The exhaustive review of available evidence that we conducted, along with new interviews with multiple eyewitnesses who interacted with a pregnant Sarah Palin up-close in early -- most of whom had never spoken publicly about the matter before -- has produced one clear conclusion: Sarah Palin is, indeed, Trig's mother and there is no reason to suspect any kind of a coverup. We've learned, for instance, that an Associated Press reporter in Alaska who was covering Palin during her pregnancy in early before she became a national figure thoroughly investigated rumors that the pregnancy was a hoax.
The reporter directly questioned Palin about the matter in a private meeting in her Juneau office before she gave birth. Palin responded by voluntarily lifting her outer layer of clothing, offering a clear look at her round belly. The reporter quickly concluded that there was no truth to the rumors and never wrote about them. After all, there's a strong argument to be made that politicians' private lives should not be subject to investigation unless there is suspicion of hypocrisy e.
As Atrios put it , "if Trig was sired by Lucifer and birthed from a hippopotamus it's really none of our business. But the idea that this had anything to do with John McCain's decision to tap Palin is easily debunked. Still, for all of this, Trig Trutherism seems to have gained a significant following. There doesn't appear to be any polling on the Trig question, but when we ran a dismissive post about the Trig Truthers last week, we were deluged with angry emails and tweets.
Sullivan, one of the leading doubters of Palin's pregnancy, wrote a post accusing me of incuriosity and laziness. Fed up with the attention the subject has received, the Huffington Post took the step this week of banning Trig Truthers. Whether we like it or not, this is a conspiracy theory that has gotten big enough to warrant a response. On a personal note, I should add that I hold no brief for Palin, and I've covered her critically in the past -- see here , here , here and here.
Trig Truthers have fixated on any number of details about Sarah Palin's pregnancy. Sullivan, for example, thinks it was irresponsible that, shortly before she went into labor, Palin got on a plane from Texas, where she had been speaking at a conference, and flew to Alaska. But whether Palin acted irresponsibly is beside the point. The most important tenet of Trig Trutherism, of course, is that Palin simply was not pregnant before Trig was born. To establish this, Trig Truthers point to the news account of Palin's March 5, , announcement that she was seven months pregnant.
In that story in the Anchorage Daily News, some Alaska politicos expressed their surprise that Palin was pregnant because she was not showing as much as some women do at that stage. Trig was ultimately born a month early, on April Trig Truthers also point to some photos of Palin from that period that supposedly show an unusually flat stomach.
But these are the facts: There are numerous independent eyewitnesses who spent considerable time with Palin in early and who observed that she was pregnant. We spoke to several of them, and their accounts are detailed below. Their eyewitness accounts should carry more weight than the doubts of bloggers scrutinizing a few photos posted on the Web. Another key claim by the Trig Truthers -- repeated in the new academic paper that has re-popularized the conspiracy theory -- is that the press fell down on the job by failing to investigate the rumors.
But that claim, too, simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Steve Quinn, who is now a freelancer, was the Alaska-based Associated Press journalist who wrote the wire story reporting that Palin was pregnant in early March He told us that rumors were circulating that Palin was not truly pregnant even back then -- before she gave birth and well before she was tapped to be John McCain's running mate.
So, like any good reporter, Quinn looked into it -- twice -- and came away with solid reasons to believe there was no hoax. According to Quinn, in the days immediately after Palin announced her pregnancy that March, he was in the governor's office and asked her directly about the rumors. Palin smiled and, Quinn says, lifted an outer layer of clothing to show that she was indeed pregnant. Quinn added that he heard from female legislators and friends of the governor that they suspected, based on physical changes, that Palin was pregnant well before she announced the news.
Salon has since thoroughly debunked the Trig Palin conspiracy theory. Now, Hillary Clinton is on the receiving end of her own health-related cover-up conspiracy theory — and Palin is using the story to skewer the media and illustrate what she sees as a double standard for how Democratic and Republican female candidates get covered. Some background: In December , Clinton was treated for a blood clot on her brain after suffering a concussion. Clinton recovered and was given a clean bill of health, but Karl Rove remained skeptical.
And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what's up with that," Rove allegedly said at a conference in Los Angeles. After cries of "Sexism! Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, defended Rove's comments and said the health question is "fair game.
Like it or not, Clinton will have to deal with these kinds of questions for the next two years, at a minimum. And judging by Palin's response, the pain doesn't fade over time. In a highly sarcastic Facebook post Monday night, Palin pointed out media hypocrisy for defending Clinton against Rove's comments. Before you ask: Yes, Bristol is 27, so not a teenager. But as she pointed out on Monday's episode, she was once a teen mom. In fact, when she was pregnant during her mother's vice presidential campaign, she may have been the most famous teen mom in the world.
Bristol made sure to explain this to viewers: "I'm no stranger to being a young mom in the public eye. Bristol's story line during the premiere was a family affair, as her mother and sisters Willow, 24, and Piper, 17 gathered in Arizona for Willow's bachelorette party. Bristol marveled that she's the only Palin who doesn't live in Alaska, given that she moved to Austin after she married Dakota Meyer in She lives there with their toddler daughters, Sailor and Atlee; and her son, 9-year-old Tripp, whose father is her ex-fiance Levi Johnston.
Bristol and Dakota divorced earlier this year, and their split will play out over the season. It's already tragic: Dakota, 30, is a military veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder; he saw his entire platoon get killed in a battle in Afghanistan.
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