Much has been written about the repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and therefore cannot be President. Speculation continues to grow over the inconsistent stories told by Sarah Palin regarding the birth of her son Trig in 2008. Many blogs have devoted great amounts of time and energy trying to prove that in fact Sarah Palin did not give birth to Trig. While opposing persons, partisan reporters and blogs have gone to great lengths to create after the fact proof she did. This post is not to figure out who is really Trig’s birth mother, but rather what would be the motivations of Sarah Palin to fabricate such a tale and continue it to this day.
After rising through the ranks from a small town city council member, to two term mayor and then to a short term seat on a government board that oversees oil and gas issues, Sarah Palin decided to take a shot at administrative level government to become the Alaskan Lieutenant Governor. After losing that race, Palin sat back and waited for her next opportunity, which was unseating Republican Governor Frank Murkowski. In a hard fought race, Sarah took the helm of the State of Alaska in December 2006. While she enjoyed high poll numbers, her accomplishments as Governor were few. As Palin enjoyed her newfound popularity, it was clear she was looking for a much larger audience that she could have by going into national politics.
At many lower 48 Republican political gatherings in 2007 and early 2008 Sarah Palin made it clear that she was interested in broadening her grip beyond the state line of the great North. When John McCain locked up the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday March 4, 2008, Sarah Palin stunned her Alaskan constituents by announcing she was seven months pregnant the following day. Palins staff were the first ones to question their bosses honesty, then reporters took on the task of investigating the well timed tale. On the morning of April 18, 2008 after attending a conference in Texas the previous three days, Sarah Palin first leaked information to an Alaskan news reporter that she had given birth. Soon the news hit the news wires that the forty something Governor in Alaska had given birth and he had the disability Trisomy G, otherwise known as Down syndrome. One would think a newly arrived baby, a husband and four other children and a full time job as Alaskan Governor would quell the urges of national politics. Sarah Palin wasn’t going to be denied her calling for a national political leadership role. Once announced by the McCain campaign that she was his choice put forward for the Vice Presidents position, Republican operatives took on the job of rehabilitating her lack luster time as Alaskan leader, while left leaning people led by Jon Stewart raised the hypocrisy in comments by Karl Rove, Dick Morris and strategist Nancy Pfotenhauer.
While it is now well known that the choice of Sarah Palin of VP was solely for political gain, we must now ask was the whole Trig Palin birth tale also for political gain, and was it orchestrated by Sarah Palin or to a higher level by the Republican Party?
As the story sits right now, it’s the word of Sarah Palin and a now growing group of partisan reporters that are coming to her aid with newly written stories of eyewitness sightings of a pregnant Sarah Palin in early 2008. The fact is only a few photos of a questionable pregnant Sarah Palin exist, while bloggers have uncovered a treasure trove of photos depicting a miracle pregnancy that lasted only 5 weeks with the photo of a bulging belly that grew large within 8 days.
The ongoing tales of the fateful trip to Dallas days before Trigs supposed birth and continuing to this day that do not make sense what so ever. The tale also gets more descriptive each time Sarah Palin recites her reckless ride story. With what we now know of Sarah Palin and her no holds bar attitude to achieve the highest office in American politics, the national media not only should ask the following questions of Sarah Palin, they should demand answers much like they demanded of President Obama.
Will you provide a certified copy of Trig Paxson Van Palin’s long form
birth certificate?
Will you provide certified documented proof of attending medical
appointments during your pregnancy of Trig Palin from your medical
insurance provider?
Will you provide the name of the Physician who delivered Trig Palin?
Was Cathy Baldwin-Johnson the true author of your medical
information release in the final hours of the campaign, and was any
pertinent information regarding your medical past withheld from the
Sarah Palin advertises herself as champion of the “real people" and their causes, while being an enemy of the so called educated elites she fights on a daily basis, One thing is clear, Sarah Palin possesses a narrow mind when it comes to politics and her leadership qualities are suspect at best towards those who serve her and are required to swear allegiance or face certain dismissal. It all comes down to her real motivations to undertake the largest hoax unseen in American politics.
Will the real story ever be told? Not if the curtain of silence continues from the national media we put our trust in. Come on reporters, ask the questions and wait for the silence from Sarah Palin, because she cannot in any way provide the true answers.
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Then Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, and Sandy Parnell, as Palin announced her endorsement of Parnell in his run for a congressional seat, on 14 March 2008, at the state elections office in Anchorage, Alaska. Palin's son Trig was born just over a month later on 18 April. Photograph: Michael Dinneen/AP Photo
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+++UPDATE: Very sorry guys- the Guardian has pulled the article AGAIN, now for the second time even with the reworded version which you can read below (the rewording was done because the Guardian had requested it). We will see what happens next...keep the fingers crossed that everything will turn out to be fine. The communication with the Guardian is very friendly and open. +++ UPDATE APRIL 29: The Guardian is still checking with their lawyers whether they can put the article back up again. +++ UPDATE 2, APRIL 29: Matt Seaton, editor at the Guardian, just told us: "Got legal clearance; no further changes called for. Article is back on site."
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The rumours surrounding Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig have been an issue that found little attention in the media until two weeks ago, when a research paper by Bradford Scharlott, associate professor of journalism at Northern Kentucky University, hit the mainstream. Professor Scharlott asserted in his paper that there exists a "spiral of silence" in the media regarding the circumstances surrounding Trig Palin's birth.
Scharlott was not the first person to make this observation. Since August 2008, the influential blogger Andrew Sullivan, editor at the "The Dish", has repeatedly and harshly criticised the media for its unwillingness to report on Sarah Palin's pregnancy in a long series of posts on his blog. In addition, Sullivan published an article in the Sunday Times (of London) on 22 November 2009, in which he gave a summary of Sarah Palin's incredible birth story and astutely observed that her account makes "Xena, the warrior princess, seem fragile" in comparison.
But what is Sarah Palin's birth story, and why is it relevant?
A short look at the available documentation reveals that a coherent birth story is hard to determine, as several versions exist – all told by Sarah Palin herself. The first version, audiotaped during a press conference on 21 April 2008, is the one where Sarah Palin went on the record right after Trig's birth. During the press conference, the following exchange happened:
Reporter: So did your water break?
Palin: Well, if you must know more of those type of details, but, um …
Reporter: Well, your dad said that and I saw him say it so that's why I asked.
Palin: Well that was again if, if I must get personal, technical about this at the same time, um, it was one, it was a sign that I knew, um, could lead to uh, labour being uh kind of kicked in there was any kind of, um, amniotic leaking, amniotic fluid leaking, so when, when that happened we decided OK let's call her.
This exchange established that Palin's waters broke during the early hours of the morning on 17 April 2008 in Dallas, Texas. Lisa Demer quoted in the Anchorage Daily News an obstetrician, who confirmed: "To us, leaking and broken, we are talking the same thing. We are talking doctor-speak."
This statement by Sarah Palin was the "trigger" for deep scepticism on part of some journalists regarding the veracity of Palin's birth story, as well as the start of investigations by bloggers and citizens. I have played a role in these investigations since November 2008. Since then, a lot of new material has been discovered – and Sarah Palin has herself changed the details of Trig's birth story several times. In her autobiography, Going Rogue, there is no mention of her "amniotic fluid leaking", but Palin changes her account on page 193 by claiming that she was woken at 4am on 17 April 2008 by a "strange sensation low in my belly".
This change to the general storyline came as no surprise to the bloggers. By her own account, Sarah Palin's pregnancy was a "high-risk" one: she was 44 years old, and it was her seventh pregnancy (she had two previous miscarriages); the baby had Down's Syndrome, and was about to be born prematurely. The fact that Palin, despite the obvious complications, embarked on a ten-hour plane journey from Dallas to Anchorage with a stopover in Seattle, bypassing the first-rate Baylor Regional Medical Centre in Dallas with an NICU situated ten minutes away from the conference she was attending, is mystifying – even more so since Palin also bypassed Providence hospital in Anchorage, which is also equipped with excellent NICU facilities which would have ensured a safe delivery for her premature son.
This issue is not about misogyny, as Megan Carpentier claimed in her recent commentary in the Guardian. We are not misogynist and we have no interest in examining Sarah Palin's "vagina". The majority of our readers, supporters and researchers are female, and they are usually women with experience in giving birth. There are also many readers who have medical backgrounds who strongly question Palin's account of Trig's birth. I also would like to point out that we are also not fixated on the pregnancy, as Carpentier asserts, but have written about many different issues regarding Sarah Palin.
The questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy are relevant, because they raise issues of trust about a woman who almost became the vice-president of the US and who still has a large following and political influence. Journalists who now quickly declare this matter "closed" without having examined the evidence should be reminded that former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt is on the record saying that Palin's book Going Rogue comprises "not 70%, but 100% fiction". Journalists should take this statement more seriously before putting their reputation on the line for Sarah Palin. Instead, they should ask her some tough questions.
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APPEAL FOR DONATIONS - POLITICALGATES DONATION WEEK:
This week we would like to make our first appeal for donations, and we announce the "Politicalgates Donation Week." All donations, small and great, help us to keep going and help us to continue to invest a lot of time and effort into running this blog.
For donations via paypal, please click on the button below or in the sidebar. After the donation week, we will remove the button again.
If you would like to donate via cash, check or money order, please send us an email for further instructions: kathleenpoliticalgates (at) gmail.com
The results again has been very good. So far we have received $ 1250, with several pledges still to come in. Many thanks, everybody! The donation week will continue until May 3rd, 2011.
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All posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy can be read HERE and HERE.
All old posts at Palingates about "babygate" with the pictures still intact can be accessed HERE.
+++UPDATE April 29, 2011: Please note that we have now been given the opportunity to publish a response to Megan Carpentier at "The Guardian" and to explain our position regarding the investigation of Sarah Palin's pregnancy. My statements below which expressed disappointment about "The Guardian" are therefore not up-to-date any more, as we have afterwards been treated in a very decent and fair way by the editors+++
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A new day, a new disappointment: In a fact-free, nonsensical hitpiece, another liberal media outlet underperforms and smears the "Trig Truthers", just for the sake of it. In the "Comment is free" section of The Guardian, hothead Megan Carpentier (American citizen), executive editor at Raw Story, claims to have discovered what really drives the "Trig Truthers": The are "a dedicated group of (mostly) men", and they are driven by "creepy misogyny."
Trig birthers? In the stubbly nether regions of the internet untouched by Occam's razor, a dedicated group of (mostly) men seeks to prove that the Palin family drama is more soap operatic than the family has already acknowledged. That is, they seek to convince the rest of the world that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Sarah Palin wasn't really pregnant in 2007 and 2008, and did not give birth to her son Trig three years ago. Many of them believe Palin's pregnancy was a ruse designed to shield her teenage daughter, Bristol, from the consequences of a teenage pregnancy – conveniently ignoring the fact that Bristol's actual teenage pregnancy culminated in a live full-term birth a mere eight months after her brother Trig was born. Oh, those mysterious lady parts! How do they ever work?
A "group of (mostly) men?" No, Megan, nothing could be further from the truth! What about doing a little bit of research before publishing such false claims? Is this too much to ask? Within the core "Trig Truther movement", especially what started as the Palin Deception research team and still exists as an even larger research team for Politicalgates today, I am the only male among about ten members. In the "history" of the investigations into Palin's pregnancy, there were only very, very few men who showed interest in the subject matter. About 90% of the readers, supporter and donors are women. It's the women who understand best that Sarah Palin's pregnancy story is a load of bullcrap and I have often deferred to their wider experience in the matter.
It's actually pure coincidence that it's now mostly male bloggers who write about the pregnancy. But hey, why do a bit of research, if it's so easy to shoot out "opinion pieces" in this wonderful pundit media culture, where anyone can shout at each other, fact free? I am always disgusted when outlets like Fox News attack the "enemy" with made up claims. But the left now proves that they can do it just as well, which is a huge disappointment, but when it comes to politics should not be a real surprise.
No one is asking for the results of President Obama's prostate exams or his urological records, even if a bunch of nutjobs don't feel that they've seen enough of his birth certificate. No one ran around in 1984 asking to see Geraldine Ferraro's gynaecological records, and it definitely didn't come up during then Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency, even if there were plenty of jabs about her supposed cankles and gossip about the supposed state of her marriage. No, somehow, Sarah Palin has inspired a bunch of nominally liberal men to spend a heck of a lot of time speculating about her female organs, and now they want the records – and let's not kid ourselves about the headlines they'd write if they got them. Gynaecological records aren't just an account of what one's uterus has done, after all – they're also a regular look into one's vagina.
Yes, Palin's most vociferous opponents want to look into her vagina – with a guide, of course, because it's all mysterious and scary. Sarah Palin, apparently, couldn't have just gotten pregnant the way the rest of the world does and she couldn't have delivered a baby the way the rest of the women of the world do. She couldn't have had and recognised a few Braxton Hicks contractions after bearing four children, and gotten on a plane to have the birth of her fifth, special-needs child in her hometown, and had it all be perfectly above board. Nope, it has to be something more mysterious, more nefarious, more … gross. What she's done with her vagina just has to disqualify her from office.
And that's really what Trig birtherism comes down to: misogyny. They can't just oppose her positions or personally dislike her (not that any of the Trig birthers apparently know her personally). No, her very femaleness and what they consider her subversion of it must disqualify her from office. And no firsthand accounts or doctor's statements are going to change their minds that the highly improbable fantasy is more compelling than the mundane truth – not without being able to put their grubby little hands on her private gynaecological records. Though, like Obama birthers, they probably wouldn't be satisfied with those alone, either – unless they found something else in them with which to demonise her.
Why do these "critics" (you could actually call them what they now call us, "haters") always think that we will never be satisfied with any kind of proof? Where do they get this from? Yes, a birth certificate and some general medical documentation would be enough for me, thank you very much. No "private gynaecological records" are needed. There are a huge amount of records to choose from such as hospital records and insurance documents for instance.
This website has extensively covered Sarah Palin’s political movements for years, and in my experience the Trig Truthers are not all men. In fact, most of the people who have expressed doubts about Palin’s pregnancy story to us over the years have been women. I am not sure where the author of Guardian UK piece was getting her information. If one spends any time talking to the people who follow Sarah Palin closely, you will see that women make up a sizable part of this group.
It follows then that if the people who are interested in Babygate aren’t a bunch of men, the cries of misogyny fall apart. I believe it is unfair to paint with such a broad brush a label a group of people as misogynistic because they have questions about the most implausible birth story since Jesus was born. The story surrounding Sarah Palin’s fifth pregnancy captures so many imaginations because it is weird, and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
On April 14, Sarah Jones recently referenced Babygate in her article, “Is Sarah Palin Finally Over?” Sarah made reference to the Business Insider piece on the Babygate story.
Davidson wrote that she believes that Trig is Palin’s son, but the story surrounding the birth shows a level of “reckless narcissism,” that is important because it reveals a great deal about Sarah Palin’s character. I think the story of Trig’s birth is relevant not because of any conspiracy, but because the story itself and the way that Palin has handled it reveal just as much about Sarah Palin as whether or not she actually gave birth to the child.
The reason why this doesn’t compare to the right’s Obama birtherism is that Obama has not behaved oddly. We have seen the birth certificate. We have seen the birth notices in the newspapers. Obama hasn’t told conflicting or inconsistent stories about where he was born.
Unlike Obama, through her erratic behavior Sarah Palin herself has raised questions. The Babygaters are infatuated with a conspiracy theory for the same reason people are still talking about the JFK assassination today. Babygate is a conspiracy theory, but Sarah Palin’s own behavior has kept the theory alive.
The Babygaters aren’t a part of a misogynistic plot to destroy Sarah Palin.
Politically the story is relevant, because if we accept Trig Palin’s birth story as true then Sarah Palin reckless endangered the life of her unborn child. This possibility is more damaging to the myth of Sarah Palin as adoring mother of the year material than any conspiracy theory ever could be.
Megan Carpentier is very proud of her article, according to her tweets - here and here:
Kim Chatman, Air Force veteran with fifteen years of service, who Kathleen and I met last year in Ramstein, Germany, filed the successful ethics complaint against Sarah Palin's first legal defense fund, the "Alaska Fund Trust", which caused Sarah Palin huge embarrassment and cost her more than $300,000 in illegal fundraising. Kim Chatman saw Sarah Palin in person in Alaska in March 2008 at an event, after Sarah Palin had announced her pregnancy. Kim immediately realized that Sarah Palin wasn't pregnant - and she isn't silent about it. Is she guilty of misogyny as well? Or is she just guilty of saying what it is that she saw? Does that make her a troll?
By the way, one of the things that Kim Chatman has never mentioned so far in public is that she drove around in Alaska with a "NO2PALIN" license plate. At Easter, last year, somebody shot a bullet at the driver's side sliding door window of the car while she was driving. Her children were in the car. There is a trooper report backing this information up. The trooper concerned was shocked that such an incident happened. Talk about guts. Kim Chatman knows what it means to take on Sarah Palin. Megan Carpentier? Well she knows how to use the word "vagina" with great effect, that's at least something:
The person Megan Carpentier is talking about is Matt Seaton, who is the editor of the "Comment is free" page at the Guardian. And now I would like to talk about an area of particular personal disappointment, although I realize that this should all be considered to be "business", and "personal feelings" should better be put aside.
So here is my little "personal story." After I published the leaked excerpts of "America by Heart" at Palingates at the end of 2010, Matt Seaton contacted me, because he was interested in our work, and we had a very polite and instructive phone conversation over skype, as well as a brief email exchange. Matt Seaton was genuinely interested in our work and in our conversation even suggested that I could write a piece for the "comment is free" page at the Guardian.
I sent him detailed information about what we are actually doing, for example in an email from November 23, 2010 after I had the conversation with him:
Hi Matt,
many thanks for the very pleasant conversation!
As I explained, we regard Palingates as a new type of blog - a political blog, but also an investigative blog, in which the readers take part and are strongly encouraged to take the initiative. For example, we published several investigative guest posts (for example about SarahPAC) which received great attention:
Our readers have lots of room to comment as well (ALWAYS unmoderated comments), and are encouraged to do so. We have no strict commenting rules. We had several posts which received 2000-3000 comments, also very recently, which is not surprising, as people feel the need not just to comment on certain posts, but also to connect and communicate with other readers. Palingates is not just a blog, but a community of like-minded people.
I promised that I would give you examples for interesting posts, and here we go:
One of our most important topics is "babygate", Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy - and in public also the most controversial topic, as it's considered to be a "taboo" subject in the media:
One of the political scandals which raises many unanswered questions, and which was never discussed outside Palingates, as far as I can see (which is NOT justified!): Sarah Palin and her close connection to oil and gas explorers in Giddings, Texas.
Oh yes, one more thing: Palingates is dedicated to FACTUAL research and reporting. We do NOT report "rumors" or other facts which are not 100% confirmed by reliable sources. This is the main reason why we have never contacted by a lawyer - apart from the Christopher Goff from Harper Collins (in 2009 and 2010) for putting up pages of Palin's unpublished books. However, we reacted to these letters both times and took several pages down, leaving only "non-substantial" excerpts on the site. This seemed to satisfy Harper Collins.
I will think about good topics for commentaries and will contact you again soon!
Kind Regards Patrick
Matt Seaton replied to my email on the same day and said:
wow, that's very helpful -- thanks for taking so much trouble (and for your nice mention of the Guardian in your post today)
enjoyed talking to you too; will do my homework and we'll speak again soon
regards, Matt
Well, why is this relevant now? Because it proves that Matt Seaton was extremely well informed about the fact that the following claim by Megan Carpentier in the Guardian article was just a pure invention and deliberate smear, as we "Trig Truthers" have always covered a HUGE variety of issues regarding Sarah Palin:
For Trig birthers don't believe that Palin's minimal governing experience, divisive political persona or her array of deeply conservative policy positions on everything from drilling to abortion to equal pay to healthcare should inspire their opposition to her. Rather, they believe that what did – or, in their ill-informed opinion, did not – once emerge from her mysterious and hidden womb should make the rest of us nervous enough to disavow her.
Matt Seaton knew that this claim was wrong. Moreover if he had done his "homework" as he said, theny his section of the Guardian wouldn't have resorted to publishing such "cracking" pieces. It seems that things really are going downhill in the liberal media. Perhaps it takes the meaning of the word "liberal" too literally?
I wrote an email to Matt Seaton today and expressed my disappointment. I reminded him that McCain's former campaign manager Steve Schmidt is on the record saying that Palin's book "Going Rogue" contains "not 70%, but 100% fiction."
Matt Seaton, Megan Carpentier, Jason Linkins, Justin Elliott and other liberal journalists have put their reputation on the line for a proven serial liar, who refuses to show any evidence for her pregnancy (and also once lied about having provided the birth certificate). They can now only hope that they are not proven wrong. That's not a situation I would choose to be in as a professional journalist.
So, Sarah Palin - now is the best moment to release Trig's birth certificate and some records to back it up! Come on, don't be shy! After all, weren't you yesterday, on Greta Van Susteren's On the Record show, fully supporting Donald Trump's birther efforts to "expose" Obama?
The second theory is that vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin staged an elaborate hoax in which she lied to the country and pretended to be the biological mother of her son, Trig.
President Obama, we are happy to report, has now complied with our document request, releasing the original document on which his Hawaii birth certificate is based. (Thank you! The country appreciates this commitment to transparency.)
So now we renew our request to Sarah Palin: Please release medical records that show the circumstances of Trig's birth, including his parentage.
In the interview with Greta Van Susteren, Sarah Palin backs Trump's birther efforts again and says that the "birthers" are just people who are "curious about the background of the President and his associations." So why doesn't the same apply to the "Babygaters?"
I think the media is loving this, because they want to make to make birthers, as they call people who are just curious about the president of the United States and his background and his associations and his consistency with what he says today versus what he said in both the memoirs that he wrote or Bill Ayers or whomever wrote.
The media is loving the fact that some curious Americans are actually asking the questions, and they're trying to make those curious Americans sound kind of crazy.
So the media is loving this issue, and they're perpetuating the issue and trying to make it sound really worse than it is.
We "Babygaters" are just curious Americans (and a handful of Europeans) who are actually asking questions, and parts of the media are now trying to make those curious Americans sound kind of crazy.
It is good to know that Sarah Palin is now actually on "our side", and large parts of the liberal media are against us.
It's a crazy world these days. ;-)
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All posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy can be read HERE and HERE.
All old posts at Palingates about "babygate" with the pictures still intact can be accessed HERE.
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APPEAL FOR DONATIONS - POLITICALGATES DONATION WEEK:
This week we would like to make our first appeal for donations, and we announce the "Politicalgates Donation Week." All donations, small and great, help us to keep going and help us to continue to invest a lot of time and effort into running this blog.
For donations via paypal, please click on the button below or in the sidebar. After the donation week, we will remove the button again.
If you would like to donate via cash, check or money order, please send us an email for further instructions: kathleenpoliticalgates (at) gmail.com
The results have been very encouraging. So far we have received $ 940, with several pledges still to come in. Many thanks, everybody! The donation week will continue until May 3rd, 2011.
The "information cold war" about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy continues, and those parts of the liberal media who have recently branded the doubters as "conspiracy theorists" are now quick to declare victory. Responding to Andrew Sullivan's recent reaction to his first article in Salon, the "definite debunking" of the pregnancy hoax, Justin Elliott now takes aim again at Andrew Sullivan and others who continue to ask questions about Sarah Palin's pregnancy:
But the real difference between the case of Obama and the case of Trig is not the level of evidence -- there was never reason to doubt the basic facts in either case.
And, again: there is no reason to suspect that Palin faked the pregnancy, let alone evidence that it was a hoax.
The websites of the Palin's cultists are currently very, very silent regarding this issue and don't even dare to mention the discussion about Sarah Palin's pregnancy - and it's quite obvious why this is the case, as Sarah Palin has no evidence to prove her pregnancy. But who needs Palinbots when there is for example Justin Elliott at Salon, boldly doing their job when he writes:
Sarah Palin, we'd be happy to see and publish your medical records. But the point of our package is that Palin simply doesn't need to do this -- there is no credible evidence to suggest that anyone other than Sarah Palin is the mother of Trig.
Fortunately, not everybody is fooled so easily by Sarah Palin. Prof. Brad Scharlott, whose research paper started the recent public discussion, has already given several interviews, and yesterday he gave an interview which in my view is his best one yet: He was a guest on the Peter Collins Show and had a long and detailed conversation with Peter B. Collins, who is a highly intelligent, experienced and courageous radio talk show host. Peter B. Collins has not been fooled by Sarah Palin, as it's apparent that he is highly sceptical with regard to Sarah Palin's pregnancy story.
I uploaded large parts of the excellent podcast to youtube for easier access:
This fascinating and entertaining conversation between Prof. Scharlott and Peter Collins covered large parts of the subject matter, including the "spiral of silence" in the media.
What seems amazing to me is the sheer arrogance with which parts of the liberal media now start to treat anyone who will not "follow the line" and shut up. We are now really branded as "heretics", as I mentioned in a recent post. If you always wondered how dissenters are being silenced and "consent is manufactured", now you can watch it in real-time!
Take for example Jason Linkins:
He is a highly respected journalist for Huffington Post, whom I always held in the highest regard. But now, something strange is happening: In the article from April 22 on Huffington Post, Jason Linkins openly expressed that anyone who doubts Sarah Palin's pregnancy story is basically a nutcase:
The fact is that Trig Trutherism, like Birtherism, and also classic 9/11 Trutherism, are different offshoots of the same conspiratorial tradition, where you begin with a zany premise and work backwards, selecting "evidence" that can be shoehorned into your premise, while omitting or ignoring the details that shoot it down. Pretty soon, you're attempting to draw spectral meaning from photographs you didn't take and pondering the significance of the pilot episodes of "X-Files" spin-offs.
How long should anyone tolerate this astral projection? Let it cease forever, with the publication of Justin Elliott and Steve Kornacki's multipart takedown of the entire mythos -- which shows great restraint in that it's not all titled, "Where's Your Messiah Now, Andrew Sullivan?"
It's a strange phenomenon that perfectly intelligent people are now willing to shut down any critical thought - just because they apparently believe that they have all the information, when in reality, they have nothing and even resort to lying about the evidence, like Julia O'Malley in the Anchorage Daily News.
So they have now accepted a belief as fact, and hell yeah, they are sticking to it like only real believers could.
For example, at the article by Jason Linkins, I left the following long comment, which received a lot of responses (and "likes"), and I added some additions afterwards as well. The main comment read:
It saddens me to no end that the liberal media has put their reputation on the line here, in a battle which is a lost cause, and which ultimately will come to haunt them.
Jason, hear me out:
I am not a professional journalist, but just an anonymous investigative blogger. If this is not good enough for you, than stop reading right there. I have been deeply involved in the investigation of Sarah Palin's pregnancy with Trig since November 2008, together in a team of highly dedicated and capable researchers, which still exists today. Then, from autumn 2009 to January 2011, I was a blogger at Palingates, and afterwards founded Politicalgates, together with others.
Over time, we received some excellent bits of inside information from Alaska. It's not true that nobody talked. People DID talk, but only in private, off the record, as many people are still afraid of Sarah Palin's influence, with good reason. These sources were people from the "higher echelons of society." We do know for example that a top-Republican AK politician said in a private, confidential conversation in January 2008 as a fact that Bristol was pregnant. In JANUARY 2008. There ARE people who do know the truth, and ultimately, they will talk. Huffpost, Salon etc. then will have a lot of explaining to do. It will be very embarrassing, and with diligent research, this outcome could have been avoided.
But then, these people are just unbelievers, pour souls, aren't they, may God have mercy with them - worthy a response, they are apparently not.
Even more direct than Jason Linkins was Dave Weigel yesterday in "Slate", when he explained that the "Trig Truthers" are apparently part of a notorious "conspiracy underground", and it's impossible that their assertions are correct. It's not necessary to look at any evidence, because the Trig Truthers are "nuts", just like any other conspiracy theorists - so no further investigations are needed.
That's the situation we have right now, but if the defenders of Sarah Palin think that the last word has already been spoken yet in respect to her pregnancy, than they are very, very mistaken.
Has Salon ever aired the countless questions so many have had about this bizarre pregnancy? Or the persistent disbelief around it? About the wild ride? By not even acknowledging the natural skepticism of people toward these strange narratives, by arguing there is nothing fishy here at all without even going into what people have found fishy, is also a cop-out. It's basically an insult to the many people who remain genuinely puzzled by all this.
This blog, moreover, has diligently offered up evidence on both sides. Salon will not publish anything that might counter their a priori position. I mean: how many politicians in history have claimed that they gave a political speech while experiencing contractions? If that isn't de facto curious and remarkable enough to be worth asking about, what is? And yet no one - even those supportive of her - will go near that question.
There is also the matter of consistency. When a politician has publicly claimed she has produced a birth certificate and hasn't, is it illegitimate for the press to ask why she simply lied about this? Can any sane person misremember such a thing? And if she's claimed she has released it, what on earth is the ethical reason for not asking her to do it along with medical records? When she publicly derides skeptics in speech after speech, is it not the press's duty to see if her derision has empirical validity? Or are we skeptics supposed to just sit back and be mocked by a pathological liar putting her own credibility against ours?
We all have cognitive biases. I have one - profound skepticism of anything Palin says - and may be judging evidence in ways that others wouldn't. But so do Justin and Ben and Weigel who have an interest in dismissing the possibility that they may have missed uncovering the biggest hoax in American political history. That same cognitive bias question applies to Loy and Quinn. It does not mean they they may not be right. It just means that their cognitive bias is as real as my own.
It seems to me that when some simple, readily available medical records could end this excruciating debate in one easy swoop - and could have more than two years ago - it is professional negligence that the MSM won't even ask for such proof, and devote far more energy to defending their own past than the facts at hand.
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All posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy can be read HERE and HERE.
All old posts at Palingates about "babygate" with the pictures still intact can be accessed HERE.
The big backlash of the "liberal media" - it was foreseeable. When the confidential "Trig Journo-List emails" were published by the Daily Caller in July 2010 (download them HERE), we got an unique insight into the minds of liberal journalists regarding the question of Trig's birth.
The liberal journalists should be our allies in the investigation of Sarah Palin numerous scandals, but according to these emails, many of them are mainly interested in one thing: Politics - not facts.
Let's take a look at some email exchanges which took place at "Journo-List" on August 30, 2008.
Mark Kleiman, Professor for Public Policy at UCLA, wrote back then:
Absolutely don’t touch it. Even the Kossacks are voting to leave it alone. Even if it were true, it would be as much to her credit as anything, and bringing it out would be horribly cruel to the daughter and the infant. And given the statistics about Down Syndrome and age, how likely is it to be true anyway? Yuck yuck yuck.
Hit her on bringing the cameras when she visited the wounded warriors. That’s fair game, and that will hurt with her base.
Ryan Donmoyer, Government Legislation reporter at "Bloomberg":
Back to the substance at hand, this is one hell of a whacky conspiracy theory and I too agree it’s probably best left alone. I do wonder, however, whether at least one authoritative piece ought to be done to try to put the issue to rest — not as a hit job on Palin so much as to counter something that has already rapidly and viciously spread on the Internet and will only go more viral. As long as it’s in the rumor stage it rivals the disinformation disseminated about Obama — and neither is useful for the public discourse.
And I do think if this were true, it may creep some people out who thought the days of sending your knockedup teenager away to live with the outofstateaunt ended with Roe v. Wade.
Ezra Klein from the "Washington Post", who originally started the "Journo-List" group, weighed in as well:
Seriously, folks? Best case scenario, what’s your outcome here: Her daughter, hounded by the tabloids, breaks down that it was her child, and her mother heroically took on the burden and welcomed the disabled boy as one of her own? Palin’s relationship with her children — however they may have come to her — strikes me as pretty far out of bounds. By all accounts she’s a wonderful mother, and devoted to her fifth son. Leave this be.
Lindsay Beyerstein, investigative journalist, sensed a trap:
In the postRathergate era, journalists should be on their guard for Republican dirty tricks.
If this story gains traction, regardless of its truth or falsity, the Republicans will take steps to neutralize the meme.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the McCain campaign were to leak doctored evidence for the sole purpose of discrediting it and destroying the journalist who published it. That’s probably what the Killian memos were.
We should also be on guard for “evidence” falling into the lap of an unknown and easily discredited figure. That’s probably what Rove did to neutralize the allegations of cocaine use by George W. Bush, lo these many years ago.
If apparently wellsubstantiated allegations emerge, we should be alert for the story behind the story, so to speak.
Water breaking doesn’t mean you’re about to deliver.
You can go a couple of days after your water breaks before going into labor.–though at some point, they’ll induce the labor because they’re worried about infection.
Of course an airline would let her on the plane. The airline would have no way of knowing–unless she told them.
As a woman who has had 4 children, she wouldn’t be in a panic, and would have some sense of how close she was to going into labor.
As for raising her daughter’s child (if it was her daughter’s child) this is, as someone else said, a timehonored solution to teen pregnancy when the teen isn’t ready to be a mother and the family as a whole doesn’t want to give up the baby. (This doesn’t mean they’re antiabortion; they just can’t bear the idea of losing or giving up “their” grandhild,/child. Everyone feels better keeping hte baby and at the same time the teen can go on with her life.
There is nothing sordid about this unless the teen’s father is the father of the baby . . Otherwise, it’s an understandable solution, –but rather complicated to explain to a 4yearold.
Eventually you explain it, and if done in a guiltfree fashion, presumably it’s no more traumatic than finding out you’re adopted. Except you don’t have to hunt for your mother or wonder what she’s like.
Adam Serwer from "The American Prospect":
I gotta say, if this is much ado about nothing, the McCain campaign may be very happy to air these rumors in public. It gives them their first big opportunity to say that she’s being attacked unfairly, and because Democrats are sexist.
Mark Kleiman then expressed a notion which apparently became the"consensus":
I see no upside for our side here. There’s plenty of other stuff to work on that won’t get her any sympathy at all and won’t risk damage to her innocent children/grandchild.
This is your liberal media, ladies and gentlemen: totally partisan, interested in the truth only if it advances their agenda, and devoid of any balls whatsoever. And people wonder how this farce of a candidate now controls one major political party and could well be our next president. One reason is that we do not have a functioning adversarial media uncorrupted by partisan loyalty and tactics.
That was in July 2010, and now, nearly one year later, it's payback time! Watch out, Andrew Sullivan!
After the publication of Prof. Brad Scharlott's research paper about the Trig-pregnancy and the "spiral of silence" in the media, the liberal journalists came under pressure. Did they miss the big story, or did they even suppress it for purely political reasons?
I immediately had to think of the reporting about the pregnancy by Huffington Post from September 1, 2008, when writer Lee Stranahan declared that the mystery of the pregnancy had been solved: "Anchorage TV Station: Sarah Palin Was 'Definitely Pregnant' With Trig." No further questions had to be asked. Documented proof was never deemed to be necessary.
I actually exchanged some emails with Lee Stranahan in October 2009, shortly after I had started to blog for Palingates. I had send him a long list of links and material regarding "babygate". He wrote me on October 27, 2009:
Patrick,
There a ton of holes in your theory. One of them involves a giant conspiracy of a lot of people, including people like Levi Johnston and the people I spoke to. It's implausible.
I've seen the 'proof'. Much of it - like her flight from Texas - doesn't mean anything. First off, I don't her behavior weird. My wife gave birth to two kids, unassisted - no doctor or midwife. Not everyone views the birthing process the same way.
More importantly - why rush home? Palin wasn't really pregant, right? No need to rush.
And for that matter, why do such a shitty job of faking it? Appearing without her fat suit in all those pictures.
It doesn't pass any sniff test to me and I talked to people.
I was right about John Edwards. I researched to confirm my hunches.
It was more or less a practical joke, warmed over with academic pretensions. The fact is that Trig Trutherism, like Birtherism, and also classic 9/11 Trutherism, are different offshoots of the same conspiratorial tradition, where you begin with a zany premise and work backwards, selecting "evidence" that can be shoehorned into your premise, while omitting or ignoring the details that shoot it down. Pretty soon, you're attempting to draw spectral meaning from photographs you didn't take and pondering the significance of the pilot episodes of "X-Files" spin-offs.
How long should anyone tolerate this astral projection? Let it cease forever, with the publication of Justin Elliott and Steve Kornacki's multipart takedown of the entire mythos -- which shows great restraint in that it's not all titled, "Where's Your Messiah Now, Andrew Sullivan?"
It sounds to me like:
Yes, where is your messiah now, Andrew Sullivan? You cannot prove it! Haha, we are laughing at you! We have won, we have won, oh happy day, we have been victorious about the conspiracy theorists! Now, where are YOUR balls, Andrew Sullivan?
The responsibility to put the controversy to rest lies with elites.
Yes, the "elites"! The "elites" have decided, and if you don't choose to believe it, well, then go and play somewhere else, but not with the "elites!"
So let's take a closer look at the evidence which is offered by the liberal media elite.
Justin Elliott claims in "Salon" to have written the "definite debunker." He doesn't need documentary evidence, because he has witnesses. Who are they?
In light of the recent attention this subject has received and the considerable passion it has stirred, Salon embarked last week on an investigation of the circumstances surrounding Trig's birth. 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 2008 -- 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.
Then follows immediately his first "crown witness" - believe it or not, there was actually somebody who saw Sarah Palin's pregnant belly, according to Justin Elliott:
We've learned, for instance, that an Associated Press reporter in Alaska who was covering Palin during her pregnancy in early 2008 (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. Gov. 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.
Who is this "crown witness?" A few paragraphs later, Justin Elliott explains:
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 2008. 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. "She was able to show a thin layer of clothing against her stomach that revealed an enlarged abdomen area," he says.
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.
An enlarged abdomen area was revealed! In early March 2008! That is incredible. We should probably all be very ashamed now, we evil "Trig Truthers." How could we be so mean and claim that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy?
But wait a moment. Steve Quinn? Doesn't that ring a bell?
The relationship between Ivy Frye and Steve Quinn is very well documented. Andrew Halcro, prominent Alaskan Republican politician and blogger, wrote about it already in July 2008, after rather "unusual" emails had emerged through a FOIA request:
It appears that one of the more confidential acts in the state capitol is having a cup of coffee.
It's hard to understand why when the governor's assistant Ivy Frye and Associated Press reporter Steve Quinn get together for a cup of coffee and then communicate via the state email system, why that would rise to the level of a state secret.
So, does this automatically mean that all "evidence" by Steve Quinn is "tainted?"
Well, maybe not, purely judging by the information which is already available on the internet.
But if Justin Elliott actually had done real, thorough research, instead of just making some phone calls and writing some emails to people who claim that they had "seen" something, he could have known that there is a ticking timebomb, waiting to explode: The extensive revelations about former AP-reporter Steve Quinn in the unpublished manuscript by Frank Bailey.
In the unpublished book "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin", which promises to become a top-bestseller, Frank Bailey describes in great detail how Steve Quinn served as a willing mouthpiece for Sarah Palin, quoting extensively from email-conversations as well. Bailey explains how the relationship of Steve Quinn to Ivy Frye was deliberately exploited by the Palin-camp, that he served as a useful idiot for Sarah Palin. For example, Frank Bailey observes that Steve Quinn's "consistently favorable perspective" was "one we relied on to counter the negative bias in the otherwise Lame Stream Media", and added that as a "cheerleader", Steve Quinn "exceeded our hopes."
Frank Bailey also quotes for example an email by Ivy Frye from March 2008, in which she says the following about Steve Quinn:
He's been a good supporter of the governor and will write a story very beneficial to our cause, I believe. He'll cover the entire timeline from (Ruedrich‘s) APOC fines, the last attempt to remove him, his ties to big oil and the former administration, his badmouthing of the governor to the RNC…not supporting her campaign, etc. Off the record he told me it would be better to hear from us before he here's (sic) from the party. It will appear we're being pro -active instead of reactionary. His story would come out at an appropriate time as you sent the fliers out today. He'll be published before rr and his cohorts have time to respond.
Frank Bailey's concludes his documentation of Steve Quinn's useful activities with the following sentence:
His dating Ivy was, as Sarah indicated in a few catty moments, only a convenient means to a favorable end.
So, Justin Elliott, this is your main "crown witness?"
Oh, I forgot, there were more witnesses! Let's see how well they fare on close inspection.
Some days after the big announcement, I requested an interview with Palin in her office. Part of the reason for my visit that day was to ask her about talk around town that perhaps she wasn’t the only member of the family expecting a baby, that perhaps her daughter, Bristol, was as well.
To ask the question, I insisted that everyone in the room clear out, leaving just me and the governor in private. I didn’t want members of her staff listening in, and I didn’t want to embarrass the governor.
Palin honored my request. I asked her not to be mad at me for what I was about to ask, and her eyes seemed to twinkle with anticipation. No, she said, just come out with it.
As I recall, she just dismissed it as more baseless gossip about her kids.
Then she told me that some were even suggesting that she was pretending to have a baby as a way to cover for her daughter. She reckoned that notion came from a storyline on "Desperate Housewives."
This was the first I’d ever heard of what has now become, as we know, a national obsession for some Palin watchers.
Anyway, Palin said it was all ridiculous. Then she backed her chair away from her desk to show me her (covered) baby bump, assuring me that, yes, she was pregnant.
For an instant, I thought of asking her to let me see or feel her belly but chickened out (something I now regret, given how this thing has taken off so).
After Trig’s birth, Palin seemed always to have the baby with her, carrying him in a shoulder sling. He seemed really small to me.
Another reporter who claims to have seen "the (covered) baby bump!" Do we have to be ashamed NOW?
Wesley Loy seems to express regret in the Salon-article that he once wrote an often cited article in the ADN about the birth announcement, which was published on March 6, 2008. Quote from the article:
The governor, who recently turned 44, told a handful of reporters as she was leaving work to expect a new member of the first family, then headed to a reception at the Baranof Hotel to feast on king crab.
Palin said she's already about seven months along, with the baby due to arrive in mid-May.
That the pregnancy is so advanced astonished all who heard the news. The governor, a runner who's always been trim, simply doesn't look pregnant.
Even close members of her staff said they only learned this week their boss was expecting.
The news was so stunning because, as I wrote in the next day’s edition of my paper, the Anchorage Daily News, she simply didn’t look pregnant. Certainly not seven months along.
In hindsight, I realized I had missed some clues.
Yes, he missed some clues. Case closed, I guess?
Well, it would have been nice to get a statement from Wesley Loy himself, to finally clear up the matter. But unfortunately, he chose not to respond to numerous requests. As Prof. Brad Scharlott told me today via email:
I have emailed Loy several times over the last three years -- most recently a month or so ago -- and he has not responded.
However, that was not all that Prof. Scharlott told us today.
Prof. Scharlott was also in contact via email with former ADN-columnist Gregg Erickson in September 2008. This is what Gregg Erickson wrote to Prof. Scharlott back then:
From: Gregg Erickson Subject: Re: Palin pregnancy Date: September 10, 2008 5:16:07 AM EDT To: Brad Scharlott Cc: wloy@adn.com
Dear Brad:
Anchorage Daily News reporter Wesley Loy investigated the idea that Trig is not Sarah Palin's baby. I've worked with (and against Loy) for years. He's an astute, indefatigable and ruthless reporter.
During this summer's special legislative session Loy, I, and my wife occupied three adjoining offices near the Capitol We frequently discussed stories we were reporting for Judy's newsletter, my columns, and the stories he was was working. We especially enjoyed Wesley's accounts of his pursuit the "Grandma Governor fakes birth" story.
As far as I know nothing was ever published on "Grandma," but he might have posted something on ADN's "Alaska Politics" blog or elsewhere that I didn't see.
I suggest you address your questions to him at
wloy@adn.com
Good luck,
Gregg Erickson
What was that? "We especially enjoyed Wesley's accounts of his pursuit the "Grandma Governor fakes birth" story." But wasn't the matter settled after Wesley Loy saw Sarah Palin's "(covered) baby bump" in March 2008? What was there left to investigate? And why does Wesley Loy not share his entertaining "pursuits" with the general public, and why did he never respond to Prof. Scharlott, if everything is so "clear cut?" We are all dying to hear the details of Wesley Loy's pursuits!
So that's Justin Elliott's second crown witness. It's my view that in a court of law, the jurors would have a pretty stunned look on their faces by now.
My perspective and what I've seen might give you some insight as to why this is such a big issue, since you don't think it's important.
Justin Elliott responded quickly to Kim Chatman - his complete reply:
dont have time to talk on phone i'm afraid. feel free to outline in an email
Kim Chatman immediately replied with a detailed email, as requested, explaining for example that she had seen Sarah Palin in person after Palin had announced her pregnancy, and that Palin did not look pregnant at all - excerpt:
First of all I voted for Sarah Palin to be our Governor without doing any research whatsoever, I was impressed with everything she said and she looked nice. After she announced her pregnancy my children and I were in Fairbanks and we saw her, I mentioned to my daughter that she didn't look pregnant at all. Didn't think much about it again until ADN announced that she had her baby, the baby had Downs. Then there was the Texas water broke flew to Anchorage drove past a major hospital to Wasilla delivered a premature Downs baby in a hospital that is not equipped to provide NICU care and then she went to work three days later. Are you kidding me. I have seven children, one died from complications at birth as a mother with a high risk pregnancy you would never take a chance like that. So alarm bells went off.
Justin Elliott didn't respond to Kim Chatman again. It does seem that he has better things to do than to talk to witnesses who contradict his findings.
Like it or not, that was how Sarah Palin looked on March 26, 2008, just about three weeks before officially giving birth to a six-pound baby (click to enlarge):
We also spoke to Erika Bolstad, a veteran McClatchy reporter who covers Washington for the Anchorage Daily News. In early 2008, Bolstad began working on a story about the vice-presidential buzz surrounding Palin. When Palin traveled to Washington for a meeting of the National Governors Association, held the weekend of Feb. 23-25, Bolstad caught up with Palin for an in-person interview. This was about a week before the pregnancy was announced, and about seven weeks before Palin gave birth to Trig. Bolstad told us that she distinctly remembers thinking that the governor looked pregnant.
"When I interviewed her and heard the news a few days later that she was pregnant, there was no doubt in my mind that it was true," she said. "I saw her. She looked pregnant."
This clip was already the subject of extensive discussions in the past on the blogs which were investigating babygate (for example here and here).
Watch for yourself how the supposedly highly pregnant Sarah, who hadn't announced her pregnancy at this point and would officially give birth to a six-pound baby just about 2 months later, masters the icy conditions and at the same time chats to the reporters:
A reader sent us a still shot from this video - which proves how Sarah Palin performed a remarkable magic trick: She is carrying an invisible baby, to whom she will give birth two months later!
(click on picture to enlarge)
Well, just several days later, on March 3, 2008, the highly pregnant Sarah Palin was interviewed by Newsweek's Karen Breslau. Surely it will now be obvious that Sarah is highly pregnant. After all, she will give birth just six-weeks after this interview, and two days after her interview, she announced her pregnancy.
Well, the fact-check didn't reveal the "pregnant Sarah", I am afraid to say, but just exactly the opposite.
But who needs a fact-check anyway, when the "Trig Truthers" are via official, final decree by Huffington Post and others on one level with 9-11 truthers and Obama birthers?
At the end, Justin Elliott also mentions that Frank Bailey serves as another witness - because he has seen a non-pregnant Bristol Palin on April 18, 2008 at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center:
Finally, there is Frank Bailey, a disgruntled former Palin aide who has a book coming out about his experiences at Palin's side. In it, he reveals that "he visited Sarah Palin at the hospital just hours after Trig was born and spotted Bristol sitting in the waiting room," according to a description of his book by a Daily Beast reporter who obtained an early copy.
Sarah Palin couldn't even prove her pregnancy while she was supposedly pregnant. It is shameful how intelligent journalists like Justin Elliott, Jason Linkins and others are being fooled by the scam-artist Sarah Palin.
The "definite debunker" by Justin Elliott, which the other liberal media outlets then just quoted from, didn't debunk anything. A "reasonable reporter", to use this expression from the headline by Jason Linkins in Huffington Post, would ask real questions and demand real evidence - questions like the ones we suggested to them in our previous post.
The liberal media now believes that this isn't necessary to ask real questions and to demand real proof. The "Trig question" will start to haunt them, and when this is all over, I am sure somebody will write a fascinating book about the reasons for this colossal journalistic failure, which has nothing to do with facts, but everything to do with politics. But either you are a journalist, or you are a politician. One shouldn't try to mix the two.
From these two excellent books I learned that these controversies surrounding inconvenient, politically charged revelations are not unusual at all, and that there can be setbacks, as well as ridicule. However, if investigative journalists are persistent and are not thrown "off balance", the truth will prevail.
For example, in chapter ten of "Confessions of a Muckraker", Jack Anderson describes in great detail his fight against Joe McCarthy, which went on for several years. A major effort was made to debunk the official war record of "Tailgunner Joe" - a hopeless effort, as it seemed at first, as Joe McCarthy's record was backed up at first sight by extensive documentation, and the journalists were more than once the objects of great ridicule. How dare they tarnish the reputation of a distinguished war hero!
However, Jack Anderson and his crew weren't discouraged, and finally they found the pieces of evidence which proved that "Tailgunner Joe's" heroic war actions were simply made up - Joe McCathy "faked" them, so to speak, in order to boost his credentials.
If journalists are not discouraged by the efforts to discredit anyone who tries to find the truth about Sarah Palin's "pregnancy" with Trig, they will ultimately be successful as well. Who knows, in the end there might even be some Pulizer Prize's in store - however, one thing is for sure: Justin Elliott, Jason Linkins and friends won't get them.
For the moment, all I’ll say is that during my research for The Rogue, I spoke to an extremely knowledgeable source who had never before been willing to discuss the question of Trig’s birth. But my lips are sealed until September.
It surely will be a sweaty summer for the "liberal media elite!"
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All posts at Politicalgates about Sarah Palin's faked pregnancy can be read HERE and HERE.
All old posts at Palingates about "babygate" with the pictures still intact can be accessed HERE.
little post.
