Waterbrokegate

Republicans have a sex scandal in which the identity of the MOTHER is in doubt

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
9/1/08
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/trig.htm

On this date, I usually talk about labor issues, but this is ridiculous.

When I first heard the net rumors 36 hours ago about the odd circumstances surrounding the birth of Trig Palin, I was not planning to pay them much heed, let alone write about them. Even if the story was true, I reasoned, it was a case of a mother trying to protect her daughter from the consequences of a mistake, a family matter, and not something appropriate to political commentary.

But even disregarding the rumors that it was not Sarah Palin who was the mother of Trig Palin, but rather 16 year old Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah, there were enough oddities and changes in the narrative, and enough political and legal implications, that I started paying closer attention.

The original narrative was that Sarah Palin, a staunch anti-abortionist, had four children, and had recently given birth to a fifth, knowing the child would have Down Syndrome, but sticking to her principles and having the baby nonetheless. Certainly, there is nothing in there to condemn, and her actions, whether ones you might have taken yourself, were praiseworthy.

The rumors developed legs because there were so many oddities in the narrative. First, there was the fact that most people didn’t have a clue that Palin was pregnant until she went and had the baby. That happens with some women, but they tend to be rather large. There are even cases of women who don’t know they are pregnant until they are surprised by a baby. Palin, already the mother of four, presumably knew the signs of pregnancy, and unlike with her previous pregnancies, kept this one secret. And, being a rather small woman, did a marvelous job of concealing the pregnancy while wearing standard office attire.

Then there were the strange circumstances surrounding the birth: I’m cribbing off a flowchart that someone posted called the “Sarah Palin’s Pregnancy Decision Map.” http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/4628/sarahpalinla4.png According to it, and other sources, she was 7 ½ months pregnant, a fact that was unknown to her closest friends and associates. A photo taken a few days earlier shows her looking amazingly trim for a woman in her seventh month.

Now, according to the narrative, the amniotic fluid test showed that the fetus had Down Syndrome, and she elected to go ahead and have the baby. That’s congruent with her beliefs, and I respect that decision.

But then, at a convention in Texas, her water breaks. She doesn’t go to the local hospital. Instead, she gives the speech. Does she go to the hospital then? No. She flies to Seattle. Hospital? Nope. She flies to Anchorage. It’s been 14 hours since her water broke, and Anchorage has the only big hospital in the area. She hops in the family car and hubby drives her 45 minutes to a small hospital in her home town. Then, according to the narrative, she has the baby.

While this is all going on, the daughter is out of school, supposedly home with a severe case of mononucleosis. The “Grandma Palin” theorists think she was kept home to hide her pregnancy, but that doesn’t make sense, really. This isn’t 1920 in Kansas. This is Alaska, a notoriously libertarian state, and if a 16 year old girl turns up pregnant, nobody is going to make moral judgements. She won’t be ostracized at school, and the parish priest will still speak to her.

This is all peculiar, but not politically a valid topic. A few readers email me, wanting to be sure I’m aware of all this, with the subtext that I should write about it. I demur.

But then I hear that there are some real oddities about the birth certificate. The mother of the baby is given, according to the rumor, as that of the physician who is Palin’s obstetrician, I file that under the “if that’s true, then that could have consequences” heading, and go my merry way.

But now I’m curious. What are Republicans making of all this?

They’re furious at Democrats, of course. How dare they attack a candidate’s children! I’m glad to see that they’ve recovered from the days when they cheered Rush Limbaugh for calling then 12 year old Chelsea Clinton “the White House dog,” and Free Republic seems to have suddenly recovered from the group insanity that caused them to exchange lurid rumors that Bill Clinton was routinely violating his daughter.

I agree with the Republicans in part. A candidate’s family are off limits. Except the other scandal – and this one has substantially more substance – is “Troopergate,” in which Palin is accused of having subordinates and her husband (who has no official role in the Alaskan government) pressure the Commissioner of Public Safety to fire the trooper, and when he refused, she fired him. The State House unanimously allocated $40 million for a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. In that case, nobody is trying to pretend the trooper is the innocent victim of an overbearing governor; he’s accused of tasering his seven year old son (Palin’s nephew) and abusing his wife (her sister) prior to a really messy divorce. If the allegations are true, he sounds like the sort who should be dragged into the public square and horsewhipped, and I don’t blame Palin for being pissed at him. But did she abuse her official capacity in her efforts to punish him? That’s what the State House has to determine.

Oddly enough, this particular narrative, one which puts Palin in a more flattering light (aside from the minor matter of misuse of authority) doesn’t seem to trigger the right wing “leave the family ALONE” response.

Then, today, the McCain campaign announces that the same girl is pregnant (she’s now 17) and has been pregnant for five months. It’s a bombshell for Republicans, who are already coping with the naming of Sarah Palin in the first place, and the Hurricane Gustav near-miss in New Orleans that wiped out the first day of their convention.

Five months. I count back. April 1st. That would have made the daughter pregnant two weeks before Trig was born (April 18th). Physically impossible. OK, so that shows it was just net rumors, silly season stuff.

Except for one nagging little doubt: wasn’t she supposed to be recovering from a severe case of mononucleosis at the time? If so, I sort of doubt that sex, let alone pregnancy, would have been part of the recommended course of treatment.

Of course, we only have to wait a few months for verification. By election day she ought to be puffed up like a loaf of wonder bread, and sometime around New Years Day, she’ll hopefully have a happy, healthy baby.

Assuming, of course, that the latest version on the narrative is true, and the Palins aren’t simply faking a pregnancy in order to make up for faking another pregnancy earlier this year.

In the meantime, the GOP gets to deal with the weirdest ticket they’ve ever presented the country – and given some of the goofs they spat up in recent years, that’s really saying something.