Certain Doubts
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So, I really don’t know how to respond to this sort of thing. It’s true enough that “simply calling questions ‘absolutely freaking ridiculous’ is not an argument”, but of course the problem is that when a position and its advocates just are, well, sufficiently freaking ridiculous, it becomes pretty clear that arguments aren’t going to do. Andrew writes that “doubt remains” as to whether Sarah Palin is really the mother of little Trig, and in a very narrow sense I suppose that’s fair enough; after all, the great René Descartes gave modern philosophy its impetus when he managed to convince himself that “[b]ody, shape, extension, movement, and place are all chimera”, and brought his Meditations back to sanity only by way of a convoluted route involving a series of arguments for the existence of an undeceiving God. So is it still possible to think that the Palins might have pulled off the greatest con in American political history by pretending to be the parents of a Downs Syndrome baby so that he could be their “building bloc [sic] for appealing to the Christianist base”? Sure, but it’s also possible to think that I don’t really have hands, but only a loon or a philosopher could think it’s necessary to present an argument against that. [Update: More on that here.]
By the same token, consider the claim that Sarah Palin has at her disposal, but has refused to provide, “evidence completely obliterating all doubts” about the matter. Given the form that the doubts about her pregnancy have so far taken, this is clearly not true – for if Palin had the cunning to fake a pregnancy, then obviously she could have busted out some gubernatorial muscle and forged a birth certificate as well, which means that short of actually going back in time, the kind of person for whom doubts remain at this point is not the kind of person whose concerns one takes especially seriously. Hence even if such a thing could be done, Palin clearly does not have a “responsibility to clear any questions up”; it matters at least whether the questions are reasonable ones, and also whether pretending to take them seriously would set a worrisome precedent by dignifying with an official response a group of openly hostile bloggers’ ludicrous attempt at a smear campaign.
Finally, Andrew writes that “the only actual arguments I have seen against this line of inquiry have been published on this blog.” He’s wrong about that, too.
Filed under: media/culture
Could you please answer MY question Schmuckler?
Why can’t Palin just say why she drove that extra 45 minutes to an inferior rural Alaskan hospital while leaking amniotic fluid and expecting the imminent delivery of a special needs child after possibly being in labor for 10 hours?
Are you saying my question is “absurd”?
But her character and temperament, and her judgement and decisionmaking and problemsolving abilities ARE relevent to the position she is applying for.
So far she is 0 for 5 in my estimation.
I did answer your question.
No you did not answer my question.
My question is why can’t Palin give a reasonable explanation for that extra 45 minutes? She flew back to Alaska so Trig would be born in Alaska.
That is reasonable, if not terribly rational, given the circumstances.
But both Anchorage and Wasilla are in Alaska, and Anchorage has far better facilities for a special needs birth.
So, why?
Sure it is her right not to answer.
But it is not an “absurd” question.
It is one that is relevent to her problemsolving and decisionmaking skills in crisis, and also to her skills in dealing with the media and with critics.
Of course it’s not an absurd question, but it’s also none of your fucking business, and as I’ve said repeatedly it’s clearly not in Palin’s interest to feed the frenzy by dignifying with a response the sorts of questions that people like Sullivan have been asking. If not for this ridiculous conspiracy theory, I imagine that if a question like yours had come up in a press conference Palin would have been happy to answer it.
As a voter it is my fucking business.
If she doesn’t want to answer valid questions, she shouldn’t run.
Look John…..she got a by on the followup questions in the VP debate.
She isn’t ever going to get that again.
And she shouldn’t.
Do we want a president that can’t deal with follow-up questions?
She could resolve this easily by releasing part of her med records for Andrew’s satisfaction.
Why not?
Uhh, no it’s not. There are a trillion good reasons to think Palin was unfit for the VP position, but her choice of a hospital was not one of them.
No, but where did I say otherwise?
Because Andrew’s
eithera nutorand an asshole, and she shouldn’t give him the satisfaction.“As a voter it is my fucking business.”
This attitude that everything a politician running for office says or does is the voters’ business is a rather significant factor in explaining why the vast majority of politicians (at least on a national and state level) are self-aggrandizing media whores, and why normal people don’t even think about getting involved in politics. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a good politician. However, I’m quite sure that the best way to ensure that we have the worst politicians possible is to guarantee that no sane person would ever want to become a politician.
Satisfaction is nice, but what would be the smart thing to do?
“There are a trillion good reasons to think Palin was unfit for the VP position, but her choice of a hospital was not one of them.”
But to choose a hospital 45 minutes farther away with inferior facilities while leaking amniotic fluid for 10 hours with an imminent special needs birth…..ummm…defies reason?
Perhaps she has a good reason….I would love to hear it. ;)
Be honest John.
She is running for president, and she won’t get a pass cuz Sully has been mean to her.
Ain’t happening.
FWIW – Palin definitely fits the bill of the sort of “self-aggrandizing media-whore” that I’m referring to here. In addition to these inquiries being completely ridiculous, they have the added benefit of playing right into the hands of said “self-aggrandizing media-whore.”
“no sane person would ever want to become a politician.”
Nah, no person with closetskellies would.
See Sanford, Mark and Edwards, John.
no SANE person with closetskellies, my bad.
The smart thing to do would be to sit back, shut up, and let Sully destroy his reputation by behaving like an asshole. Score!
I don’t think that will happen. Sully is kind of an institution.
And as long as Palin is mute, other people are free to shape the narrative.
That is what happened the last time, she let the media shape her image.
Palin modelled as Tina Fey trailer-trash is what resulted.
For example….. in the absence of an answer to say, MY question…I might begin to speculate on a reason for that extra 45 minutes.
Because that is what people do.
I said his reputation, not his career.
Yes, and you might speculate as sane people do, and suppose that e.g. Palin was more comfortable with the OB’s at the smaller hospital, or that she liked the aura, or that she decided the extra drive would be good for her labor (as it can be). Or … you could speculate that she faked the pregnancy, which would make you a nut.
P.S. My wife and I are going to drive across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco for the “birth” of our next “child”, notwithstanding the fact that there’s a perfectly good hospital right here in Berkeley. Or so we’d have you think …
Your series on this has been hilarious and refreshing, heroically so, but I have to ask… why the hell do you TAC guys still pay so much attention to Sullivan? Jesus, he’s at the top of your blogroll! For balance, I demand an Obama birther be put 2nd, and then you can address him/her in multiple posts on a 1st-name basis every day.
Oh no….I don’t think it was a fake pregnancy.
But…why not just say that?
That she felt more comfortable?
Because….she should have been in a hurry, and she should have been worried. The extra drive is not good for “labor” after you have been leaking amniotic fluid for 10 hours….there is a danger of infection when the amniotic sac is breached.
I wonder….if Sarah was just putting it all in gods hands.
Remember, she hid her pregnancy for seven months and confessed to thinking about having an abortion.
Perhaps she was just letting Jesus take the wheel.
And if that is what she did…..I just don’t think that is good CinC material there.
Whatever you say, matoko. Whatever the hell you say.
And mb: Both Daniel and I owe Sullivan a fair deal for helping make our blogs prominent (much more so in Daniel’s case). I also think he can be interesting, thought-provoking, and sometimes even right about stuff.
Like I said….there is an easy way for to defend herself…..she can speak.
But in the absence of a reasonable explanation from her, both Andrew and I are free to speculate.
My explanation makes sense.
Another explanation might be that Palin just became irrational and disoriented with the imminent birth of Trig, and insisted on the rural hospital, inspite of the increased risk to the baby and herself.
Also an explanation that makes sense.
;)
Yes, and another explanation would be that her doctor told her there wouldn’t be such an increased risk. But why any of this nonsense should affect one’s judgment of Palin when her obvious lack of knowledge and demonstrably stupid policy positions are out there in the open is beyond me.
Why not say that then?
Because she can’t…..a breach in the amniotic sac always represents a risk of infection.
I sure hope you are going to take better care of your unborn baby than Palin did of hers.
;)
I am attacking her because you are defending her.
No, she doesn’t get special treatment.
She can take her lumps like any other candidate.
Andrew has a perfect right to question her actions, just like she has a perfect right to defend herself.
Why doesn’t she?
I am starting to think it is because she can’t.
BECAUSE IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.
“Nah, no person with closetskellies would.”
Every person has something in the closet, or at least something that could be spun against them. Especially when the way in which someone’s child is delivered into the world can be used against them. As a result, the only people who are willing to enter politics are people who have no problem having their personal lives exposed to the world. These are not people with clean personal lives – these are political Spencer Pratts who define success by how much they’re in the news. Simply put, these are people whose lust for power is quite literally not subject to shame.
But it is my fucking business.
Palin is applying for a job…..the job of president of the united states.
There is a space for her to be defined…..if she does not define herself others will. And because you feel sowwy for her, because Andy and the Big Bad Media are pickin’ on whittle ol’ Sarah, that doesn’t get her a pass from filling out her job application.
/curls lip with scorn
Its an easy question. Why the extra 45 minutes to drive to Wasilla?
Is the question too hard? Or….is it that you don’t think you will like the answer?
No, it is not. As I’ve said, there are plenty of reasons to think Palin would be unfit for office; where she chose to have her child and why is nowhere on that list. It’s an absolutely, utterly irrelevant issue that has nothing to do with her “job application” and which you only pretend to care about because you’ve already decided – reasonably! – that she’s unqualified. And because speculation about the circumstances of her youngest child’s birth has been made the province of Kossack loons, it’s not something that Palin has any reason to respond to.
hahaha
You already lost the argument, Schmuckler. You shouted.
She can’t respond to it.
Either she was letting Jesus Take the Wheel or she got freaked by pregnancy hormones and made a bad decision.
She doesn’t get to say hands off!
She acted bizarrely and refused to provide an explanation.
This is the weirdest argument I’ve ever seen.
If Sarah Palin runs in 2012, I hope she understand that losing the votes of every single weirdo who gives a shit about what hospital she gave birth at will not make a difference in how she does in the primaries or the general election. I hope that not because I’m pulling for her to win, but because frankly, our presidential auditions are ridiculous enough as is.
Have you ever been around a woman about to give birth? Not always the most rational thinkers. Not every woman, but many. So, OK, you win Matoko, Sarah Palin may have bad decision making when she’s in labor. I’m thinking next time she runs that won’t be an issue.
mb mentions Obama birthers, which reminds me — there’s less evidence that Obama was born in the United States than that Sarah Palin is not Trig’s mom. I say we let the crazies cancel each other out.
Yup, theres that….but what if she had a Jesus Take the Wheel Moment?
Do we really want someone like that in charge of the nuke codes?
Oh and Chris, she won’t be post-menopausal until 2016.
Mebbe she should wait and run then.
Or have her tubes tied.
;)
I totally think Palin is Trigs mom.
I just think she acted bizarrely and refuses to explain her behavior….probably because she can’t.
It was irrational to drive to Wasilla leaking amniotic fluid and carrying a special needs child.
Either it was Jesus Take the Wheel or pregnancyhormone madness.
You pick.
;)
Both Daniel and I owe Sullivan a fair deal for helping make our blogs prominent (much more so in Daniel’s case). I also think he can be interesting, thought-provoking, and sometimes even right about stuff.
I guess I’ll take your word for it. Everything I read by him is shallow, flighty, and inconsistent.
It is interesting, of course, that the Palins simply switch subjects when they don’t want to confront a situation/idea. Like Alaskan Independence Party stuff; Sarah was more concerned with how it played than what it was. Just speak the truth and move on. Say I did an irrational thing (45 minute drive) and move on. Stonewalling just makes her look even kookier. I do mention that I sincerely hope she runs for president in 2012. What fun that will be.
The problem with schmuckler addressing my complaints as part of Trig trutherism is that I am not a trig truther.
I totally believe Palin is Trigs mom.
But the only two rationales I can come up with for the 45 minutes are that Palin had a Jesus Take the Wheel moment, or her pregnancy made her irrational.
Either explanation would invalidate her from having custody of the nuke-launch codes, I would think.
Schwenkler has addressed me by shouting and swearing and saying it is it none of my business and that it doesn’t matter.
He is dishonest, and wrong.
John Schwenkler,
What I find interesting in Sullivan’s response to you was his declaration that he “initially liked” Palin. Anyone retrieving his posts from Aug 29th can see that this simply isn’t so. He wasn’t even marginal.
What a straaaange lie!
I think Sullivan is trying to prove to himself at this point that Palin’s nomination did not drive him wacko crazy. Probably not working, Andrew.
There are a trillion good reasons to think Palin was unfit for the VP position, but her choice of a hospital was not one of them.
Seems like it goes to judgement. Is that the kind of absurd, pointless risk-taking she’d be likely to take as VP or President?
I was out of the country on 9/11. If Andrew Sullivan said, “This guy should explain why he just happened to be out of the country during the terrorist attacks,” that would be an nasty and nutty question, no doubt about it.
However, if I wanted to be a public figure, I’d better get used to that stuff. So I’d say, “That’s an outrageous question, but I’m happy to say I was at a wedding. Look, here’s a picture of me with the groom.”
Alternately, I could say, “That’s outrageous!! I won’t dignify that with an answer! It’s nobody’s business where or why I travel!”
The former response settles the issue and makes Sullivan look idiotic.
The latter response makes it look like I actually have something to hide.
By refusing to answer a straightforward if ridiculous question, Palin reveals herself to be a bad strategist with a glass jaw. At least. At most, she has something to hide.
This all seems frivolous to me. Mrs. Palin’s career was blessed by a man who exorcised witches out of a Kenyan village, and has publicly proclaimed her belief that the earth is 6,000 years old. That pretty much tells me what I need to know about her critical thinking and problem solving skills. Lots of folks make poor family decisions, but can govern well, but to run for the Vice Presidency of the United States in the 21st Century with an 18th century scientific literacy, to give her the benefit of the doubt, that’s another ballgame.
Please drop this “Schmuckler” nonsense, matoko_chan. It’s dreadfully juvenile, and if it keeps up I’ll ban you from commenting.
kk…I was just trying to emulate Mark Levinsane.
;)
I would accept this explanation also, that Palin’s water didn’t break in Texas, and she was just….
embellishinglying.So is having a pathological liar for president a good idea?
No, but for the thousandth time Palin’s tendency to embellish the truth – whether or not this is an instance of it – is WAAAAAAAAAY down at the bottom of the list of reasons why she’d be unfit.
I think you are deliberately using Trig trutherism as a burdha, a cloak, to cover up real, serious, inconsistancies in Palin’s stories, and faux-outrage as a reason for her to avoid addressing the inconsistancies.
Really? Way down at the bottom? Reflexive dishonesty? I could understand it not being the number one reason, but way down at the bottom?
Should a presidential candidate embellish the truth as a matter of habbit?
Given that the press is likely going to fact her, and if the press won’t…..Andrew will.
;)
You picked this fight John.
You implied Sully was crazy.
[...] Appel responds to John Schwenkler: Many people believe, or have sympathy for, one sort of conspiracy theory or another: there is [...]
And I think you, Andrew, etc. are using the supposed “inconsistancies” [sic] in the account of her child’s birth as a way to focus your attention on biographical trivialities rather than matters of political substance. So let’s call it even – in any case I’m off to the library, and done with responding to comments here.
And P.S. I didn’t just “imply” that Sully was crazy; I believe I’ve said it, repeatedly, and on this point I think that diagnosis is entirely appropriate (concerning which, cf. Patrick Appel’s latest). Bye all.
Substrate. I hear it’s all about grasping the substrate.
John, you can lead a horse to the substrate, but you can’t give it the imposable to grasp it.
That’s evolution’s job.
“Should a presidential candidate embellish the truth as a matter of habbit?”
Asskk Obbamma.
Ya know, John, in a perfect world I suppose I wouldn’t be crazy about Palin either. But it’s not a perfect world, and I honestly can’t say who among the likely candidates I would prefer over her. Not Romney. Huckabee does nothing for me. Palin definitely knows what she is talking about when it comes to Energy policy: “Drill our own resources and do it for the sake of American jobs.” What dream candidate are you looking at anyway?
Uhh … Ron Paul? Gary Johnson? In short, whomever the GOP doesn’t end up nominating.
But for the record I’d much prefer Huckabee to Palin, since I think he’s much sharper and would be less of a lost cause on the foreign policy front.
Treach
Where did Obama get caught in a Palin style
embellishmentlie?Andrew has documented over 30 of them.
Even Krauthammer is done with her.
“[Palin] is not a serious candidate for the presidency. She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn’t. She has to stop speaking in clichés and platitudes. It won’t work. It could work for eight weeks if you’re the number two candidate, as she was last year. But even so, she got singed a lot in that campaign. You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you’re running for the presidency,”- Charles Krauthammer.
Admit it, Treach…..the GOP screwed Palin like a two-dollar whore and now they are frantically trying to scrape her off their shoes before the next election. But the base isn’t having any.
;)
And she is either too stupid to realize she can be factchecked or so far gone in denial she thinks she’s telling the truth.
Do you know what I see in my crystal ball?
The Tragic Demise of the GOP
sayonara
hey!
Does that mean Dr. Krauthammer is a RINO now, and Mark Levin will make up a name for him?
oooooooo…..can I play?
How about…Dr. Krauthead!
Yay! It almost has a nazi flavor!
lol
Oh my.
Check out the Hotair thread.
Dr. K has just been tarred with the e-word!!!!
“Kratuhammer’s no idiot, but he is an elitist. As in “Howard Dean wants the white trash vote”. Krauthammer’s never going to view Palin with favor, even if she were to enroll in the Kennedy School and graduate with honors, then serve for 10 years in the State Department. She has too much of the smell of the prole about her. Sorry, I often love Krauthammer’s writing as well, but the truth is the truth. George Will is similar.
ddrintn on July 2, 2009 at 9:41 PM”
hahahahaha
delicious
Allow meh to refresh your memory John.
I guess when you are non-elite you don’t have to tell the truth.
;)
Am I the only female here or what?
Perhaps she wanted to be HOME when she gave birth. Wasilla is HOME.
You give birth and see where you want to be. Some people (people, what am I saying..) some women go so far as to give birth at their house with a Doola; hospitals are made up to look like bed n breakfasts. You’re not thinking “Anchorage has superior facilities and I want to emphasize my governing abilities.” You’re thinking…Get Me HOME.
Is that something you want in a president, colleen?
According to her, she had been in labor and leaking amniotic fluid for 10 hours with a high risk pregnanacy and a special needs baby.
She said she flew back from Texas so Trig would be born in Alaska.
Wasilla is in Alaska. The extra 45 minutes were irrational, or else she lied about leaking amniotic fluid.
This is not a person who should custody of the nuke codes.
But look at that hotair link.
1500 comments because Dr. Krauthammer said she was not a serious candidate for president.
Why? Why do people defend her?
It is obvious and logical that both what Dr. K said, and what I said, are truthful analytical rational statements that we corroborate with her own statements.
Yet, John Schwenkler, who I normally regard as thinking rational human, wrote this……
BECAUSE IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.
and told me that the lying and stonewalling were immaterial in the face of her greater flaws.
Unless people like John Schwenkler can actually call out the Empress for being naked, the GOP is going down in flames.
If the GOP intelligentsia and leadership can’t get the base off the Sarah Palin crack, its game ovah.
Conservatives are in for another kerbstompin’ at the polls.
You have to wonder if she cares at all for her party.
Perhaps she is a liberal mole, bent on the total destruction of the conservative movement in America.
When have I failed to call her out?! I think Palin is an unintelligent, incurious, inexperienced attention hound whose approach to foreign policy in particular is genuinely frightening. Short of a massive change in her policy views, I’d never vote for a presidential ticket with her on it, and I’d use forums like this one to encourage others to do the same. And that is exactly why this sort of insane speculation about her pregnancy is so ridiculous; it simply distracts attention from these more significant concerns, and makes her critics seem more like tabloid-obsessed nuts than people who think there are genuine political issues at stake.
The question of why she chose to give birth to her child where she did is none of your fucking business, and says nothing about her fitness for office that makes a whiff of difference in the face of her actual policy positions. Now please leave my comboxes alone.
What dream candidate are you looking at anyway?
Uhh … Ron Paul? Gary Johnson? In short, whomever the GOP doesn’t end up nominating.
So rather than someone who is still being ripped for not having enough foreign policy experience, you’d prefer someone who thinks we shouldn’t have a foreign policy. Actually, I *do* like Ron Paul. His FP ideas were irrelevant since 2001, but hopefully we’ll soon be winding down our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2012. Still, what he would do about NK and Iran is troubling. What bothers me is conservatives who don’t just say Palin is not their one of their top choices but who set their own hair on fire everytime they see her. It’s stupid, and tells me that conservatives are probably not ready to be out of the wilderness yet. What’s worse is that it is frequently done by people who say John McCain was a perfectly adquate conservative candidate.
In a slogan, yes. :) If Palin had a similar attitude, her lack of experience would trouble me much less.
Dude, you ripped open this can of worms.
You wanted to make fun of Sully for being a crazy trig truther, EXACTLY like the Obama birth certificate truthers.
But you acknowledged the validity of my question.
“Of course it’s not an absurd question, but it’s also none of your fucking business”
It is my fucking business, and its anyones (like Sully’s) fucking business if she LIES or acts IRRATIONALLY.
And if she wants people to stay out of her fucking business, she should go back to Alaska and GTFO the spotlight.
Your question was not the same as Andrew’s question.
And no, not every minutia of Palin’s private life that could plausibly be viewed as an irrational action is your business. Sorry, but no.
All men…How many babies have you had??? I just went through this with my granddaughter…mucous plug after it drops you leak some fluid and you might go into labor…my granddaughter went 7 days after the mucous plug dropped…her doctor had her walking riding to get the labor started…she like the governor had to have labor induced…So when the group of men here have babies let me know…
Also I have a friend in Alaska who said that the location of the airport and the hospital in Anchorage and the drive to have her baby in another hospital was about the same…one major question seem to be why did she drive the extra miles…maybe there were not that many extra miles…and I don’t understand why we are still talking about this a year later…go look at the right to life speech and then tell me that is not her baby…her doctor did answer the question YES she gave birth to Trig…So lets get someone in Alaska to go to the airport at the same time take the same route they took and see how long it took…to keep it fair drive to the nearest hospital from the airport…
Do you all understand how many people would have to be involved in this type of cover up…I keep think if Levi’s sister knew for sure and could prove it she would have already sold it to the highest bidder…
One doesn’t have to agree with Gov. Palin ..use your vote …debate the issues and this is not an issues it is between Todd Palin and Sarah Palin…
Chris @ 8:53 pm July 1st said: Have you ever been around a woman about to give birth? Not always the most rational thinkers. Not every woman, but many. So, OK, you win Matoko, Sarah Palin may have bad decision making when she’s in labor. I’m thinking next time she runs that won’t be an issue.
It was her husband Todd who put forth the bizarre excuse for even flying back to Alaska (Anchorage airport) for the baby to be born — “can’t have a fishpicker from Texas” (I ask why not, there are thousands of Texans up in Alaska sucking up that North Slope oil, what’s the matter with Texans and Texas?).
So, it would seem your excuse is that Sarah Palin wasn’t rational the night before, during her noontime speech in Texas April 17th, 2008, and making plans thereafter to leave Texas.
Her husband was equally irrational in his support of her decision to — as a 5-times high-risk pregnant woman* — fly 8 hours in two segments of flight with a layover in Seattle to give birth, not in an Anchorage hospital with a NICU and specialized care for high-risk pregnancies, but in a 39-total-bed hospital with NO NICU, no neonatal specialist on hand, no obstetrician, but to be delivered by her FAMILY PHYSICIAN (who’d delivered only 3 infants in the previous 2 years!).
*5-times high-risk: 1) age factor, 2) grand multiparity, 3) known DS condition of fetus, 4) in premature labor, 5) amniotic sac ruptured nearly 24 hours.
I don’t think it was “Jesus took the wheel”. I think Sarah Palin was tempted by Satan, and succumbed to whatever lure Satan presented to her — the idea that she might become Vice President of the United States, and the very real possibility that she might succeed John McCain in the Presidency? Because it was only days after John McCain received the Republican presidential nomination that she announced her “pregnancy”.
And Lynda Armstrong and any other woman who feels compelled to tell the rest of us your personal tale of mucous plugs and amniotic sacs being ruptured prematurely, or tales of people you know?
We’re talking about Sarah Palin here, not you, nor your friends.
Let’s talk about what Sarah Palin says happened, and what is normal medical/obstetrical procedure for a 5-times high-risk pregnancy and delivery.
Unless your descriptions were of Sarah Palin herself, and you were there as one of Sarah Palin’s delivery nurses or you’re her doctor (in which case you’d be violating HIPAA), your comparisons don’t really mean a lot.
Like so many of you Palin apologists like to say, every pregnancy is different, using that as an excuse for Palin’s bizarre behavior. And I say to you, yes, every pregnancy is different, thus you cannot compare your experiences with those that Sarah Palin has told us about.
Actually, folks, Gov Palin, as far as I am aware, has not yet indicated either explicitly or implicitly (like Romney) if she wishes to stand for the Presidency in 2012. Neither has she said anything about standing for Gov of Alaska again. Until she makes such an announcement it is pointless making any assumptions.
As far as Sullivan is concerned it is totally clear that the man initially saw this sexy, sassy mature woman as a gay icon and the subsequent obsession with her womb and her fluids is a mask to cover up his own confused and guilt ridden thoughts..
Just sayin’
Do you all understand how many people would have to be involved in this type of cover up…
Do you? Six or eight, maybe, besides the people whose professional obligations already ensure their secrecy (doctors, nurses, everybody at the hospital.) Most of them family members. And, of course, she’s certainly in a position to exact retribution – something she’s demonstrated a willingness to do in the past.
Remember that the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was kept secret for 70 years and involved more than 200 people (that’s in addition to the black men they killed.) People can keep secrets.
Oh, boy! The infamous Chet is a Trig Truther! Kind of explains a few things …
“It’s somebody else’s baby” is at least as parsimonious an explanation as the idea of a pregnant woman – in labor – fly 6 hours on an airplane. They don’t let women that pregnant on airplanes, for one thing. It’s against FAA regulations. Try to board an airplane with more than four oz. of toothpaste and tell me how flexible those regulations are.
I’m not a “truther.” I’m just not aware of any logical principle that says that mothers never lie about who their babies are. Why is this the one single thing you’re prepared to take her word on?
Uhh, no. It’s not. Please try again.
Unless by “is at least as parsimonious an explanation as” you mean “is a damn Rube Goldberg contraption in comparison to”, in which case you’re spot on.
Uhh, no. It’s not.
Um, yes it is. People, as you must know, raise other people’s children as their own all the time. Indeed, we have a legal arrangement to formalize that called “adoption”, so the idea that Palin is not the mother of the boy she calls her son really isn’t that absurd.
If there are answers to Sullivan’s questions about the circumstances of the birth, I’d like to know what they are. “It’s none of your business” is not an answer, it’s an evasion. “It would take a conspiracy more complex than the Moon Landing Hoax” (that’s a joke) is not an answer, because it’s just not true. “She went into labor during a speech at the governor’s conference, but no one noticed she was even pregnant, and then while in labor flew 6 hours back to Alaska against FAA regulations but no one noticed she was even pregnant, and then drove another two hours from Anchorage to Wasilla still in labor to finally deliver on a day there’s no record of any births by anyone named ‘Palin’” isn’t an answer because it’s completely un-fucking-believable.
It’s the reported circumstances of Trig’s birth that rises to the Rube Goldberg-esque level of absurdity and suspension of disbelief. Look, if there are good reasons to believe she’s the real mother I’d like to know what they are. “She says so and you’re a jackass for even asking” is not a good reason to believe anything, it’s an evasion to an uncomfortable question.
Whatever you say, Chet. Happy Fourth.
Happy Fourth to you too, John!
It’s hard for me to imagine something more personal than where and how a woman decides to give birth. If a woman made certain decisions about the birth on a more emotional level, and decided that a small risk was worth taking, that’s entirely her decision. Her judgment? She decided on a complex number of factors, and frankly I’d be afraid of a leader who cuts off all emotional/personal reasons for this type of decision in favor of the purely rational. Criticizing her for it smacks of liberal totalitarianism. Those who make a big deal out of it would probably feel comfortable working as guards in the Gulag.
I can’t stand Sarah Palin and voted for Obama, and I think all people who criticize and speculate about her birthing decision are slugs. Andrew Sullivan, whom I like otherwise, clearly has issues with strong women. Something about Palin touched an emotional nerve with him and clouded his judgment. Perhaps she reminded him of his mother on some visceral level.
Frankly, this type of reaction seems to me a true barometer of where we are as men in America with regard to women in power. Not because she didn’t win, but because we make up bizarre shit and criticize her on this level. It’s disgusting.
[...] Andrew Sullivan isn’t doing his best to erase any memory of his vital contribution to the medium, he’s actually a very good [...]