GOP VP thread: Palin is the pick

Thank you.

This is revisionist history of the worst kind. Even Woodward and Bernstein, on Election Day 1972, didn't have a handle yet on what really went down. It came out, bit by bit, over the course of two years. To suggest that even a dozen voters went for Nixon/against McGovern despite Watergate is ridiculous. It was covered the fuck up! Wow.

 

I was just reading about this.

I'm not one to be critical of a woman's birth plans (hell, have the baby underwater on Friday the 13th for all I care), but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't add up.

When she announced her pregnancy at 7 months, absolutely nobody knew, even those who worked with her daily. She's a fit, petite woman. You can't hide 7 months of baby when you are that trim. Six weeks later the baby was born. While the daughter was out of school with mono.

If they knew the baby had Down syndrome and with her age, that's a double high-risk pregnancy. Taking a flight from Dallas to Anchorage is one thing, but then she delivered at a small hospital near her hometown instead of a larger hospital in Anchorage after leaking amniotic fluid for about 18 hours. With a premature high-risk pregnancy I would have headed to the first hospital I found.

I don't want this to be true, because I don't want critics to have ammunition against working mothers. But I could see this being true.

 

You think Palin's daughter having a baby at 16/17 would help someone who (apparently) runs on family values?
By the way, all of the stuff about the baby that I posted earlier is now off her Wikipedia page.

 

Why this doesn't add up. If she actually went though the whole charade to somehow save her daughter the embarrassment, when the McCain people asked "What should we know that we don't know." How does she not tell them, thank them for their interest and decline to be named. If true, this has to come out. Some doctor/nurse would know and would tell. Why after pulling this off would she put her daughter at risk of becoming a national spectacle?

 

Yeah, but it's grown legs in the blogosphere. Just google.

 

I'd be really surprised if the daughter had the baby. When my then wife and I had our second child a few years ago, they showed us a chart relating to Down Syndrome. The odds of a young mother having a baby with Down syndrome is very rare, like one in a million or so. The odds jump later, especially once you get in your mid 30s and up. I think our odds were something like 1 in 350, and she was 36. The odds of Palin's baby had to be even higher.

EDIT: My memory is pretty good, according to this from kidshealth.org:

Although no one knows for sure why DS occurs and there's no way to prevent the chromosomal error that causes it, scientists do know that women age 35 and older have a significantly higher risk of having a child with the condition. At age 30, for example, a woman has about a 1 in 900 chance of conceiving a child with DS. Those odds increase to about 1 in 350 by age 35. By 40 the risk rises to about 1 in 100.

 

There are hundreds of thousands of "Reba/Rosanne's" out there who weren't thrilled to become grandmas in their thirties or forties, but sucked it up and helped raise the kid. Family values aren't about having the perfect family, it's about retaining your values when things are less than perfect. They would identify with her more that way, than as a supermom who was able to raise a family, have a successful career and still look the way she does. I sense resentment in her weak poll numbers with women. I think that men like her so much is one of the reasons they might not.

 

I still disagree. I wouldn't think any less of her, but I really think a large number of conservatives (her base) would.

 

Among the rights women should have in our society - including women running for public office - is that people refrain from giving any attention to idiocy like this "It was her daughter's BABY!!!!!" rumor.

 

You've got to figure the National Enquirer has 17 people working on this right now. If they could find John Edwards and his sweetie at the Beverly Hilton, they can probably pry a copy of the birth certificate from someone in the Alaska government, and get statements refuting or confirming what's on the certificate from someone at the hospital.
No matter what the answer is, the question is, how fast is the rumor confirmed or refuted?

 

That's a "right," Piotr? Does it come before the First Amendment?
Look, I don't know much about Palin, her daughter or the baby. I just think the conspiracy is interesting. I hope the woman is telling the truth.
Obviously I won't be voting for her, but this rumor has zero to do with it.

 

Hear hear. Sounds too conspiracy theory to me. Too high on the bullshit meter.

I'm all for seeking the truth ... dig all you want, but don't throw shit against the wall if there's no evidence to support it. I won't give the rumor credence until there's something more concrete.