I'm sure the main stream media is on the story, just checking facts beforehand. As so aptly pointed out yesterday, Mitt Romney is so desperate to be noticed he’d throw himself under the bus. Mitt most likely has some of his media friends looking into this story.

Hmmmm....first we hear about "Troopergate" with this woman, now we might have a "Babygate" on our hands as well? As Mayor of Wasilla she summarily fired the Police Chief and Library Director because they didn't support her in her bid for re-election. Her only justification for the firings soon after the election was that the two were "not fully supporting her efforts to govern". Personal drama seems to follow her around like a dark cloud due to her vindictiveness.

Although raking around in the dirty muck on this one is LOTS of fun, I don't think any of this needs to be relied upon to disqualify her as vice president. She has literally zero foreign policy experience, and zero experience dealing with domestic issues on a national level.

Her educational background amounts to a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree in communications/journalism. I understand that her career goal was to become a sportscaster before motherhood and election as mayor of her home town sent her in a different direction.

I want to know what books has she read in the past five years. What periodicals does she subscribe to? Living way up there in Alaska, how does she keep current on the issues facing the nation and the world? I understand that she believes that global warming is not caused by man; what data, scientific or otherwise, did she rely upon in coming to this conclusion? On the surface of things this woman is not coming off as an intellectual heavyweight.

With all of this stuff coming up about her in the media etc., it's apparent that she wasn't thoroughly vetted. After Palin's name was announced, McCain spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer was asked about the governor's relationship with the Senator.

"You're running flat into the wall of my ignorance here," she said. "I truly have no indication whatsoever the extent of a relationship that exists with the Governor of Alaska."

Now we know that McCain in fact never met this person and had a single phone conversation with her before making his decision. He called her a "soulmate" in an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Weird and wrong!

The choice to position this woman potentially a heart-beat away from becoming the leader of the free-world was not only done out of political cynicism, it was reckless, stupid and selfish. John McCain really blew it on this one in a big way, and he has demonstrated to the world at large that he is not a trustworthy decision maker.

Jack, maybe it's because of an overload of hits coming from conspiracy theory sites. I must say I am disappointed that you have chosen to go down this road, although I gotta hand it to you, you're getting more comments on your last post about her than I have ever seen on any of your other posts. UK, Last time I checked, Alaska is part of the US and actually has electricity so they can watch tv and listen to radio. By golly, they even have the internet "way up there".

Jeff
You are correct and Alaska has a newspaper. Stating her very poor judgment regarding the possible danger to her unborn child.
http://www.adn.com/626/story/382864.html

I think this story is a no-win for Democrats. If it turns out that the child truly is Sarah Palin's then the D's just look mean-spirited. If it turns out that the child is really her daughters, then it just makes me more sympathetic toward Sarah. Trying to protect your daughter and offering to raise her downsyndrome child strikes me as noble thing for a parent to do.

Until something more verifiable is released concerning this story, I would just let it fade away. Paulin is so unqualified to be Vice President, that I don't think the D's need to focus on anything else.

Note to Kevin....
So Sarah only has a High School diploma and a Bachelor's degree for Univ. Of Idaho.
Does she need a LAW Degree to make her honest?

No she doesn't "need a law degree to make her honest". However a knowledge of constitutional law could be helpful.

Does she need a LAW Degree to make her honest?

She does seem to need something to make her honest.

Trying to protect your daughter and offering to raise her down syndrome child strikes me as noble thing for a parent to do.

Offering to help raise the child is one thing, but saying he's yours when he's not is a whole other matter. Telling a lie like this is not good or healthy for anyone and speaks to some pretty serious family dysfunction. We're talking 60s-style "what will the neighbors think?" stuff. It's 2008. We're all grown-ups.

If true, the story is not noble, it's messed up.

@ Justin...

Besides, the daughter is about to enter the wonderful world of home schooling. 'Nuff said. ;-)

The Dems who latch on to this conspiracy theory are as lame as the Repubs who keep claiming Barack wasn't born here because the hospital never announced it back in 1962 or whenever. Truly pathetic, and it's too bad you bit on it, Jack.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2944356420080901

To rebut rumors, Palin says daughter, 17, pregnant

This is incredible! Bristol had a baby four months ago, and is now five months pregnant!

Obamessiah works in strange ways. Nice job, Jack, keeping us all informed about this scandal.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2944356420080901?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Just in: Bristol Palin is currently pregnant, a fact which was disclosed to the McCain Campaign in advance of his selection of Gov. Palin as VP.

Assuming this isn't her 2nd baby in as many years, then Gov. Palin is the mother of Trig.

It will be nice to see all the apologies from those who were rumor mongering. At least, I hope we see them.

This is incredible! Bristol had a baby four months ago, and is now five months pregnant!

So let's see... August-plus-four equals...

Inauguration Baby! Woooo!

Looking forward to seeing both kids in the same room.

So, now we're just left trying to figure out why a woman carrying a Down's child would wait 20 hours after her water broke to seek medical attention, and why we'd choose her to answer the 3 am phone call?

Was she trying to have a miscarriage, or is she just a complete idiot? Is there a better explanation for what she did? I can't think of one.

Jack, you and your like minded folks seem unusually vicious or perhaps genuinely freaked out...I'm not sure which. The vigor with which you are all raking through the muck in a desperate search to find something that will stick to the wall is genuinely disappointing and actually surprising. I thought better of you.

So much for issues, policy, economics....you know, the stuff that really matters..??

I kept thinking I deja vu-ed this movie before ... and then I remembered: This is an old TV episode of Desperate Lousywives.

---
But deleriously folks, I mean, seriously: Jack, that link you set to the dailyKos "Follow Up ...," where it discusses Failin's buddylady who FOUNDED the 'birth'clinic which has disappeared, the same Failin buddylady G.P. 'Doctor' who herself disappeared from the website 'masthead' and is disappeared from view and interview, that Doctor of medical malpractice purported advice -- "fly, Sarah, you can fly" (which made cell-phone call records ... got any?) -- that doctor is in A.M.A. career-sinking doodoo on account of the Failin albatross around her neck like a skepti-scope, I mean guilotine.

Real doctors don't like quacks in their midst.

your like minded folks seem unusually vicious

Spare me. If it were 1998 and we were talking about Hillary and Chelsea, Rush would go on the air tomorrow and suggest a miscarriage was coming, so the story and the time line could still work out. That's vicious.

No, wait -- past news forecast, next month Bristol had a miscarriage.

I told you I've seen this movie before. It's the same old script.

How is this news going to play with the religious right? They're the ones this pick was made for, and they're the ones happy about it; at least for now.
Even most repubs are viewing this pick as a gimmick, and Palin was even busted lying in her first speech about her support for the "bridge to nowhere." (great name for a scandal).
Palin is finished. The only thing that may save her is the ferocity or in some cases cruelty of the liberal attack. Keep your feet on the ground. As a lawyer, I fear four more years of repub rule; the country can't afford it. Let Palin dig her own grave, and then shove McCain into it.

So Bristol was impregnated while she was being held home from school for eight months with mono?

This is getting to be more and more like a stupid movie on Lifetime. Still, the faked pregnancy blog comments out there were getting pretty hilarious.

I think the far right Christians will love this new development. First we have the Mom (Grandma!) keeping her Down's baby, as God's will and God's gift of life. Now, the teen daughter who made the biggest mistake a teen girl can make decides to keep HER baby and marry the father. The anti-abortion crowd will see this as an opportunity to show that there are better alternatives than abortion. There will be more talk about adoption, etc, and the need for abstinence education.

Call me naive, but I think this is going to further inspire the far right. And this will make Governor Grandma VP Candidate Sarah appear to have the same problems as us average Americans. Surely SHE understands our lives!

Now we know why McCain chose Palin. He'll have a VP who can change his diapers when the time comes.

Besides, the daughter is about to enter the wonderful world of home schooling. 'Nuff said. ;-)

God help that child's Soul. Homeschooling is the eighth circle of hell.

And you're right about the honesty issue. "Noble" was probably a bad choice of words. I just don't think the Dems win on this. Even if it turns out to be true, they're going after a mother, her daughter and a downs baby. I just think they're going to come across looking badly.

Oh, and God Bless John McCain for making this election so entertaining. I'm loving it!

Maybe McCain's already wearing diapers!
Something sure needs changing!

Can I get my mulligan back?

If you enter trig palin site:www.matsuregional.com into Google, you get the April 18 page, which would indicate that at one time the page held an entry for Trig.

I don't know about your theory that the site is down, Jack. If anything, it probably crashed due to a server overload, because it seems as if it's online now.

It wasn't my intent to slam on Sarah Palin's honesty because she lacks an advanced degree. That would be stupid. I was pointing out that it appears that she's done very little in comparison to others in terms of making up for her lack of foreign and domestic policy experience by educating herself formally or otherwise. I know I won't convince those who think that reading your Bible, looking at a few things on the internet and watching snipets of "news" on Fox is a substitute for educating oneself. Maybe she's a self-educated policy wonk who was too smart for the formal degree route. If so, I'd love to see evidence that she somehow prepared herself to lead our country, because I'm not seeing it.

There's nothing wrong an individual spending her time hunting moose, riding around on snowmobiles, and raising children. I have very real concerns that she is a simple person who has for the most part led a simple life in a very simple place. As POTUS she would either be a bull in China closet, or a deer in the headlights. It's going to turn out badly no matter how it goes down.

BTW I fully agree that we don't have to waste a lot of time picking on her by dwelling on her personal problems or her family's problems to prove that she's unfit as a V.P. She's was unfit on first glance and McCain should have figured that out in 10 seconds or less by looking over her resume. Either he didn't look her over very well or he ignored things that shouldn't have been ignore. John McCain lacks good judgment and common sense. This is about him, not her.

Spare me. If it were 1998 and we were talking about Hillary and Chelsea, Rush would go on the air tomorrow and suggest a miscarriage was coming, so the story and the time line could still work out. That's vicious.

We expect it from the likes of Rush, not from normal people.

Thanks Usual Kevin. You remind me that there can be some well reasoned arguments from dems without the personal attacks we saw over the last few days. No apologies yet from the rumor mongors however.

Now it gets interesting again...

The interesting characteristic of this story is that no matter how it turned out it still showed amazingly poor judgment.

Interesting timing for the announcement... what with it being Labor Day and the southeast preparing for a natural disaster.

I still think there's something fishy about the whole thing... but none of that really matters because I think we're missing the whole point here.

The bottom line is - regardless of this whole "scandal" - McCain has poor judgment. His pick just showed the whole world.

Jack's Tuesday bet could still have some life in it. Palin could decide family needs to be her top priority and return to Alaska.

Regardless, this whole thing reads like a soap opera. What a laughingstock.

This site is proving how many brain dead people there are in Portland.

If the Democrats have fallen this low on the intelligence scale, we need a new party to run candidates and definitely new bloggers who can talk about something that is relevant to the campaign.

Poor judgment is not relevant to the campaign?

Oh yeah, Repubs voted for Bush twice.

Re Chris "interesting" comment above.
May be the "answer" to your question is that the woman holding
the baby Trig, is the wife of Track, the oldest Palin offspring, who is apparently a 19 years old soldier. Then Sarah Palin would be the mother in law of the pictured woman. Is Track married ?

In the link below, abc news reports that the preggo Bristol is 16 not 17. Would be interesting to see what date her birthday is. The age of consent in Alaska is 16 and Bristol is apparently 5 months gone.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=5684098&page=2

I love a public politician who is honest. Protect your kids but don't expect me to vote for you or respect you as a presidential vp or even worse a USA President if something fatal happens to senator MC

Re Chris "interesting" comment above.
May be the "answer" to your question is that the woman holding
the baby Trig, is the wife of Track, the oldest Palin offspring, who is apparently a 19 years old soldier. Then Sarah Palin would be the mother in law of the pictured woman. Is Track married ?

That does not appear to be true. See my comment to this post.

I'm closing comments here -- please post additional comments on that newer post.