The thing that bothers me about this whole thing is the previously mentioned Rovian tactics.
Since when is the correct response to a question like this to push your teenage daughter’s pregnancy into the limelight, rather than release your own medical records like the other candidates?
It shows that Palin places cynical political manipulations above her own family, and certainly above the welfare of the country.
Well, Palin has raised all of these issues, so it is fair for us to discuss them. And I personally think that her use of lies, red-herrings and dares to prove her wrong (as well as the willingness to through her teen aged daughter under the bus to protect herself) show that that this woman is a true Karl Rovian successor to Cheney. The fact that Republicans are swallowing this hook, line and sinker and the blogosphere lefties are tearing their remaining hair out seals it: this woman can baffle a whole nation with her bullshit and is the next W.
It doesn’t prove anything. You might like to see the picture in a way that no matter what, Sarah Palin is evil, but you don’t know all of the circumstances that went into making the decision to reveal her daughter’s pregnancy.
Personally, I think that getting it out in the open now might damage her family less than having a daughter with a huge swollen belly two weeks before election day, when there would have been even more media scrutiny. Even if you don’t agree with her, you can’t claim to know her motivations.
The idea that Sarah’s daughter is not actually pregnant, or is not as far along as she claims, is pretty intriguing though. Like most people here, I think something smells fishy. This strange situation doesn’t all add up, but I’m not going to pretend to know what the missing pieces are.
Mosier that of course is part of the point: when exactly were they going to mention that Bristol was currently pregnant if questioning of these bizarre bits had not started up and needed squashing? Were they going to try to keep her belly hidden behind Trig and a large blanket for the rest of the election? If Palin was a serious consideration all along wouldn’t this be something to immunize against by getting it out there before her being chosen was announced?
My best guess is that McCain’s campaign didn’t know about the pregnancy, and Sarah Palin intended to hide it from the public, underestimating just how much scrutiny her family would be under.
Now that she has already been chosen, the Repubs are just trying to do damage control. Overall, her benefits outweigh her downsides. She is the only woman on either ticket, in a lot of ways she’s the only candidate that middle class average Americans feel like they can relate to (I’m not intending to expand the scope of the debate with this statement, just stating my opinion), and she’s at least getting people TALKING about the Republicans. Before her it was all Obama, all the time. How many chin-ups can Obama do? When do Obama’s daughters get to have a puppy? What does Obama’s brother think about all of this?
The McCain campaign needed a good old fashioned public interest boost. Nobody cares what breed of dog Obama’s going to get anymore. Everyone wants to know whether Sarah Palin is a good mother, and what in the world was she THINKING on that airplane, and just who is she anyway? People are finally talking about the Republican ticket, and at the end of the day I think the Repubs are smart enough to avoid a disastrous public-opinion-killing scandal from it.
You are missing my point. I never said Palin should not have revealed her daughter’s pregnancy.
The problem is that she revealed the pregnancy instead of simply releasing her own medical records like the other candidates.
She is making her teenage daughter a pawn in a cynical Rovian political ploy.
After the last 8 years, we need a little transparency more than ever, but Palin is immediately proving she is more of the same.
This is not the relevant statistic. As Sam Stone already explained in one of the Lost threads, the relevant question is this:
Given two women, a 16-year-old and a 44-year-old, one of whom is the mother of an infant with DS, which woman is more likely to be that mother?
The answer is that the 44-year-old is overwhelmingly more likely to be the mother.
True. The problem in the lost threads was that the question was stated badly up front. When we’re talking about one particular Down’s baby, with two prospective mothers, then, all other things being equal, the older woman is much more likely to be the mother.
Without giving any foolish speculation on the rumor, I will point out that you are mathematically incorrect.
You seem to be assuming that both women were equally likely to give birth to an infant in the first place.
The relevant question is this: given two women, a 16-year-old and a 44-year-old, which is more likely to first become pregnant, then to give birth, then finally to have an infant with DS.
For example, suppose that the live birth rate for 44-year-olds is 1 birth per 1000 women in a year.
Suppose that the live birth rate for 16-year-olds is 30 births per 1000 women in a year.
Now, say the incidence of DS is 1/41 for a 44-year-old and 1/1200 for a 16-year-old.
A 16-year-old is 30 times more likely to have a live birth, but a 44-year-old is 29 times more likely to give birth to an infant with DS given that they do give birth at all.
As a result, if you don’t know from the beginning that the 44-year-old was pregnant, mathematically the 16-year-old is very slightly more likely to be the mother.
Here’s one (bolded):
Here’s another (ditto):
Having clarified that, on to another point:
JCoM, the essence of your ‘conspiracy theory’ was common practice when I was young: a mother pretending that her daughter’s child was her own, and raising her grandchild as her own, in order to protect her daughter from the ‘shame’ of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The main difference between forty years ago and now is that few hospitals would actively help a family maintain that artifice, beyond observing the usual confidentiality of patient records. Hence the choice of a remote hospital.
I suppose you can call that a conspiracy theory, but it’s a pretty piddling one, and not particularly complicated. A mother would have to be of a certain mindset to bother with such a coverup attempt in this day and age, but that’s the most far-fetched aspect of it, AFAIAC.
I’m not saying it happened or it didn’t, but those of us who are old enough to remember when such ‘conspiracies’ were routine (aren’t you, or do I misremember?) aren’t exactly impressed by such a characterization.
I’m not looking to pick a fight. I’m not looking for a one-sided rant. I’m looking for answers. Not all debates are simply for argument’s sake. Can we find out who gave birth on that day? Yes? No? Why not? There’s obviously a debate regarding the risk she put her child in. There’s obviously a question regarding why she couldn’t just say she wanted to have her own doctor attend the birth rather than that silly response her husband gave to the question. Do you really NOT see the questions and debate surrounding it? Was she unaware she’d be under public scrutiny once she accepted McCain’s job offer? This is all standard shit for a national candidate.
When Obama’s religion and Other Nefarious Ways were all over the internet, he addressed them directly. Why doesn’t Sarah address this? Why doesn’t she put it to rest by releasing documentation? Making a public statement? SOMETHING? Was there a statement I missed that put this all to rest?
I agree that people don’t give a shit anymore. My husband’s sister bore a child that was raised as her brother by her parents. My sister-in-law, as well as my neighbor, who was knocked up by my other neighbor, were sent away to homes for unwed mothers. But given the fact that Palin didn’t look even a little bit pregnant, I have to question the situation. I was 19 and pregnant, and very petite. I lost my waistline, even if I didn’t look full-blown pregnant. I was showing at 6 months. My son only weighed 5.5 lbs and I looked VERY pregnant for the last three months.
The photographs I’ve seen show her looking decidedly *not * pregnant. Would it be the first time someone didn’t show? Hardly. But it’s far more rare to not show after four previous births. Since all Palin’s photos were pulled from the internet, we don’t know what she looked like at 8 months, but why would they do that?
It is also curious that she didn’t tell anyone about the pregnancy. It’s also curious that the daughter was pulled out of school for so long. Is there any documentation on that?
Anyone else in Palin’s position would provide the documentation, photos, etc., to put it to rest and get on with the business of getting elected. Why are we still asking questions and not receiving answers?
First, I thought her daughter was now five months pregnant, and the kid is four months old. If that is true, then that settles it.
Also, since it was her fifth kid, she probably had a good idea of when she was going to give birth and decided that she would rather do it close to home than thousands of miles away.
But most importantly, how many people would have had to been in on this “conspiracy” for it to have worked? Her whole family, everyone at school, the doctors, the pilots, her advisors; and for what purpose?
She is admitting that her daughter is currently pregnant and everyone understands it as a private family matter. What could she gain by going through an elaborate cover-up to pretend that her granddaughter is really her daughter?
And you would vote GOP anyways even if you do find out that she is a “reckless head case” ?
Because it is not a matter af asking questions - it is making an endless series of increasingly bizarre accusations.
Obama gets to deliver some drivel about how this is purely a family matter, knowing that his lackeys, lickspittles and liars will continue on the attack with or without his statement. It doesn’t matter that these scurrilous rumors are false - everyone with room-temperature IQ or above knows they are false. What matters is to try to get the candidate to address them, and get them in the news. If Palin produces incontrovertible evidence that the latest attack is false, the left-wing slime merchants will drop it without an apology and make up something else.
No, you’re not.
Regards,
Shodan
She had no idea when she was going to deliver, due to the fact that she was in another state, was “premature” (if she was pregnant at all) and is considered “high risk” by all normal OB/GYN standards. Just being over 40 automatically puts you in a riskier category.
Who can say anything? At this point, it is private information. The doctors cannot legally comment on any of it. All she needs to do is release the medical documents and there’ll be no question.
The daughter was pulled out of school, making it easier to cover up.
The pilots would not have to be part of the conspiracy.
Her advisors were deliberately left in the dark until she was six months along.
The purpose is because her daughter’s ideas are so far removed from what Palin and the Republican party believe. It makes her look ineffective.
The baby is a boy.
I would never vote GOP as the party has represented itself during my lifetime.
At least that much of your post is correct.
:mad:
What’s bizarre is the parts of the story that we know to be fact.
The point of my OP was that no one has been pursuing it, even though the whole thing stinks. I haven’t heard anyone explain any of it away, officially or otherwise. Can you?
I don’t see you contributing anything of substance to the thread. Can you defend any of Palin’s bizarre behavior with facts? If not, your opinion is pretty fucking irrelevant.
You’re right. :smack:
My mistake wasn’t quite that bad, but when I guestimated the relevant pregnancy rates, I was off by an order of magnitude. I was using the right equations but with the wrong numbers.
Using your numbers, given a 16-year-old and a 44-year-old, one of whom is the mother of an infant with DS, the odds that the 16-year-old is the mother is 50.6%, or just slightly more than a half, as you say.
Yeah, we’re all taking orders from Obama HQ. :rolleyes:
This isn’t something that’s being pushed by any Dem pols that I know of, and it isn’t even being pushed by any bloggers that are particularly well-known. And there’s no slimy ads, no robocalls, nothing pushing this that requires money.
This story spread only because it made sense to people - just ordinary people - and they bought into it.
It’s the marketplace of ideas, in its most pure form. If you don’t like it, I hear Russia and China are nice at this time of year.
What’s “scurrilous” about them? As I’ve pointed out repeatedly (including earlier in this thread), they put Sarah Palin in a much better light than her own story does.
At any rate, it’s only your opinion that the ‘babygate’ story is false. I’d agree that the preponderance of the evidence is on your side, but I don’t think the door’s exactly been slammed shut on the possibility that it’s true. (Which is why there’s a debate, tom. See the thread title.)
Well, I’ll help you hold them accountable. Give me a list of up to 10 of the most prominent “left-wing slime merchants” who have been pushing this story, and we’ll see what they say afterwards.
How’s that sound?
It would. But as I pointed out earlier, that’s one of the things we’re taking Palin’s word on.