When you live long enough, you are bound to witness some shocking things. However, I never imagined that I would ever see anything as low as what the liberal opponents of VP nominee Gov. Sarah Palin have stooped to. What is worse, these vile bloggers and pundits have dragged an innocent 16 year old girl into the muck.
This first started within hours of the announcement of Palin as McCain’s VP pick. Alan Colmes of Foxnews’ Hannity & Colmes publicly wondered on his blog if Palin pre-natally neglected her son thus resulting in the baby’s Down Syndrome. This comment is as ignorant as it is abhorrent, however it is likely less offensive than what followed.
On the lefty blog, the DailyKos, blogger ArcXIX accuses Sarah Palin of faking her pregnancy with baby Trig to cover up for the illegitimate baby of her 16 year old daughter. As disgusting as the accusation against Governor Palin is, she is a very public figure and baseless and abhorrent accusations sometimes are among the repellent side effects of public persona. However, to accuse a 16 year old girl, whose only crime is having a well known mother, of something like this is among the most reprehensible things I have ever seen.
Back in the days when Hillary and Bill ruled the roost, they had their fair share of nasties accusing them of everything from murder, to rape, and to being bad tippers. I cannot remember a single time when someone, never mind in such a public and popular hang out such as the DailyKos, went after Chelsea in any way approaching this loathsome a manner. Imagine the hue and cry if Chelsea had been accused (at 16) of a similar act by someone on a popular conservative blog. It would have been the lead story on the network news for a week calling for the heads of anyone even remotely connected to the post. (And rightly so.)
However, while I am sure that most of the left leaning folks out there would never do such a thing and are most likely as repulsed as I am at this behavior, the post remains and I have not seen any prominent liberal call for the heads of Alan Colmes, ArcXIX, or anyone at the DailyKos.
If 16 year old girls whose only crime is to be the daughter of a prominent political enemy are now considered fair game, then it is clear that we have lost too much. I am saddened, disgusted, and righteously angry that this kind of thing can go on with little or none of the requisite and suitable condemnation. If this is what politics has become, count me out. I will have no part of the politics of progenal destruction.
**Please note that I have not linked to any of the stories as I will have no part in sending even one reader to these sites. If you want to see it for yourself, I am sure you can find it.
September 1, 2008 at 6:12 am
In refuting this ridiculous story on a listserve for alumni of my college, I mentioned that Palin is breastfeeding and that this is difficult (although not impossible) when one has not given birth to the baby.
The person then asked me to show “proof” that she is breastfeeding. Or, at least, a reason why I believe it.
Does anyone have a link to a credible story which says she is nursing? Is there a (discreet ) picture which shows her nursing? I know, if it is discreet, it isn’t proof.
I just feel as if I need to respond to the snarky response to my “I believe she is breastfeeding.” statement.
Did Alan Colmes REALLY say that? I read the assertion by some idiot on a blog, but I thought Colmes was a fairly bright liberal. Of course, he looks good next to Hannity, who really is a fairly dumb conservative. I hope the people at Fox called him on it. First of all it is lowdown to try to blame any kind of problem with a baby on the mother unless there is a clear correlation. (Such as, she’s a drunk and the baby has fetal alcohol syndrome.) Second of all it is an awfully anti-feminist move for a liberal to say that a working mother injured her baby by her normal work activities. And third, it is Oh so ignorant, since Down’s Syndrome is determined around the time of conception-I think in the first division into two cells, but please someone correct me if I am wrong.
Nothing a woman can do once pregnant makes any difference at all.
Susan Peterson
September 1, 2008 at 6:34 am
Ok, Colmes was talking about why she got on a plane after her water was leaking. Well, obviously, she wanted to be home with her own doctor who understood her choice about her baby, and with her husband, not 12 hours away with strangers. She didn’t think she was going to go into labor immediately, and she didn’t. I think I would have done the same thing.
I do think there was some risk involved. Having a baby on an airplane would be no big deal, but having a premature baby on an airplane could be a real problem, depending on how premature and what sort of special support the baby needed.
But there is no need to second guess her on this. As a tough woman she made a decision to take that risk to get home, and it worked out for her.
This other story, however, seems to be made up of whole cloth. And for what purpose? It used to be thought, by the way, that it was rather a noble thing for a family to do, for the parents to shelter their daughter by pretending to be the parents of her baby. For these liberals, it isn’t a real big deal for the girl to have had sex at that age, they think nothing of that. Would the big crime be that she had the baby?
Anyway, these two stories are logically contradictory. If they know Palin’s water broke early and she got on a plane for a 12 hour plane ride…..then they know her daughter didn’t have the baby.
Maybe the shot on TV that showed the daughter (I think) carrying the baby in a front pack put the idea in someone’s head, and encountering no resistance there, it just drained out of his mouth.
Susan Peterson
September 1, 2008 at 6:45 am
This is the type of uncharitable posts one reads at vox nova, disingenuous and slanderous.
Par for the course.
Daily Kos, vox nova, what’s the difference?
September 1, 2008 at 1:11 pm
eulogos,
Colmes wrote what I said he wrote but has since taken down the post ostensibly in reaction to the comments. He now has only a screen shot of the original post in which you cannot read his words.
September 1, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I hear that Andrew Sullivan has picked up the it’s-really-the-daughter’s-baby story as well.
When we’re dealing with people who celebrate sucking a baby’s brains out of her skull as she’s being born as a right, we must remember that there’s nothing they won’t sink to.
September 1, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Frankly, if this is all they’ve got, McCain and Palin are going to have a fairly easy ride to the White House. Vicious, slanderous attacks have a way of backfiring.
I do feel sorry for her 16 year old though. I can’t imagine how my own teen would feel about horrible lies being in print about her. It’s shameful and disgusting.
September 1, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I think it’s pretty sad to see such libelous behavior from ArcXIX. Stringing a bunch of circumstantial evidence (photos) together to make outrageously false statements about a teen is stooping about as low as you can get.
Obviously ArcXIX has never been pregnant; I didn’t show with my first until after my fifth month (no one at my office guessed), and things were pretty much the same with my second. ArcXIX also hasn’t spent much time looking at the close-fitting fashions popular with teens these days…if every girl with a rounded belly were pregnant – which they’re obviously not – we wouldn’t need to fix Social Security for future generations!
Maybe he went to the Nancy Pelosi School of Medical Science.
September 1, 2008 at 2:48 pm
As we all know, it would have been much better to just have it “taken care of”…
September 1, 2008 at 3:50 pm
What a ridiculous speculation against Sarah Palin and her daughter.
September 1, 2008 at 3:55 pm
These people are fanatics.
September 1, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I don’t see this as “them” accusing the daughter of something horrible but rather of Sarah and Todd Palin being accused of being the the masterminds of a huge cover-up! Also, they are accused of forcing their daughter, Bristol, to carry an unwanted, defective baby to term. UGH!!!! It is so preposterous but that rumor began months ago. It seems it was inspired by Gov. Palin being in good physical shape so she didn’t “show” and her daughter looking like many American teen-age girls.
As far of proof of breastfeeding, it won’t prove anything to people who believe the Palin’s are really great liars. However, in a interview with People Magazine, we can read: “What does Governor Palin need to know about working with your dad?
MEGHAN (McCain): He likes to get up early in the morning and go. Seems like she likes to do that too. I guess with a baby…
JOHN MCCAIN: … she has to be. (Laughter)
SARAH PALIN: Morning person. Yup. We don’t sleep much. Too much to do. What I’ve had to do, though, is in the middle of the night, put down the BlackBerries and pick up the breast pump. Do a couple of things different and still get it all done.”
September 1, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I just heard on Fox that the daughter is pregnant and that a marriage is planned. We can anticipate hearing stories to the effect of “abstinence-yeah right,” and also howls of outrage about “forced marriages” and that she is being forced to have the baby and ruin her life…and if the father is over 18 we will probably hear about sexual child abuse. God bless the young woman and her baby. But this isn’t the best thing for the campaign. Some people on the evangelical protestant side are not very forgiving about these things. My granddaughter’s best friend is pregnant at 17 and she and her boyfriend have been kicked out of their Baptist church. I am afraid that this will lose a few votes from that extreme corner. I’d like to say we don’t really want those votes, but that isn’t a political reality.
Susan Peterson
September 1, 2008 at 6:30 pm
The daughter is preggers, big deal. This will follow in the grand tradition of dragging a candidate’s family through the mud for as long as it can be done. It’s happened in this country as least as far back as Andrew Jackson, the early death of his wife is often attributed to the slanderous rumors about her.
For some reason the tradition in modern times doesn’t seem to be carried on as fervently by the Republicans as the Dems. For example, Jimmy Carter’s brother was a drunk and we all just laughed at him. Bill Clinton’s brother was another one, he’s been largely ignored. But the Bush twins were put under a stinking microscope, if dirt couldn’t be found about them it would be fabricated. As I recall the TV series, “That’s my Bush” was originally going to cast them as incestous lesbians. That died after a fair amount of outrage was generated.
I don’t think this can hurt McCain/Palin in the long run. If anything, it will point out the hypocrisy of the Dems as they rush to judgement on the Palin family. A judgement they’d never exercise on any of their own.
John Q. Public isn’t stupid, he might often be misinformed but he isn’t stupid.
September 1, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Funny that, the Palins don’t feel “punished” by a new baby.
September 1, 2008 at 9:07 pm
The dems will fuss because they are all for teenagers having sex, but not for them having babies when sex leads to pregnancy…not that I advocate using contraception, but it would be a little bit amusing if the pregnancy was a result of a failed condom…dispelling all the “safe sex” myths the dems crow about.
September 1, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Subvet – John Q. Public isn’t stupid, he might often be misinformed but he isn’t stupid.
I wish I shared your sentiments and optimism. But I really disagree.
At this point it is no longer news that her now 17-year-old daughter is pregnant with her fiancee’s child. When I first heard this news, my reaction was, “why did the couple not simply elope and once married, announce to the public at large that the daughter was pregnant?” But now, in light of these previous accusations (which I only just learnt about today after visiting this blog), I believe the announcemnt of the daughter’s pregnancy was in fact calculated. Meaning, to dispell the aforementioned rumours, the mother is showing how EVERYTHING in her life is an open book, dirty laundry and all. This is actually quite refreshing.