An interesting footnote has emerged to a theory that raged around the Internet during Sarah Palin's candidacy for Vice President:

The theory is that Sarah Palin is actually the grandmother of her purported son Trig, not the mother, and that she staged a gigantic hoax during the campaign to cover up this fact.

Professor Bradford Scharlott of Northern Kentucky University has looked into this story in detail and written a long academic article about it. He concludes two things:

First, that the "conspiracy theory" is likely true--Sarah Palin staged a huge hoax, and, second,
The American media is pathetic for not pursuing the story more aggressively
Scharlott's article walks through all the evidence supporting the theory, including the photos of Palin in what is said to have been a late-stage pregnancy, the leisurely 20-hour trip home that Palin took after she supposedly went into labor in Texas, the refusal of the hospital where Trig was supposedly born to even confirm that he was born there (let alone who was the mother), strange statements from Palin's doctor and the McCain campaign, and so on.


Bristol Palin

And Scharlott concludes that, given that this hoax would be a massive fraud perpetrated on the entire country by a vice-presidential candidate, the media absolutely should have pursued the story more aggressively.

Because the mainstream media did not--and has not--pursued the story at all (let alone aggressively), Professor Scharlott has done some of the work himself. He has also attempted to explain why the media was so wimpy and gullible during the campaign.

One of Professor Scharlott's theories, interestingly, is that conservatives have been extraordinarily effective at shaming anyone who has even brought up the matter, let alone investigated it. He notes how different this is than the Democrats ability to quell the other conspiracy theory that has obsessed the nation in recent years--the theory that President Obama was born in Kenya.

Given the amount of publicity (and support) presidential candidate Donald Trump has gotten in recent weeks by picking up the Obama-wasn't-born-here mantra, the silence on this other question is indeed startling. The evidence Scharlott's cites about about Palin's possible hoax is by no means conclusive, but it certainly raises as many questions as the logic about Obama's birthplace.

In light of Scharlott's evidence that Palin staged a hoax, as well as the ongoing absence of any proof that Palin is actually Trig's mother, one wonders if the media will now, finally, seek to determine the truth--especially because Palin is considered a candidate for president.



The suspicions started with the story the Palins told about how Sarah Palin and her husband behaved after she went into labor while on a trip to Texas. Namely, they took a 20-hour trip home.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/sarah-palin-baby-hoax-2011-4?op=1#ixzz1JUuUj6yt

The suspicions started with the story the Palins told about how Sarah Palin and her husband behaved after she went into labor while on a trip to Texas. Namely, they took a 20-hour trip home.

The press release Palin put out announcing Trig's birth did not say where the birth took place. The hospital where Trig was supposedly born did not list him as being among the babies born that day.

After Palin supposedly went into labor in Texas, her husband Todd did not mention this to her aides. Flight attendants on the way home did not notice that Palin seemed pregnant.

When Palin returned to work three days later, she seemed unsure about the timing of her water breaking. In her later book, she implied she went into labor at 4AM in the morning--and then stayed in Texas long enough to give her speech before beginning her 20-hour trip home

The hospital where Trig was supposedly born lacks pre-natal intensive care, which made it a "less-than-ideal" place to deliver a child with Down syndrome. Palin was close to several hospitals in Texas and Anchorage that did have these facilities.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/sarah-palin-baby-hoax-2011-4?op=1#ixzz1JUvCbidj

Two months earlier, when Palin announced her pregnancy to her staff (at 7 months), her staff was shocked: No one thought she looked pregnant.

Photos of Palin in the weeks before she gave birth gave no indication that she was pregnant

(Another photo, from four weeks before the birth)

After Trig's birth, the McCain campaign issued a bizarre statement

During the campaign, Palin had promised the press that she would release her medical records. The night before the election, she did. The section from her personal physician about Trig's birth was worded in a way that it barely said anything

Nothing in the doctor's statement suggested that the doctor was present for the birth, and the doctor declined to answer any questions.

Finally, one traditional media tried to figure out the truth... and ran into a brick wall.

The editor of the Anchorage paper tried to explain to Palin why he wanted to investigate the issue: To determine once and for all that it wasn't a hoax. Palin never responded.

All Palin would have had to do--then and now--to prove that she was Trig's mother was, ironically, produce a birth certificate

One of the only American journalists who looked into the story, Andrew Sullivan, suggests that we may have witnessed one of the greatest frauds in history

Did Palin stage a hoax? Should the media have investigated more aggressively? Let us know what you think...
http://www.businessinsider.com/sarah-palin-baby-hoax-2011-4?op=1

First I am a conservative.

Second I like Palin when she was the governor of my state.

Third I lost all respect for her when she resigned the governorship.

I really could care less what she does or whose kid it is. I don't want her in any office.

hilarious, and turnabout is fair play, BUT its just difficult to tie this HOAX into anything that would be relevant or significant to the citizenry

the hoax about OBAma not being born here, tied in more directly with his ability and right to be president

the hoax about Trig has no bearing on Palins eligibility,, unfortunately

I disagree. He does have a very valid point. If Trig is her grandson, she is committing fraud in public. Now whether or not that fraud is significant is debatable. Claiming her daughters child as her own for the sake of her daughter and her family is a private matter. Is it really anyone's business whether or not it is true? Don't really know the answer to that one.

I think we get too involved in most politician's personal lives. In today's society, does it really matter if someone is having an affair or is secretly gay? Pulling stuff like this out and waiving it before the public leaves a lot of room for blackmail and corruption. Someone uncovers an embarrassing secret. They don't want money, just abstain on this particular vote... Once you get that, then you have even more leverage until they are controlling that congressman.

Remember how much we learned about BJs and the definition of "is" during Clinton? What purpose did that serve? He didn't commit any crimes until congress started questioning him. Then he lied about it to congress at first... That was his only crime. Don't think that really counts as the reason he was being questioned was stupid in the first place. Although, I guess technically, adultery is still a crime in most states. Not sure about D.C though...

I agree. personal stuff becomes too much more of an issue than it deserves to be

and people can often be doing things they know are wrong, for whatever reason, they do them but know they are wrong and they may or may not feel guilty but they express their disagreement with someone else doing what they are doing and they are automatically a hypocrite,,,,,,

I think DC is notorious for that, politicians are just as fallible as the rest of us, but they tend to be expected to be flawless before we allow them the 'right' to have opinions about anything or anyone else...

i say drop this off with the other x-files, the moon landing, and the 9/11 fable...

And yet, you believe anything bad you hear about Obama?

what bad things - did you hear something?

I personaly think she lied and will do anything to advance herself. If she didnt lie about it she is a true moron for flying back to alaska after her water broke knowing she had a dowes syndrom baby.

All she has to do anyhow is provide a birth certificate and put this to rest to date she has not.

I am no fan of her's, but Trig is hers.

Hmmmmmmmmm, I've been saying the same thing about Obama for years, but he still hasn't................

Snopes said he did provide it.

Link here.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp

best, you crack me up,,,


snopes and several other FACT CHECKING/MYTH BUSTING cites have posted the certificate that was supplied

but it is still not THE VERSION that the birthers demand to see, you know, the long form with the doctors name on it,,,,

More on Palin.

No 44 year old woman, pregnant for the fifth time with a special-needs child would make the decisions she made, and no doctor would support them. She traveled out of state during the 35th week of her pregnancy. After experiencing premature rupture of membranes and some contractions, she waited nearly ten hours to give a speech then traveled nearly twelve hours more, taking two separate flights both of which had flight times of around four hours, with a layover of approximately two hours in between. Expected duration of labor for someone with Gov. Palin's history (four previous vaginal births) would be 6 hours +/- 3.6 hours. It was not only "possible" that she would give birth long before she arrived back in Alaska, it was probable. And, while it's just barely believable that she would remain at a conference and wait to give a speech she was "determined to give" (since a modern hospital was only minutes away), there's no way one can apply this same reasoning to her subsequently getting on an airplane for two separate four-hour flights.

Yet, after somehow beating the statistics on the flights, once arriving in Anchorage, she did not drive to the only hospital in the state (Providence) with a neonatal intensive care unit (six miles from the airport) where her doctor had privileges. Instead, she drove an hour to a small regional health facility (only 39 beds in the whole hospital).

By the time she arrived there, she met five high-risk obstetric criteria:
*she was 44 (anything above 40(some sources say 37 or 39)) is considered high-risk due to maternal age;
* she was carrying a known high-risk infant;
*she was considered "grand multiparous" (five or more viable pregnancies);
* she was in labor at 35-36 weeks (anything before 37 weeks is considered pre term);
* her amniotic sac had been ruptured nearly 24 hours.

Yet, the hospital that she is reported to have given birth at does no high risk obstetrics at all; even twins are not allowed to be born there. She had as her physician a family practice doctor who is reported on the hospital's web site as having done only three births in the previous two years!

None of these choices makes sense. Taken all together, it's ridiculous. And, to repeat, we're also supposed to believe that somewhere there is a doctor who went along with all this.

With this as the "starting point," then you have to start looking at all the other coincidences. Any one of these items, alone, could be easily shrugged off. Without a birth story that resembles Mr. Toad's Wild Ride more than anything else, one of two of these would be insignificant. But, all of this together? What are the chances?
* Gov. Palin never looked pregnant at all before the announcement, and even afterward people had their doubts. (One writer in the Anchorage Daily News asked facetiously one week after Gov. Palin's announcement, when she would have been around seven months, "Where is she hiding that baby? In her pocket?"), yet we have a photograph of her in her first pregnancy in which she looks... very conspicuously pregnant.
*Rumors existed before Gov. Palin announced her pregnancy on March 6th that Bristol was expecting. This has been confirmed by Palin's own spokesman. What did Palin do to counteract them? She told at least one person that it wasn't true. Wouldn’t it have been a lot more effective to appear in public – just one time - with your non-pregnant daughter?
*Bristol was removed from one school in late fall 2007, attended a second one sporadically until Christmas, but then was apparently out due to "mono" from Christmas on. (Correction: Further investigation has tracked down a credible sources that states as follows: Bristol Palin attended Wasilla High School for the fall semester, 2007. After the Christmas Holiday break she attended West High School in Anchorage for January and February 2008. She was removed from Anchorage West High School around March 1, 2008. The reason given among her friends that she had "finished early" due to taking "distance learning classes." I cannot find any "original" source for the idea that Bristol Palin had mono at any point. It was stated in the original Daily Kos blog / diary that broke the story on August 31, 2008, and seems to have been repeated widely, but the original source for this was and still is unknown to me.)
*Not one photo of the Palin family has been released from around the time of the birth, even though Palin has stated that all three of the Palin daughters were at the hospital.
*Palin's doctor, beyond some very brief (and frankly non-convincing) statements made last April in the first 2-3 days after the birth, has never once been willing to give the simplest statement to the press. Wouldn't having your doctor, perhaps accompanied by the hospital's CEO, do a press conference and announcing "Yes, I was at the birth of Trig Palin on April 18th, 2008, and Sarah Palin is Trig's biological mother." be preferable to telling the whole world that your seventeen-year-old daughter is pregnant? Wouldn't the doctor want to do that in the face of "ridiculous" "hurtful" and "insulting" rumors, and to spare Bristol the notoriety of becoming the most famous pregnant teen in America? Apparently not.
*Alaska Air officials, faced with the announcement of the birth on April 18th, made a point of stating that Sarah Palin's "stage of pregnancy" was not obvious on the flight the night before, nor were there any signs of labor or distress. They specifically called a news conference to do this.
*Gov. Palin has already been caught in numerous lies, exaggerations and "flip-flops" regarding the birth. She herself gave varying accounts in the first few days after the birth. She and her doctor put out statements concerning their interaction during the labor which contradicted each other directly. More recently, she told People Magazine (and others) that Willow spotted and asked about Trig's Down's syndrome as soon as she saw him in the hospital, which directly contradicts a statement given to the Anchorage Daily News three days after the birth which was that "you can't tell by looking" at that point that Trig has Down's.

Photos exist of a pregnant Gov. Palin that have widely touted as settling the issue as well. They do nothing of the sort. The allegation is that she faked a pregnancy. To fake a pregnancy one would have to do more than just talk; one would have to, at some point, look pregnant. Therefore, photos of her looking pregnant prove nothing. We would expect that there would be some photos of this nature. This never seems to occur to those who have turned to these photos as proof. However, curiously, these photos do show one thing: careful analysis of those that do exist from the period of 3/6 to 4/17 show an inexplicable variation in size, shape, and positioning of the pregnancy. Two photos exist taken only three days apart just ten days before the birth. In one Gov. Palin can barely get her arms and hands around her noticeably pregnant belly; in the other, she does so easily.

http://www.palindeception.com/

*shrug* don't care ...

But you should know, the reason she stepped down from being the Governor is because of ridiculous accusations that the state paid to defend her. The legal fees were costing tax payers millions a year just because liberals didn't like her. The legal fees were like 25 - 50 times the expense of paying her to be the governor. It doesn't surprise me at all that she just refuses to acknowledge there is a "debate" on whether or not she actually is the mom. She won't go through all the ridiculous steps the libs will demand to prove she is the mom when in her history of defending stupid ridiculous claims is that - it doesn't matter if you can prove the claim false. People will believe it anyway and claim there is a conspiracy to cover up the truth after the fact. Is there any proof that could be provided now that you would accept as evidence she is the mom? Wouldn't you turn around and question the integrity of the person providing the evidence saying they were paid off to say that? Then you will pull out all the points you just made here and say that piece of evidence doesn't explain other "evidence" you have that she is not the mom and once again conclude she is committing fraud and now coercion to get this doctor to say that, or the photo was edited or whatever the case may be. So, rather than deflating your argument, it would only give you more ammunition to fire at her.

That has happened to her on a monthly basis while she was the governor. She was highly criticized for everything she did, including things she did while on vacation. While on vacation, she was on a fishing trip. A reporter cornered her to ask questions on the latest smear of her reputation. She was dressed casual as anyone on vacation would be who is going fishing. She had a shirt on advertising a fishing company that her husband had an interest in. Within a month, there were legal fees paid to defend her from attacks on her wearing a shirt advertising a business her husband had an interest in.

quiters can allways rationolize their actions.

No rebuttal? That is all you have?

Anyone can rationalize their actions to defend the comments and beliefs they have. Saying that doesn't mean anything.

She made the decisions she made and I can only assume the reason she made them is what she said was the reason. I am not her or in her mind so I can only go off of what she said.

You make it sound like she decided to "come up" with this idea after. She stated it before she left office. When the news picked up the story and looked at her pay vs legal expenses you know what they found? They found that yes, she is correct and concluded Palin should pay her own legal fees as they were personal attacks against her!!! The Liberals were making personal attacks against her solely because she was the governor. I am pretty sure they wouldn't have slandered her the way they did if she never held a public office, I could be wrong though. So, she had legal fees for personal attacks only because she was the governor and the press decided that she should pay for her own legal fees. The Liberals LOVED that idea. The ones in congress tried to see if they could nail her with the legal fees.

Dont be a rube she left office early because she could make more money haveing a ghost writer do a book and doing speaking tours like some type of televangalist.

Give her credit though she has managed to turn a fast buck fleecing the sheep.