Let's Dish

I'm someone who considers himself Libertarian leaning. I subscribe to Reason.com's RSS feeds, along with a few other Libertarian blogs. Of course, I also subscribe to many Republican blogs, and Democrat blogs, and tech blogs, and entertainment blogs, etc. I don't read Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish regularly anymore (it's updated way too fast for me to keep up), but I followed it very closely coming up on the 2008 presidential election. I will admit Sullivan seemed to have it out for Sarah Palin, probably because, as a lot of people saw it, she was nominated from out of nowhere and stayed out of the press' reach for most of her candidacy.

In addition to maintaining a running list of all the verifiable lies she told (which I can't fault him for), Sullivan also frequently revisited one suspected lie that couldn't be verified without Palin's consent (by releasing her medical records)--Sullivan suspected that Palin's son Trig was not her child, but in fact he child of her (at the time) 17-year-old daughter Bristol Palin.

Today I saw (via my feed reader) that Reason editor Nick Gillespie reviewed two books about Sarah Palin in the Washington Post. I was reading Reason's excerpt of the review and was a little surprised to read this:

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, a self-identified conservative who calls his Daily Dish "the most popular one-man political blog site in the world," persistently claimed that Trig Palin, the governor's then-4-month-old baby with Down syndrome, was not Sarah's biological child and requested the full release of her obstetrical records, stopping just short of demanding he be sent the placenta for genetic testing. (If President Obama is hounded by a small group of reality-challenged "birthers," who doubt he was born in Hawaii, Palin is certainly the only politician to have given rise to what might be called "after-birthers," who doubt that she delivered her own children.)

Am I reading too much into that, or is he especially harsh toward Andrew Sullivan? As someone who likes Sullivan, and as someone who read his blog regularly as he was making the aforementioned claims, I'm a little disappointed by how that paragraph treated him. I have to wonder if Gillespie even read what Sullivan wrote about the matter, or if he's just been influenced by the way it was covered by others. First, let's address the actual argument, which I think Sullivan best laid out here.

To summarize the link, Palin announced her pregnancy at 7 months, when she didn't seem to be showing (the reporters she announced it to were shocked). A lot of pictures have popped up from around that time where she didn't seem to be showing, but one has showed up (the one at the top of the link) where she did look pregnant. Her campaign said she was using her wardrobe to cleverly disguise her pregnancy. I don't think it's at all hard to believe that she could have been pregnant and hidden it.

However, some other points come up that give way to doubt:

Here Sullivan says it was reported that Bristol missed 5-7 months of school for mono, coinciding with the later part of the pregnancy.

Palin flew 8000 miles in her last month of pregnancy, something prohibited by some airlines and recommended against by doctors. It can induce labor, and Palin knew in advance that the baby had Down syndrome, meaning it would probably have special needs. It seems odd that she would risk it.

Also, in the link claiming Bristol had mono, Sullivan says the flight attendants on Sarah's flight home didn't notice that Palin was pregnant.

On top of all this, at the end of October 2009, one of Sarah Palin's spokespersons said Palin's medical records would be released within the next week. They never were.

Let me be clear: I don't have an opinion on who the mother of Trig Palin is. I don't have enough information, and I don't care. However, I can understand Sullivan's doubts.

That said, I don't remember Sullivan ever flat-out stating that that Trig wasn't carried by Sarah Palin, he'd only expressed doubt. Here is a post by Sullivan at his angriest. McCain chief aide Mark Salter told a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg: "This whole story about how the baby isn't hers? Jesus Christ. Just crazy shit." Even in response to that, Sullivan doesn't make any direct accusations. In his own defense, he says:

I think the bizarre circumstantial evidence easily rises to the level of material that should be addressed - as presumably could be done definitively - by the campaign.

It is not an answer to call bloggers "insane" because they are asking factual questions to which there must be evidentiary answers.

He closes the post with:

I'm begging the McCain campaign to make me look like a total fool for even wondering. Please, blow my skepticism out of the water. Prove I'm full of "crazy shit."

Now let's go back to what Gillespie said (with snarky notes from me in [bracketed bold text]):

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, a self-identified conservative ['self-identified' is code for, 'He thinks he's a conservative. He isn't'] who calls his Daily Dish "the most popular one-man political blog site in the world," [um, he calls it that because it is] persistently claimed [never 'claimed' that I saw, just voiced suspicions] that Trig Palin, the governor's then-4-month-old baby with Down syndrome [As opposed to Trig Palin, the governor's then-4-month-old baby that didn't have Down syndrome? I don't know how Down syndrome is relevant, unless you're trying to gather sympathy on your side to somehow shame Sullivan], was not Sarah's biological child and requested the full release of her obstetrical records, stopping just short of demanding he be sent the placenta for genetic testing [cue rimshot]. (If President Obama is hounded by a small group of reality-challenged "birthers," who doubt he was born in Hawaii, Palin is certainly the only politician to have given rise to what might be called "after-birthers," who doubt that she delivered her own children. [I've never heard anyone doubt that she delivered her own 'children' (plural), just Trig specifically])

Keep in mind that this is just me reading deeply into two sentences. I'm not trying to come off as angry or hateful towards Nick Gillespie, nor am I trying to make a case saying Sarah Palin wasn't pregnant with Trig. I don't have a dog in that fight. I just read something that seemed a little harsh towards a reasonable if misguided argument, and felt like offering my own take.

Take from it what you will,

David

Oh, and the link I pointed to while saying The Daily Dish is "the most popular one-man political blog site in the world," is a link to Technorati's Top 100, which ranks blogs, I think by popularity and influence. I don't know of any better ranking sites, or ones that judge popularity alone. The Technorati Top 100 is updated daily. The Daily Dish was listed #14 on November, 3, 2009 (the day of posting), and I didn't see any other political blog consisting solely of posts from one person ranked any higher.