By Patrick
Finally - the code of silence has been broken! For more than two years the media desperately tried to ignore the obvious, the fact that Sarah Palin is not the biological mother of Trig Paxson Van Palin and faked her pregnancy. This story turned into one of the best kept secrets in America, a taboo subject, something not to be mentioned in public, considered "nonsense" for example by far too many liberal journalists out of pure wishful thinking. It was so secret that famous author Christopher Hitchens once wrote with deep surprise in the UK "Spectator":
"An astonishing number of well-informed people tell me that Sarah Palin is not in fact the mother of baby Trig, but that she is ‘covering up’ for another family member whose child he really is."
Now Bradford Scharlott, Associate Professor for Journalism at Northern Kentucky University, who has been teaching at the university since 1991, finally decided to take matters into his own hands, and wrote a very well researched and brilliantly executed research paper about the faked pregnancy. The paper is not only a collection of damning facts, but also a stunning indictment of the media.
If the media continues to ignore the subject, they do so at their own peril. Already the question has to be asked how it was that the obviously faked pregnancy by Sarah Palin was never seriously discussed in the US media when the story first emerged in public at the end of August 2008.
Brad Scharlott writes at the beginning of his paper:
But it’s fair to ask if the U.S. press should have treated the fake pregnancy rumor as untouchable, both in 2008 and up to the present day. After all, if there seemed to be any real chance that the rumor was true, that might mean that a candidate for the vice presidency had staged a hoax about the birth of a Down syndrome child and then used that birth to promote her political career. This article looks at what American journalists knew, and when they knew it, concerning the fake birth rumor – and it finds there was insufficient evidence for the press to conclude that Palin was telling the truth about Trig. The article then looks at what factors may have caused the press to give Palin more deference than she was due, and how journalists might have reacted differently. Finally, the article considers how the spiral of silence theory casts light on press performance relative to the Trig hoax rumor and, relatedly, the Obama fake birth-certificate rumor.
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Prof. Scharlott would like to stress that this paper is not the final version - it's a preliminary version, a work in progress, and there will probably be additions in the future.
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Interestingly, it was Bill McAllister himself who chose to make his response to Brad Scharlott public, by sending it to Scharlott's colleagues in the communications department, in an attempt to damage Scharlott's reputation.
Let's summarize:
Sarah Palin in an email to her staff on April 1, 2008:
So it's proven that Bill McAllister was very well aware about the "false" rumor that Bristol was pregnant BEFORE she was pregnant with Tripp - and he now claims that he wasn't aware about the faked pregnancy rumors, which are basically a "derivative" of the first rumor?
Moreover, we already have "a story in the story" as well! As we reported earlier today, Brad Scharlott made his paper available to several people in advance - including Sarah Palin's former spokesperson Bill McAllister.
Brad Scharlott didn't expect that Bill McAllister's reaction would be an outburst of hate on part of McAllister - the student's newspaper "The Northener" reported earlier today:
After sending his research to McAllister, Scharlott said he was not expecting what came next.
“If we ever meet, I’ll slap you,” McAllister wrote in an email to Scharlott on April 5. “In a different era, I’d challenge you to a duel.”
McAlliser’s email continued, calling Scharlott a “scoundrel” and “despicable.” He then forwarded his response to Scharlott to five other members of the Communications Department, with the subject line “Brad Scharlott disgraces your university.”
“He should be fired, frankly,” McAllister said. “I can’t believe [the] university is going to let some idiot present a paper [like this.]”
McAllister is quick to point out, both in his emails and over the phone, that he is, in no way, speaking on behalf of the Alaska Department of Law, but as “someone who is demeaned and lied about in this paper.” Emails obtained by The Northerner were sent to and from his personal email account, and he said he spoke to reporters on his lunch break.
“I had never even heard a rumor [about this] until she was chosen by McCain, then that weekend all kinds of shit came out that no one had heard before,” McAllister said. “[Scharlott’s research] defames me and I’m just not having it.”
McAllister said that after he sent the emails to other members of NKU’s communication department, Scharlott responded to him again, this time telling McAllister that he “made a deal with the devil.”
“That blows any pretense that he’s objective or fair,” McAllister said. “It proves it is not academic rigor but vitriol.”
McAllister said he found many factual errors in the paper when he read it, such as incorrect call letters to TV stations, and facts taken out of context.
“He doesn’t come out and say it, but he is implying there is some link between the story about Trig [Paxton Van Palin] and my being hired by her,” McAllister said. “The two things have nothing to do with her. She hired me because I was the best known politics reporter in the state of Alaska.”
McAllister said he denied the charges on behalf of Palin because he was her spokesman, not because he had any role in a pregnancy hoax. He said the only part he played during Palin’s pregnancy was that of a reporter.
“Aside from interviewing her in her office when she came back to work, I had nothing to do with it,” McAllister said. “I had nothing to do with her personal life.”
Interestingly, it was Bill McAllister himself who chose to make his response to Brad Scharlott public, by sending it to Scharlott's colleagues in the communications department, in an attempt to damage Scharlott's reputation.
Therefore it's only fair to publish Bill McAllister's email in the full version - it's a memorable document:
Brad Scharlott, in the" service of evil?"
On Apr 5, 2011, at 2:57 PM, xxxxxxxxxxxx@alaska.xxx wrote:
If we ever meet, I'll slap you. In a different era, I'd challenge you to a duel.
Be advised: I am at home on my own computer. This is my final week at
the Alaska Department of Law. Nothing I have to say here is said on
behalf of the state, the attorney general or Sarah Palin, whom I have
not seen or heard from since she resigned.
The italicized word "coincidentally" in the following sentence makes
you a scoundrel:
"In the first photo, Palin is shown standing to the left of KTUU-TV
newsman Bill McAllister, who coincidentally would become her director
of communications in July. (The other person is KTVA-TV cameraman Dan
Carpenter.)"
So let's parse this. I was a journalist for 30 years. I took down a
conservative Republican congressman, Arlan Stangeland (7th District,
Minnesota), in 1990, because he used his House credit card to bill
phone calls to and from the home of his mistress. (Johnny Apple of the
New York Times followed up on the story.) In 1980, I took down the
police chief of Winona, Minnesota, over a variety of ethical lapses,
including the doctoring of a police report on an alleged sexual
assault by his son. I have won national, regional and state awards for
my reporting in both Alaska and Minnesota for television, radio and
newspapers. I co-chaired the annual conference of Capitolbeat, the
Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, in Seattle in 2005. I
was elected four times (the most ever) as the president of the Alaska
Capital Correspondents Association.
And I threw it all away to hide Sarah Palin's pregnancy hoax?
You are despicable.
I wasn't there when Palin was impregnated nor when she gave birth, so
I have no eyewitness accounts to offer. I can tell you that I never
even heard of the fake pregnancy rumor until the VP selection. Let me
repeat that: As the most connected politics reporter in the state for
years, I NEVER EVEN HEARD OF IT!!!!
Your suggestion that I was bought off to perpetuate a scam on the
American people is reprehensible. Be sure -- and be glad -- that we
will never meet. I have far more honor than you, scumbag. I have lived
an imperfect but honest life. You are in the service of evil.
Brad Scharlott, in the" service of evil?"
Bill McAllister will make C4P proud.
However, the available documentation suggests one thing: That Bill McAllister is a liar.
After Frank Bailey's new book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" was leaked, it quickly became apparent that it contained incredibly interesting information (click to read details) about the frantic attempts of Sarah Palin in March and April 2008 to suppress the fake pregnancy rumors.
Excerpt from the book:
Of course, placid waters did not last long. Two issues immediately became irksome.
Because she did not look pregnant, speculation arose that Sarah was not actually carrying a child at all. More annoying was the allegation that she was hiding daughter Bristol‘s pregnancy. Those of us who saw Sarah daily and were there after the birth of Trig, know this to be an idiotic story.
We also saw Bristol regularly in jeans tight enough to convince anyone with eyes she was not with child. At first, Sarah made light of the story:
From: sarah
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 2:30 PM
Subject: Bristol
Todd: Don't tell (Bristol) but rumor around the capitol is that she's pregnant. People are so mean. I'm going to nicely pull McAllister (KTUU political reporter and soon to be Palin spokesperson) aside and tell him that's not true.
Funny people maybe speculated I'm not really pg, but she is and I'm taking the heat for her! Funny, but pathetic.
The next day, Sarah alerted us that Bristol had already heard the story:
Yeah- Brsitol (sic) just called and heard the rumors too, but this time is was from Wasilla High kids who heard that I'm not really pg, but she is, and I'll be taking/raising the baby she's supposedly having next month. She's ticked, but made light of it with, "They think I'm pregnant just because I have huge bo obs?" Told her to just tell those rumormongers that they're invited to peer at my stretch marks, that'll prove who's really pg .
Let's summarize:
Bill McAllister in his email to Brad Scharlott on April 5, 2011:
"I can tell you that I never even heard of the fake pregnancy rumor until the VP selection. Let me repeat that: As the most connected politics reporter in the state for years, I NEVER EVEN HEARD OF IT!!!!"
Sarah Palin in an email to her staff on April 1, 2008:
"Todd: Don't tell (Bristol) but rumor around the capitol is that she's pregnant. People are so mean. I'm going to nicely pull McAllister (KTUU political reporter and soon to be Palin spokesperson) aside and tell him that's not true."
Funny people maybe speculated I'm not really pg, but she is and I'm taking the heat for her! Funny, but pathetic.
We know that Sarah Palin then DID in fact pull Bill McAllister aside, from an article by Kyle Hopkins in the Anchorage Daily News from August 31, 2008.
Kyle Hopkins wrote:
Here's a story we wrote soon after the birth. At that point, the questions were all about whether Palin should have flown back to Alaska to give birth. In the story, Palin's doctor talks about the labor and addresses questions raised at the time about Palin's decision to board a jet and fly to Alaska from Texas when she showed signs of early labor.
"The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation," said an Alaska Airlines spokeswoman. The doctor, Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, said she induced labor once Palin was at the hospital.
What's the McCain campaign say? Nothing so far. I've called and e-mailed for an on-the-record response, but haven't heard back.
What's Palin's in-state spokesman, Bill McAllister say?
That it's not true. "The answer to that is no," he said.
"But beyond that, I don't know, why should we even have to say anything," he said.
McAllister was an Anchorage TV reporter before working for Palin. He said Palin once approached him - before people knew she was pregnant - assuming he'd been hearing rumors.
"She said it's not true about Bristol," McAllister said.
At the time, the rumor would have been that Palin's daughter was pregnant.
How does McAllister know it's not true?
"The governor's not a liar. That's the main reason. But also this would have to involve some sort of conspiracy with the hospital of Wasilla. They said she gave birth there. Is the doctor, the nurses ... are they all lying?" he said.
Why not share the birth certificate?
"What a thing to request -- prove that this is your baby," McAllister said. "I mean, my god, that's horrifying to think that she would have to do that."
I said one reason is to put it to rest.
"In my mind, there's nothing to put to rest," he said.
No, Alaska birth certificates are not public record. Meantime, this is all a plotline straight out of a recent season of Desperate Housewives.
So it's proven that Bill McAllister was very well aware about the "false" rumor that Bristol was pregnant BEFORE she was pregnant with Tripp - and he now claims that he wasn't aware about the faked pregnancy rumors, which are basically a "derivative" of the first rumor?
In any case, I highly doubt that Bill McAllister was the "most connected politics reporter" in Alaska back then.
Others appeared to be much, much more connected - here Michael Carey from the Anchorage Daily News states on the record on September 2, 2008 that he had heard the rumor that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy long before the nomination, that it was discussed in the newsroom and that one of his friends, a "smart lawyer", claimed that it's the "absolute truth" that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy:
In this context is also interesting to note that after the election, Alaska journalist Brendan Joel Kelley published a very detailed and revealing portrait about Bill McAllister in the "Anchorage Press" on June 10, 2009.
There, Brendan Joel Kelley wrote:
McAllister went round and round with the press, including with the Anchorage Daily News, which had a reporter chasing a story about the persistent rumors that Palin’s baby Trig wasn’t really hers; ADN editor Pat Dougherty perpetuated the dustup between the two with posts on his editor’s blog. Asked to comment for this story by email, Dougherty replied, simply, “Brendan, No.”
In any case, historians have to decide who was "in the service of evil" and who wasn't.
But the journalists have to do their duty first. Now or never!
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UPDATE:
Joe McGinniss just wrote on his new blog:
"Rest assured, the question of whether Sarah is really Trig’s mother, or whether she faked the pregnancy and lied about the birth is not an issue I ignore in The Rogue."
Say it ain't so, Joe! ;-)
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