Dishin' the dirt

[mamagotcha]

So... for some purely schadenfreudistic dirt, check out this accusation (thanks, gramina):

That baby isn't her's, but her teenage daughter's.

Pretty steamy stuff... but also pretty damning if true.

The biggest hole in her story for me: that her water broke and she had contractions for her fifth baby, over a month preterm, and did NOT see a doctor but instead boarded a plane for the 11-hour trip home. The coincidental removal of her daughter from school for "mono" for six months also stretches belief.

My geneticist husband says the nondisjunction rate for females is greatest at both the onset and cessation of menses. That means you have more Down's babies both close to menarche and menopause.

What's YOUR gut-level sense of this?

ETA: Wow. The hurricane is making the RNC postpone their festivities. I guess McCain learned his lesson. And with this potentially damning accusation that really should have been sniffed out by the 5-month vetting process... I'm thinking that the RNC isn't all that heartbroken about having national attention turned elsewhere. Still... you'd think they'd have been a bit more specific in their prayers.

ETA again: Wow! Now the DAUGHTER'S pregnant? Riiiiight.... whatcha wanna bet that her "pregnancy" is gonna "miscarry" soon... and that her currently kind-of-showy belly is really a postpartum belly?

I guess this is a wonderful example of the tremendous success of abstention education!

Wow wow wow. Curiouser and curiouser!

Comments

[mh75.livejournal.com]

my gut...

Its the kind of secret that i can't imagine escaping more notice between now and four months ago. It seems like if McCain had any wind of it he wouldn't risk the scandal. (I think if the baby were her daughter's, and she openly admitted that, she'd be in a lot better state right now. Actually, it would make people feel better about her being at work with a four month old, if it were her grandson. But with the lie, its hard for me to believe that this gets through vetting and decisions making...)

If it is true the appearance of some of the 'evidence' makes these people seem far stupide than they are by ther counts. If your daughter was pregnant, and you were hiding that fact, wouldn't you arrange your pictures so that she was the one standing behind her sisters, hiding her belly? The idea that they were release a picture showing that belly IF they were trying to hide it just seems... dumb.

I'd also like to note that when i was a full eight months pregnant people wouldn't necessarily have believed it. In some outfits i think it was obvious, but in some clothes (like my cmu sweatshirt) people just didn't know. I know that she and i are a lot different and at different places in our lives, but, i think its dangerous to assume something about someone just because they experience something different than what is 'normal', or what you did.

On the other hand, i know that people do this type of thing not as infrequently as we might imagine, and i can't say that i'm not secretly wishing for a scandal in that campaign...

[via-lens.livejournal.com]

It seems like if McCain had any wind of it he wouldn't risk the scandal.

You give McCain a lot more credit than I do. :) He met her once before nominating her his running mate...

FWIW, I don't think Bristol is the mother of Trig. In fact, I have even darker thoughts on the subject. Thoughts like, "the only reason you get on an 11 hour flight after your water has broken prematurely with your fifth child is if you don't care what happens to that child."

She'd still be the patron saint/poster child of the pro-life crowd whether or not her baby with Down's Syndrome survived past birth.

I would not normally ascribe such malice to a person I barely knew, but I also wouldn't go back to work 3 days after my child's birth.

I'd also like to note that when i was a full eight months pregnant people wouldn't necessarily have believed it.

Yes. But to play the devil's advocate: with each subsequent pregnancy most women show earlier and more.

I'm totally in the schadenfreude camp on this one, whatever the reality. Dan and I are watching the RNC Convention on C-Span and waiting to see if they nominate someone other than Palin as VP. :)

[qarin.livejournal.com]

I've been sort of obsessed over this story since Saturday, starting out cynical and then getting pretty convinced, and in any case, either she's a liar (and the baby is her daughter's) or she has *incredibly* poor judgement, to make that flight and subsequent travel (to the small town hospital, rather than a larger one in anchorage).

But then today, they have announced that Bristol is ~5 months pregnant *now*:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

See ETA note above...

My heart just breaks for that girl, and that baby.

[lunacow]

This is the kind of thing that I'd normally make myself try to ignore as a lunatic conspiracy, but I have to admit that if all those pieces of information (and photos) are really true, it's quite damning. I'm with you on betting that the next announcement is that the daughter miscarries.

On the other hand, I wish we didn't have to care about any of this, and that personal lives really could be personal. Good for Obama saying, "I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits." Unfortunate that the media isn't set up that way.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

They were off limits until they trotted out those kids as examples of her exemplary life and qualifications for office. If she lies about things like this to gain political power, then she cannot be trusted with that power.

Fortunately, I think the kids are going to be the least of her problems. The trooper thing, the secessionist group, and her desire to sue Bush for making polar bears endangered (and thus removing miles of tundra from drilling) are all going to be just plenty to take her down, I think.

And from a personal point of view... if the fifth kid really IS hers... someone who had given birth four times previously, with PPROM and contx, boarding a plane for an 11-hour trip... I'm sorry. As a mom and birth support provider, that's just bananas. That would be, at the very best, extremely poor judgment... and at worst, callous disregard for the well-being of her baby, and for the other travelers on the plane.

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

I like a good gossip as much as the next person, but I could happily live my whole life without having to read or listen to male politicos gleefully discussing the reproductive tracts of women they hold in contempt. I won't be *able* to, but I'd sure enjoy it.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I'm more concerned with the concept of raising a wall of lies and deceptions to gain political favor and promote a particular point of view. Was it male politicos who held out the child as an example of her integrity and commitment? No, she's the one who trotted them out and made an issue of them (or at least, participated willingly in that spectacle). I don't care if she did it with a baby or puppies or an oil corporation... with her uterus or her grandmother or a rusty spoon... it's the fact that she's using them to promote herself, and a dangerous policy (abstinence education), that makes the scrutiny fair game.

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

I'm torn about whether it's legitimate news. I agree that she's pulled her family actions into her political career, but it doesn't stop me from feeling uncomfortable about making political hay out of some poor 17 year old's really stressful situation. The fact that her mom started it doesn't make it a lot better in my book.

But whether it is or not doesn't change the fact that it's being discussed in a lot of places with stomach-turning misogyny.

Dishin' the dirt

[(Anonymous)]

I hate when that happens. I get what I think is a brilliant revelation worthy of a Sherlock Holmes award... A scenario propietary to me and my brilliant deducing powers. Talk about an inflated ego! So who knew everyone on this planet and their relatives from outer solarsystems had the same idea. Of course when I read about the baby and her daughter who disappeared because of Mono (a disease that was very commonly contracted by teenagers who also happen to be pregnant and in school - altho it was by far most prevelant in Connecticut). But why, oh, why can't I ever get the credit to be the first with the exclusive disclosure? This is why I read much more than I ever dare to contribute. But at least it's out there. Kudos for Dishin' it and keep it comin'! ...Judy