The Sarah Palin Files, Pt. 72: a Fourth Photographic Question Mark

Andrew Sullivan continues to ask about Sarah Palin's tragic-yet-trophy pregnancy and the controversy over whether or not Trig is really her son. Sullivan, this go-'round, shines a light on an image of Sarah Palin that was allegedly taken 3 weeks before the birth of Trig. Compare that to a photo of her pregnant with a previous child (below):
Some money analysis from Sullivan from a somewhat extensive entry:

Maybe this photo has been photo-shopped. Maybe Palin had an anomalous pregnancy that showed far, far less than her previous ones, one that went from close to nothing to a serious bump in two weeks. Maybe the angle in the photo is misleading, and leaning toward us her pregnancy is concealed. Maybe her fifth labor really did take 26 hours combined via a speaking engagement (as amniotic fluid was leaking) and an 11 hour airplane flight (when a birth could have begun at any moment at extreme risk to the child), and maybe the bizarre and, to my mind, incredible stories she has told about the pregnancy and labor are true (there is still a chance they are). But if all these things are true, the Palin camp has had months to provide what would be instantly available records to dismiss all and every "insane" blog speculation about this. And yet none came - on or off the record.

A bit later:

Actually, the Dish went out and interviewed eight of the leading obstetricians in the country and laid out all the facts of the case and asked the experts for their take. While none would say that this pregnancy could not have happened, and none would comment on a case they hadn't examined personally, all of them said it was one of the strangest and unlikeliest series of events they had ever heard of and found Palin's decision to forgo medical help for more than a day after her water broke and risk the life of her unborn child on a long airplane trip to be reckless beyond measure.

And finally:

All I know is: the media refuses to ask and doesn't want to know and failed to demand medical records. All I know is that some journalists - like the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz - even tried to discredit the integrity of bloggers for asking. And yet in the campaign, the pregnancy and baby were offered at every moment as a reason to vote for Palin. If the Bridge To Nowhere is worth checking out, why aren't the pregnancy's bizarre details? Without the Down Syndrome pregnancy, Palin would not have had the rock-star appeal to the pro-life base that contributed to her selection. She made it a political issue by holding up the baby at the convention.

I do not know the truth and have never claimed that Palin is lying. I have always stated that bringing a baby with Down Syndrome into the world is a noble and beautiful thing. I have simply asked, given the implausible, if possible, circumstances, that a person running for vice-president provide some basic evidence for a very strange and unclear story. For a photograph of Palin pregnant with one of her previous children, see below. Compare and contrast. Remember that, as a general rule, pregnant mothers show more with each successive pregnancy. Remember also, as a general rule, that successive labors come more quickly. I think it's time Palin's doctor, Catherine Baldwin-Johnson talked to the press, don't you think? And that the McCain campaign tell us exactly what they knew and asked all along.

Like Sullivan, the TTT just wants some concrete answers, no matter what the answers may be.

Mormon Polar Bears Outraged...

...At the concept of two female Japanese polar bears' attempt to breed. Mormon polar bears in the U.S. were reportedly collecting droves of killed seals to send to Japan with the hope that the lesbian polar bear couple would be distracted and elect to forgo their unnatural act.

Quote of the Day

Via the Rude Pundit, lamenting the general lack of taking the war criminals in the Bush Administration to task for their sins:

Remember the days when, if a member of the Clinton administration was accused of farting in a church, it triggered ten congressional investigations, an independent counsel, and non-stop news coverage filled with witnesses attesting to how loud and noxious a fart it was and how Jesus cried tears of blood because of it? Good times.

Outrage

I'm outraged at the outrage over outrage. It's all so.... what's the word? .... outrageous.

File Under: Actually, No, It's Not Satire

George Bush gives up golf as a way to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

No, seriously.

The Decider explains his decision:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to
acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.“I don't want some mom
whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he
said.

* * *
Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United
Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top
U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a
result of these murderers taking this good man's life,” he said. “I was playing
golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course
and I said, ‘It's just not worth it anymore to do.’"

Good grief.

UPDATE: Found this great pic at the Huffington Post:

UPDATE 2: Olbermann, as usual, nails it. Video and transcript here. Video embedding later.

UPDATE 3: As promised, the video:

W.W.J.D.?

What would Jesus do? Ahhh... the age old question that dates back as far as...... well as far back as some opportunist got the idea to sell ridiculous bracelets to Christian zealots (it's like shooting ducks in a barrel).

As if the W.W.J.D. bracelets weren't bad enough, now Jesus Christ, Inc. (the marketing arm of Christianity) has brought us this:

That's right: the Jesus H. Christ bobble-head doll. Apparently, it will be given away free to the first 100,000 Jesus fans 14 and under who attend the rapture.

But the shameless marketing of Jesus is not what I'm here to talk about today. I want to talk politics, and specifically the, um, "unique" logic of evangelical voters.

According to this article, younger evangelicals are leaving the Republican party. Apparently they are "down with" the GOP's stance on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research, but "ain't got no love for" other issues such as social justice, environmental stewardship, the Iraq War, and the rabidly pro-torture position of the modern conservative movement.

Now, am I going to postulate what this all means for the political trends in 2008 and beyond?

No.

Am I going to get on my soapbox and lecture the evangelical readers of this blog (a demographic that no doubt numbers in the tens of thousands) that the Republican party has been playing the abortion card on you for 35 years, yet, remarkably has not brought about their stated goal of outlawing abortion through Supreme Court appointments and so forth, despite reminding you how much they share your views on the intrinsic value of human life in even-numbered (read: election) years?

No. Of course not. Everyone knows I am not that opinionated.

What I'd really like to focus on is the hilarious concept of trying to vote like Jesus. The best line of the article I linked to is this:

Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay
rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see
U.S. troops leave Iraq.

* * *

Braun, the seminary student, said he's not totally committed to any candidate
yet. "I just keep thinking, if Jesus were alive now, he wouldn't necessarily be voting Republican," he said.

Very good, Tyler! No, he wouldn't vote Republican, would he? After all there's that little problem that most evangelicals like to ignore: Jesus isn't an American. Kind of hard to vote in U.S. elections when you would be by birth and by citizenship, an Israeli. I know it's a pesky little fact, one that makes it harder to claim the moral high road as America declare elective wars against people with brown skin in the name of our blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, arayan messiah, who, now that I think about it, does look an awful lot like Fabio.

Hmm. That certainly puts Fabio's career in a whole new light, doesn't it?

George Stephanopoulos: Water Boy

Did anyone see the Clinton-Obama debate last night? What a fucking joke! Seriously, when whether or not one wears an American Flag lapel pin actually becomes the litmus test for being President of the United States, I am going to threaten to move to Canada. Yet, this is the kind of petty, small-minded questioning Barack Obama had to put up with for the first 50 minutes of the two hour debacle, -er, I mean, debate.

[Disclosure: I am an Obama supporter]

Leading the charge last night? George Stephanopoulos (or as I like to call him, Steffy, and sometimes even - with apologies to my main man, 'Dre Agassi - Steffi Graft). I know what you're thinking: where do I know that name? Oh, that's right, he was the White House press secretary during Bill Clinton's first term. Oh, and what's this?


Yeah....... How 'bout that?

What's that phrase? Um..... conflict of interest? Maybe that explains why he lobbed the question about William Ayers at Obama that was fed to him by Fox News' own Sean Hannity. Obama's response I thought was brilliant:

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George.

And then when Hillary couldn't help herself and piled on, Obama deftly pointed out that Bill Clinton had pardoned two convicted members of the late-1960's / early-1970's Weather Underground movement (of which Ayers was a member and to which Clinton was trying to tie Obama through guilt-by-association).

Jeremiah Wright, "Bitter-Gate," Ayers, and fucking flag lapel pins. George Stephanopoulos - still carrying the Clintons' water after all these years.

UPDATE: Obama has a fact-check page up on just how tenuous the connection is between Ayers and Obama, here.

UPDATE 2: A far more thorough and intellectual critique offered by a journalist, here.

UPDATE 3: A decidedly less intellectual critique here, although this is so funny, it almost makes the whole sorry-ass event worth it: