SOUNDBITES — “In fact, my blog never stated anything about Palin’s pregnancy and took her at her word. That’s why she decided not to sue me. She had no basis for any kind of suit. I simply asked her and the campaign to provide easily available proof that she indeed was the biological mother of Trig after her bizarre and incredible stories about her pregnancy and labor. She has failed to produce any such evidence. And she clearly never will. If she hadn’t used the baby as a central political argument in favor of voting for her, I would not have cared. But it seems to me fair to ask factual questions about a story that the candidate uses on the stump and that has aspects of it that are simply bewildering. I ask her again: please provide evidence to confirm a core story of your political message and campaign. I will happily publish any such evidence on my blog to clear the air for good and all. But she won’t. But then she is of course the leader of a formerly reputable political party.” —Andrew Sullivan, who Sarah Palin considered suing during the campaign because he dared, like, question a political candidate (via)
Qjersey
The only part of Palin’s pregnancy story that fits is that women over 40 are more likely to have babies with down’s syndrome.
vito
I demand to know why Andrew Sullivan hasn’t provided proof that he isn’t a total tool. Not saying he is, just speculating about the possibility.
AlwaysGay
I still am skeptical of Trig’s pregnancy story. It is difficult to believe. Andrew Sullivan is within journalistic standards asking Sarah Palin a key element of a story SHE TOLD.
Republican
Andrew Sullivan is as nutty as the birthers who think Obama was born in Kenya and try to use the fact that Obama doesn’t respond to them as proof that he’s hiding something. Sometimes people don’t respond to your insane bullshit because, well, it’s insane bullshit, and responding to your craziness would give it a sense of legitimacy. There are a million things to criticize about Palin (her positions, lack of experience, etc.). You don’t need ridiculous conspiracy theories about her baby to justify being opposed to her. Please, Andrew, for the sake of humanity, just go back to your friend Mary Jane and shut the fuck up.
FakeName
Obama responded to the birthers by providing a copy of his birth certificate in June 2008. http://msgboard.snopes.com/politics/graphics/birth.jpg
Palin told a story which strains credulity. She concealed her pregnancy for eight months, flew from Alaska to Texas in her eighth month (around 4,000 miles), delivered a speech hours after her water broke, flew BACK to Alaska and then drove several hours to a remote hospital for the delivery. Any one of these is enough to raise questions. All of them together certainly qualify as suspicious enough to warrant further scrutiny. If Palin didn’t want to be questioned about the circumstances of her pregnancy then she shouldn’t have discussed them. If Palin didn’t expect that someone in the press might have follow-up questions about a story that strange, then she’s an idiot.
Republican
After he did that, there were all sorts of claims that the certificate was fake, that there is another certificate out there from Kenya, that it wasn’t what they had asked for, and so on. Obama has not responded to any of that and he has no need to. In short, the loonies were not satisfied with reality (loonies seldom are).
Believe in the Palin conspiracy theory if you must. My grandmother was still working on the farm until just a few hours before giving birth to her last child, because she had had three before and knew the difference between it’s close and it’s coming now.
Every conspiracy theory supporter always claims to just be asking questions about curious events, but reality is seldom as interesting as our minds would desire. The most amusing part is that the nutjobs who push them often help out the very people they despise, because most people are turned off by such craziness and may unfortunately start to have sympathy for the one who is being criticized. God help us if that happens with Palin.
plutarch
He talk so much, says so little, but comes across inevitably as very easy to ascertain. Douchewindbag.
FakeName
Obama responded when the questions were originally raised. Palin has never answered. That’s the difference.
I have no idea whether Trig is Sarah Palin’s birth child or not. That isn’t the point. The point is that, if she is indeed the birth mother, she made a long series of very questionable decisions about a pregnancy with multiple high risk factors that potentially endangered the child’s life; if she isn’t the birth mother then she’s a liar who furthered her political career at the expense of her daughter. It’s completely reasonable for the press to question her about it when she put it on the public record and it’s completely reasonable to continue asking the questions until she answers them and to remind people when she doesn’t.
With all due respect to your grandmother, she was giving birth at a time when medical science knew a lot less about the risks of pregnancy.
done4good
Actually, and I don’t agree with her politics, but it doesnt matter if the child is hers or not…was it abused? no. Hidden away? no..its obviously being taken care of and that she used its presence in the campaign is besides the point REALLY.
I’m more concerned to know if Andrew Sullivan uses Meth when he writes on his blog. heh.
FakeName
It matters because: if he is hers then she made a string of decisions that potentially endangered him and this calls her judgment into question; if he isn’t hers then she’s a liar who sacrificed her daughter for political gain by attempting to quash the rumor by exploiting Bristol’s pregnancy.
done4good
No it doesnt matter. Its a spiraling road you’re on by -insisting- on it being important…Whats next in your dossier analysis of madame Palin? Stop being a ninny.
Emmazon
It “doesn’t matter” if she’s a liar. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but it does matter to reasonable people. Didn’t think I’d be reading “I got a hard on for Palin” comments here.
Cam
My issue with her is that, if I take her at her word, then she behaved in ways that really endangered the health of her baby. You go into labor in Texas and you won’t allow a Texas hospital to deliver but demand to be flown back to Alaska while you’re in labor?? Sounds like she was trying to have a stillbirth.
Ted C.
@Vito: +1
done4goodbutnot4you
@emmazon..or should i say Zombie?
You’re a lackey fool tempted by the dictates of others. Please do carry on off a cliff.
Attmay
@12 Emmazon:
I didn’t think people would be defending Turncoat Andy the Conspiracy Queen here.
@6 Republican:
Of course they say they’re “asking questions,” but they’ll keep asking until they get an answer that suits their purpose, no matter what its veracity. Just like the 9/11 Truthers. And the Kennedy Assassination Kooks. And the Holocaust Deniers.
@8 FakeName:
“I have no idea whether Trig is Sarah Palin’s birth child or not. That isn’t the point.”
Yes it is the point. Sully is a conspiracy theorist who denies any facts that get in the way of his agenda. He had a hard-on for Obama last year, and after briefly turning on him played kiss-and-make-up with The One when the Feds dropped his pot charges. Why should Palin have to dignify libel with a response? The burden of proof is on the accuser, and he failed.
FakeName
Done4Good, it may not matter TO YOU whether Palin either acted in a wildly reckless manner in her bizarre antics between Texas and Alaska while in labor or she lied and exposed her daughter to traumatic national media attention in her attempt to sit one heartbeat away from the presidency, but to some of us knowing whether someone seeking that level of power is irresponsible or a liar and a horrendous mother is a little bit important. If that makes me a ninny, so be it. I’d rather be an informed ninny than an ignorant jagoff.
done4goodbutnot4you
@fakefart
I got it. I really do. Stop beating the partisan drum of mendacity, will ya?
Aren’t there other policy issues that are at odds with contemporary reason that we could go after instead of her ‘tarded kid?
yikes. you’re an idiot.
done4goodbutnot4you
and anyway, mister
if it were up to justice, should not we decree the media at fault for being so tempted by drama? Why go after her familial strife?
Tool.
FakeName
Wow, the strength and majesty of your argument is so perfectly captured by the completely non-clever rendering of my user name as an attempted flatulence joke. How will I ever be able to match such dizzying rhetorical heights?
As for my supposed partisanship, I am not affiliated with any political party and I take my political and social ideas from many sources.
I for one am not going after her child. I am wondering whether she endangered that child by making a lot of seriously bad choices about his birth or if she betrayed her daughter for political power. These are the sorts of questions I would ask of any political candidate who offered up the sort of cock-and-bull yarn that Palin did regarding the pregnancy and birth. Wanting an answer to these questions does not mean that I do not also question her – and other candidates – about policy and whatever else I believe needs to be questioned.
Why this has you in a name-calling froth is a mystery to me. I suppose I could conclude that you’re a gormless tit with the intellectual capacity of chipmunk with dementia but that wouldn’t be very charitable of me, would it?
Chapeau
You asshats attacking Sullivan should STFU !!
That Idiot-cum-candidate would have us believe that she boarded a plane and flew all the way to Alaska – to give birth .. is one of the most incredulous stories I’ve ever heard told.
She’s not believable and if she runs again on the national stage – someone = anyone should be calling her on her BS – and not just the Trig.
WTG Sullivan – and for the record I’m not always your fan either .. but on Palin .. I’ve got your back.
glennmcgahee
Can we please have Andrew Sullivan finally deported. Lets give his slot to an educated person from another country that actually has something positive to contribute to our country. What an idiot. He’s still shilling for Obama since the Attorney General thanked him for his support by having his charges of smoking pot at The National Seashore was dropped. Don’t get me started on his bragging about bareback sex (he’s positive). The guy is an idiot who is obviously jealous of Palin being married to a real hot man. Sullivan is a flabby ahole thats growing old and tiresome fast. I hate to think America sees him as a representative of our community.
taco
i’m not a palin fan, but seriously, this is conspiracy-mongering and pretty rude of him. he’s so melodramatic and easily excitable, that for him to write this piece as though he were making a calm request without accusation is completely disingenuous. something about sarah palin makes him, and countless others, so angry, so love to despise and ridicule her. it’s strange that they don’t get so upset about the many others in both parties who plainly are not ready or yet or informed enough and have the audacity to believe themselves up for the challenge of being in national politics. it’s probably because she’s a woman, and she breaks both the prescribed roles that our society has for both conservative and liberal women. the intense hatred the left and the acidity with which people exhibit joy in condemning her reminds me of the way the right approached hillary in the 1990s (sullivan is also convinced that mrs. clinton rules her own circle of hell in which she just lies and lies and lies). i have to believe there’s a correlation, and it is called misogyny. it would be better for andrew sullivan to calm down, critique her politics as best he can but with a modicum of respect, and avoid becoming so incredulously irate at the fact that the funny-voiced, strange and enigmatic lady from alaska had the temerity to insert herself into the field he so excitedly and hyperemotionally covers. thanks!
JonathanHasHadIt
SULLIVAN is a pothead who got special treatment when caught. He’s a fraud.
timmmeeeyyy
The far left is as crazy as the far right. Is this the “nonbirther” movement?
Attmay
As for it being farfetched that Palin went to Alaska to give birth, it’s no more farfetched than my grandmother going to her doctor in New York to give birth to my father…when my grandparents lived in Detroit. That actually happened.
PJ
I wonder if the people who still cling to Trig Palin conspiracy delusions have any idea how the female reproductive system works, or if they zoned out while that section was being taught in sex ed. It is simply.not.possible for a woman to give birth to two separate children in April and December of the same year. I seriously doubt that either Sarah or Bristol Palin have such superhuman qualities to their wombs that would allow them to be the exceptions to the rule, but what do I know? I’m not a self-declared magic gynecologist like St. Andrew of the Aching Heart.