something she had claimed she did to HIDE her pregnant condition prior to March - AFTER the pregnancy was announced.) And again, careful examination shows the bulky scarf looking "poochey," but the LINE of the scarf on the left side of the photo (Palin's right), thanks to a clear side shot here, as it falls down against her body is completely, utterly straight. Contrast also the hand position. In the April 8th photo, her hand (clutching the two Blackberries,) rests almost flat against her abdomen. In the Gusty photo, she can barely clasp her hands in front of her.

Look above again at the Gusty photo. Try to picture what would happen to a scarf as it draped down her body if she were wearing one. (If any of you female readers are pregnant, similar to Sarah's build and close to delivery, by all means put on a jacket and scarf, have a photo of yourself taken at the same angle and we'll happily publish it for comparison!) Now look again at the April 8th photo. There is no doubt at all. In the Gusty photo, for a TV interview, she is wearing some sort of device or prosthetic to mimic a pregnant appearance. She goes out of her way to appear pregnant, largely so. On April 8th, quickly dashing up the stairs of the capitol, she relies on a floppy orange print scarf tied in a bulky fashion, and while moving quickly from place to place, the distracting floppiness and shape of the scarf did exactly what it was supposed to - mask the fact that there's nothing underneath. But - oh no - here are some pesky students who want a photo and, with no good reason to say no, she says yes. Bad idea. Because there's no six pound baby under that scarf. Not even close. As one very sharp blog reader said once, "Scarves hide hickeys. Not pregnancies."

So when is the charade going to stop? When will the main stream media put a stop to this "emperor's new clothes" charade? When will someone say, "Enough is enough?"

Pregnant with Piper? You betchya...!

Since the beginning of the controversy regarding Gov. Sarah Palin's pregnancy, one aspect that has been commented on continually is that her appearance last spring did not mesh with expectations of a "normal" pregnancy.

At the time of the announcement, March 5th, 2008, the news that she was expecting was regarded with utter astonishment. Although Palin claimed at the time that she had to announce the pregnancy when she did because "people were beginning to notice," and that her clothes were getting "snugger and snugger," in fact the only person who has ever stated this IS Gov. Palin. (Even the article in which Palin is quoted as saying her clothes were getting tighter has as its main theme the fact that no one - not even her staffers - suspected she was pregnant.)

And a quick digression: I have always wondered, after reading this explanation for the public acknowledgment of a pregnancy that was allegedly already in its seventh month, if no one had EVER "noticed" her clothes getting tight, at what point would Palin have announced it? It's a fair question. Or would she have just showed up with a baby one day? She seems to be implying exactly that.)

Not one person has ever come forward and stated that they even suspected Gov. Palin to be pregnant prior to March 5th, at which point she would have been – based on her own announced due date – approximately 29 weeks pregnant with her fifth child. Not one staffer, not one journalist, no one. One sole journalist, Cherie Shirrey of KTVA, within 48 hours of the controversy erupting in August, jumped to Palin's defense and claimed that she had seen Palin numerous times for interviews and "in the studio" prior to Trig's birth (implying that it was between the time of the announcement – March 5th – and the birth six weeks later) and that Palin was definitely pregnant. Here's the blog post I did about this last December. However, Palin's daily schedule (obtained under a FOIA request) for the two months prior to Trig's birth in fact shows not a single visit to this TV station's studio. I have personally written Ms. Shirrey asking her to corroborate her statement. I have inquired about the dates of these interviews, topics covered, and why no video or stills are available of any of these interviews. I have received no answer.

After the announcement of her nomination on August 29th, one photo had appeared of Gov. Palin pregnant with a previous child (prior to the alleged pregnancy with Trig in 2008.)



This photo was provided by her parents to the news media as part of a large group of family photos that were released very shortly (within a day or two) after her VP pick. Although in a couple of places it has been suggested that this is not actually Palin at all (based on the fact that frankly the woman in the photo does not seem to look much like Sarah Palin does now) neither the Palin family nor the McCain campaign retracted the photo or ever stated it was not she. This photo has been shown widely, specifically to cast doubt on whether she is Trig's mother, and has been effective in doing so. I believe that if they had been able to retract the photo by claiming that it was someone else and had been released by mistake, that they would have done so.

Her hairstyle and general appearance actually are consistent with other photos we have of her from the late eighties into the early nineties. This comparison below shows Palin, I believe, looking very much similar to the photo of her late in pregnancy.



(And, no, I have no clue at all why she is wearing a crown, so don't bother to ask.)

Although rumored to be of her late in her pregnancy with Track (in 1989), as far as I can determine that's never been confirmed. However, based on hairstyle, my guess is that the photo is either from Track's pregnancy or Bristol's pregnancy two years later (1991.) Willow was born in mid-summer, 1995, and based on the surroundings, I do not believe this to be a mid summer scene.

Regardless of the exact year, however, one thing is clear. Gov. Palin is not only pregnant, she is in this photo I would say larger than average, particularly so if this might be her first pregnancy. In precise medical terms, she's huge. This evidence of her being of certainly "normal" size (and then some) in a prior pregnancy has been largely ignored by those who support Palin. They feel comfortable ignoring this photo for one reason: we do not know "how pregnant" Palin is here. She could hypothetically be one day away from giving birth at full term, a point she never reached with Trig, who was allegedly born at 35 weeks. Palin might be, it's suggested, one of those women who just gets really big "right at the end." The picture therefore is worthless for comparison purposes, it's claimed.

And – again – whenever this is discussed, the same group of "she got big right at the end" naysayers also serenade us with plausible tales of how they themselves, (or their wives, sisters, co-workers, what have you) never looked pregnant either. Every one of these people seems to know LOTS of 110 pound women who never looked pregnant and then, miraculously, gave birth to healthy seven, eight, even nine pound children. I am sure there are exceptions to every rule, but in fact, in nearly thirty years of working with pregnant women, I have never met one who looked significantly less pregnant on a subsequent pregnancy (unless there was a very good physiological reason, such as a single pregnancy following twins) than she did on an earlier one. It just doesn't work that way. I know, you know it, Governor Sarah Palin knows it, and deep down, every Palin supporter who tries to feed us this line of bullpuckey knows it too.

Since September, I have been hoping that additional photos of Palin from a prior pregnancy would become available which would shed some additional light on this issue. Was her pregnancy with Piper, for example, as magically free of any of those pesky physical changes as her pregnancy with Trig apparently was?

I can say now that it was not. Additional photos have been found, though regrettably they are not of the best quality. We have located two photographs of her taken in late November/early December, 2000, during her pregnancy with Piper. Both are from the archives of the Frontiersman, the local newspaper for the Mat-Su Valley.

Originals are not available. We have the photos in three separate formats, copies made from microfiche (microfiche provided by the University of Alaska), Xerox copies made from the actual extant physical copies of the paper (in person at the Frontiersman offices), and digital photographs of the physical copies of the paper (also taken in person at the Frontiersman offices.) None of these methods are ideal. Yet, in both, in spite of the fuzziness of the copies, I believe she definitely looks pregnant.

Piper was born on March 22, 2001, according to this article on her projected due date. The first week of December, therefore, Sarah Palin would have been around 25 weeks pregnant. She looks, well, normal. At twenty five weeks into her fourth pregnancy. This is, fortuitously, exactly the same point of pregnancy she would have been at when these famous "Super Tuesday" photos were taken in Juneau.





Unlike many other photos of her taken in late winter / early spring 2008, where Palin seems to be determined to hide behind winter coats, trench coats, huge (and notably unattractive) floppy print scarves, tables, podiums, mannish black blazers, and her own children, these two shots are remarkably clear. She is slim-hipped and flat-chested, and, in my opinion, she shows utterly no signs of pregnancy whatsoever.

Here are the two photos. The first, dated December 1, 2000 would have been taken sometime in the prior week, so let's say between November 24th and November 30th.



The second, dated December 5, 2000, again could have been taken any point in the prior week: between November 30th and December 4th. In this second photo, Palin is holding something – I presume a coat – draped over her left arm. Here's our original:



Here's one we sharpened to try to bring up some contrast between what she is wearing and what she is holding.



Closely examining the photo shows a slightly greenish cast to the fabric in a few places. However, as the fabric falls between her body and that of the other woman it is impossible to differentiate between what she is holding and her dark clothing, due to the fact that newspaper "half tones" scan at 85 dpi, which is a very low resolution photograph to work from.

In spite of the drawbacks of these two photos, the fullness of Palin's shape – in both photos - is impossible to deny.

Palin's supporters – the "Sarah Palin had Trig because Sarah Palin would never lie" posse – have also stated that the reason Palin never looked pregnant with Trig is that in 2007-2008 she was "in the public eye" and "did not let herself go." These photos of her pregnant with Piper demonstrate this is false. Palin was in the public eye (she was mayor of Wasilla) and was also very fit (running competitively around this point in her life). How she looked with Piper in 2000-2001 should be a very good guide to how we might have expected her to look with a fifth pregnancy several years later.

Why she didn't is anyone's guess. Mine is that she was not pregnant.