I don't know whether Andrew Sullivan is deserving of praise or blame for harping on about Sarah Palin's pregnancy story. On the one hand, it's now treated as if it's a conspiracy theory on a par with the birthers. To the degree that he is to blame for that, I wish he hadn't kept at it. That said, there is something so odd going on that it really should be looked at. Everyone who has ever had a baby, and in particular a special needs baby who will require extra medical care immediately after birth, who thinks about the details of this story knows it's nutso. A 43-year-old woman, whose amniotic sac has ruptured, who is pregnant with a baby with Down syndrome who has a heart defect, does not sanely and rationally decide to get on three planes to fly home so that the baby might get to be born in a hospital without a NICU.
I will say that I think it very unlikely that Trig is not hers. The pics are a little odd. But it requires less violent twisting of logic and human psychology to posit that she was indeed pregnant than does positing that she pretended to have a child to cover up her daughter's pregnancy. I think by dwelling on this option, Sullivan has made those who question her seem like loopy conspiracy theorists.
That leaves two options: 1) she lied to puff herself up, and 2) she told the truth. In either case, what she has done deserves to be attached to her reputation.
If she lied to puff herself up, this seems a lie on a much bigger order than "I invented the internet." It suggests a serious amount of untrustworthiness, a serious willingness to bullshit in the Frankfurt sense, a serious indifference to the value of honesty.
If she told the truth, that suggest that she acted at the very least with careless disregard for her child's life. Or perhaps she deliberately placed her child in harm's way so that it might die "naturally." I'm not sure which is more likely: the lie or the truth. On the one hand, I'd rather she be a liar than a reckless mother. On the other hand, we do know that she decided to fly to Texas in the eighth month of a high risk pregnancy.
Are we to laud her that she didn't get an abortion, but instead allowed a much older infant, one who is certainly sentient, possibly to suffer or even die? If she did indeed tell the truth, she acted with shocking immaturity and selfishness.
There is something to story of Trig and it should be out there.
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Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically: Toom)
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Let's say Garlic is Coca leaves. Toom is Cocaine.
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Times.
1 hour ago
Look, I gotta cut her a break on this one. I think she is pretty damn dumb in the sense that she really believes everything is in God's hands and he will take care of her. I don't believe in any active malevolence here. I don't understand the timeline of how Trig could be her daughters son, since she evidently would have had to have the next baby right away. (I am not sure of the age difference between Trig and whatever the other baby's name is, lets say Truck, but isn't this noteworthy in itself to end all speculation?)
ReplyDeleteA couple other things don't make sense, if she were faking it all, why make up the drama about being in Texas, why not just say she started labor after she got home? A simpler lie is far better than this crazy truth, which shows she really is a nitwit.
By the way I have seen pictures of Trig being carried by her with his having no pants on or socks and shoes in evidently cold weather. Her being reckless and stupid has been evident for a long time
charo
I don't think she faked it. I do think she either lied about the whole drama, or, if it really happened, was reckless and stupid, perhaps non-consciously hoping harm would come to the baby.
ReplyDeleteStill giggling over "Truck."
What is this Palin obsession? The woman doesn't hold elected office, and she's a media personality. You may as well harp on Oprah for carefully managing her life so she doesn't pay her fair share of the public burden in California, where she owns mansions.
ReplyDeleteReally, what business is it of yours what she does with her body? Until the fetus is born, it is her body to do with as she pleases. Right?
And what lie are you referring to in paragraph 3? That she was preggers? C'mon, you can surely find a more interesting topic than this. How about the role of regulators in light of the BP spill or the collapse of AIG's regulated insurance products. Or the responsibility of government to have a competent response to disasters? Or what, exactly, are our military and political objectives in Afghanistan, and are we able to achieve them and at what cost? Or look into the steaming pile of fail that is MassCare, the model for ObamaCare, and what that portends for the Federal government which, unlike MA, can't suck money out of other political entities to keep this good-intentioned but economically doomed monstrosity from bankrupting us all.
Why worry about a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body?
I'm not worried about her right to choose. Well, I am, but not here.
ReplyDeleteI am worried about the face of the conservative movement, and the face of special needs parenting.
Let's just assume the story is true.
ReplyDeletePalin decides to fly down to Texas knowing that she is 8 months pregnant (against airline rules) and at 4 am her water breaks, she hangs out for 8 hours, gives a speech at noon, then with a special needs child inside her with profound potential physical complications leaves the hotel right next to a world class medical center, and gets on a plane to Seattle.
She then hangs out in the lobby at the airport in Seattle reading a book casually as she waits to transfer to Anchorage. Anchorage has a NICU. There was an ice storm while she was gone. She takes off from Anchorage driving through snow and ice to go to her hometime hospital to have her baby induced by a general practitioner at a hospital for a town of less than 20,000 which isn't equipped to deal with twins or any more serious high risk pregnancy. He is born a month premature, and she then brings him to work 3 days later no worse for the wear. Good thing he looks heavy.
That's her story. Think about it.
Sarah Palin is no more the face of the conservative movement than Oprah is the face of the liberal movement.
ReplyDeleteAs far as special needs parenting, I think of my uncle and aunt, who have spent 40 years providing loving care for their special needs daughter. That's my face of special needs parenting.
We all have our own face of special needs parenting (I look in the mirror). But she sets the public debate. So far she's begun and ended with the R word.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much information that has been uncovered in the last two years which prooves Sarah didn't birth Tri-g. Sarah was on the short list for VP nomination.She annouunces sh is 7 months pregnant the day after McCain gets nomination. Everyone is stunned. Sarah has an amazing shapeshifting body. Highly pregnant one day, yet flight attendants on 4 plane flights report "the stage of her pregnancy was not apparent. HUH?? What about the picture taken April 13th but revealed late August to dispel the Bristol is really Tri-'s mom rumors? Then of course there is the netire fantasy of the wild ride from Texas to Alaska. Pure hogwash. And her physician CBJ. Man I'd love to know what her malpractice insurance is as it is outside her scope of practice as a family practice physician to deliver a high risk prgnancy at a small hospital without a NICU or a pediatric intensivist. Also remember that if Bristol is Tri-gs mom, he as likely bon earier than April 18th. the 18th was his reveal date, or the date Sarah took ownership of him. Bristol probably had a fetal alcohol syndrome baby early 2008 which Sarah replaced with a down syndrome baby. And the best part of this whole saga is that Tri-g is another name for trisomy 21 or Down syndrome. Look it up. She named her prop after his extra chromosome. Without a DS child, Sarah would have been bypassed as VP candidate and she would have continues to wreck havoc in Alaska. Thanks to McCain and the need for a woman to rival Hillary and someone to reign in the Christians, we are stuck with the nightmare that is Sarah Palin. The truth is out there and this story will break one day.
ReplyDelete