The idea is to set the agenda.
Make an accusation. If the candidate (on either side) responds, then you have caused them to use up time and energy trying to disprove your accusation. If not, you can then proceed on the assumption that the accusation was true.
Regards,
Shodan
Based on nothing? Come on. She didn’t look pregnant, she disagrees with her doctor about what he recommended, and her claimed flight back to Alaska while leaking seems extremely reckless, more like a preplanned lie that wasn’t updated to account for the circumstances than anything a sane pregnant mother would do. That’s not nothing. And as far as I can see the notion that the kid isn’t hers hasn’t been disproven at all. Assertions that seem to fly in the face of the evidence mean little. And trying to whitewash all these questions with accusations of rumormongering seems like a slimy evasion tactic to me.
As far as I’m concerned, the issue is not whether or not wether or not the kid is hers - that’s really not my business, and I don’t care about it. The issue is whether she’d cheerfully lie about it, and with such a flimsy-seeming lie too. That’s a valid question; we’ve had a little trouble from liar presidents and vice-presidents recently, and while it doesn’t bother me if they only lie about personal matters, knowing if this baby business is paved with hasty, slipshod lies is still a useful data point.
The thing that I find so puzzling about this issue is how incredibly defensive the pro-Palin side is, and how they seem so wounded by this vicious, vicious smear.
But what’s so vicious about the smear? As others have pointed out, there’s something somewhat noble about a woman, at the age of 44, taking responsibility for a special-needs baby that her 17-year-old-daughter bore, and trying to make it possible for that daughter to continue to live a normal life while at the same time providing as good a life as possible for the baby. If Palin in fact chose to take that lifelong commitment on herself it’s in many ways an incredibly noble and laudable act. (And one which has a bunch of historical precedent… grandmom-becoming-mom is far from uknown.)
Granted, the whole thing is put in a different light in the middle of a presidential campaign. Certainly, if suddenly proof were produced proving the rumor true, it would dominate the news for a while, although given the fundamentally benevolent nature of the rumored actions, I don’t know how much actual damage would do. In fact, given the current amount of hay that the right is getting out of being outraged over all the attacks on Bristol (again, what attacks? there’s far more outrage than attacks) that sort of non-issue might, by distracting everyone from substance and the economy and the war and focussing squarely on personalities and the cultural war, actually end up helping the McCain-Palin ticket.
In any case, as far as I can tell the rumor has NOT been proven false. It’s a rumor, and (unlike someone just making up “Obama’s children aren’t his”) it has a fair amount of circumstantial evidence for it. But there’s no proof of it. (And, unlike “Obama is a muslim” rumors, it’s a rumor about medical fact, not someone’s inner beliefs, and it could be easily and quite conclusively disproven in a number of different ways… the fact that it hasn’t been is, itself, somewhat odd.) So I see no reason not to just leave it as an unproven rumor. But, true or not, it is NOT relevant to whether or not Palin should be the next vice president (she should not).
I forgot this part.
Make a personal attack. If your opponent responds, accuse her of being defensive. If she doesn’t, proceed as above.
Regards,
Shodan
They should have been as dismissive towards the rumor as the vast majority of reasonable people (even the Lefties on Daily KOS) were. I wonder if the rumor was actually started by her party as a way to distract from her corruption and financial irresponsibility.
You have not presented anything to convince anyone that this issue is merely a baseless personal attack. Which makes this proxy-hyperdefensiveness of yours unconvincing and pointless showmanship.
Address the actual issues or contest actual, specific personal attacks. Reality and facts are, of course, not personal attacks.
Except that you’re missing my point. It’s NOT a personal “attack”, particularly. It does not involve Palin cheating or hurting someone or acting unethically. It does involve a little dishonesty, but for pretty much the best of possible reasons. And yet you are responding as if the rumor is that she kills puppies and eats babies.
Yes, there’s no proof. However, there’s not even any circumstantial evidence for it. Few rational people would think that some seemingly odd behavior during a pregnancy (and my wife is pregnant, so I know that odd behavior comes with the territory) means that a woman faked her pregnancy. That’s a leap that defies logic and only makes sense if you have some sort of dislike of the person in the first place. And, of course, we don’t even have the full story of what happened during her pregnancy. You are piecing together a few things you heard on the news and coming to a completely unjustified conclusion.
My assertion that Obama’s kids were fathered by another man has just as much “circumstantial evidence” to support it as does this rumor about Palin.
I think that her saying it’s her kid proves it, especially since there is absolutely no proof the other way. I think the fact that no one else in Alaksa saying it’s true is proof. She’s pissed off a number of folks up there. The Murkowskis, the Stevens, and the Youngs up there are quite powerful families and they hate her. Do you think that if this were true that they wouldn’t be using it to undermine her?
But I guess it’s true that she could release her intimate gynecological medical records to prove its falsity. I’m not sure why she’d go through a humiliating experience like that when the rumor mongers she’s trying to refute have no evidence on their side.
But that won’t stop you from spreading it, right? Because, after all, it’s just odd the way she acts. And she’s a Republican, so she must be lying, right?
True, but spreading it only hurts McCain, so might as well discuss it widely, right?
And I say this as someone who hates McCain and would never vote for him. I just think it’s bullshit the type of crap that Palin has to put up with.
There are at least three reasons to, shall we say, wonder about this situation. You have answered one of them by asserting that ‘pregnant women just do odd things like that, like putting their child’s life at risk with a long airplane flight when they know they’re cusping on labor’. (In which case, I hope she doesn’t get pregnant while in office! That’s a level of ‘odd’ that we don’t need in power.)
You haven’t answered any of the other reasons to wonder.
This assertion is, of course, false. Unless you have an example of him claiming his doctor advised him that it was safe to do something that might kill his unborn children, and the doctor contradicting that claim? (And a comparable equivalent to “not looking pregnant” too, of course.)
Her saying it’s her kid doesn’t prove squat, in the face of unanswered questions.
Interesting point about the Alaskan families. What, other than starting the rumors (which has already happened), do you think they might do about it?
I suppose if you imagine hard enough, there’s no circumstantial evidence. Ostrichy!
And a birth certificate isn’t that big a secret. Nor would a statement to the press by the birthing doctor about the parentage be too invasive. “Intimate gynecological medical records” aren’t necessary, no matter how much the squick factor helps your position. Really, this would be a very easy rumor to squash without getting too invasive about it. That Palin doesn’t… well, I think she just likes the attention.
No, based on the doctor who contradicted her story, the fact that she’s lying means that she’s lying.
Myself, not only am I not spreading this, I don’t even really believe the theory that Bristol is the mother. (Which is why I don’t include her 5-month mono in the circumstantial evidence list, incidentally.) However I do recognize that the official story doesn’t add up, and think that it’s still fair to wonder and ask what did happen.
You think this story hurts McCain? This particular story rather than the fact she’s a hardline fundy who hates abortion and may-or-may-not be into book censorship?
I’m confused. If you believe that she was leaking, then you also must believe that she was pregnant and therefore the baby is hers and the answer to the OP is yes. If you don’t believe she was leaking (a truly bizarre thing to lie about IMO) and was not pregnant, then she showed no bad judgment.
As several have tried to point out in this thread, the question here is about Palin’s bizarre, irrational behavior. If he’s Palin’s, then her behavior was at the very least stupid, strange, and reckless, and at the very worst an intentional attempt at harming that baby. This person could be in a very powerful position and we deserve to know if she’s this irrational or this evil. Obama’s campaign should NOT be asking these questions, but the American people SHOULD be. Loudly.
And should the American people have been so involved in Bill Clinton’s sex life too?
I believe that if her official story is true, she was leaking and showed bad judgement. And had a microbaby. And her doctor lies to the press.
I beleive if her official story is not true, then she was not leaking and showed no bad judgement…except for deciding to lie about it (or for not telling a better lie that would leave us nothing to wonder about; which you think is worse depends on whether you dislike lying or incompetence more.)
As for how bizarre this is, well, historically it was apparently not uncommon to claim to be the parent of an unwed daughter’s baby. Palin may just be a bit behind the times…in the case that that, in fact, is what happened (which is possible, but hardly proven either way.)
How could anyone think that the proper response to a rumor like this is to broadcast the timing and length of your teenage daughter’s pregnancy?
Seriously?
Instead of simply releasing your medical records like the other candidates? Instead of flashing the birth certificate?
You really think the proper response is to turn your pregnant teenage daughter into a pawn in a cynical political ploy?
Obama has been confronted with much more vicious rumors than this.
How has he responded? He has responded by addressing them with clear statements and facts.
He could have also responded by expressing outrage, throwing family members under the bus, and refusing to address the rumors.
Maybe that would have been a better political maneuver.
But after 8 years of an intensely secretive administration, now more than ever we need a little transparency.
This is a very clever approach to political strategy you’ve summarized here. Have you field tested it? I’d like to make sure that it’s effective before recommending it to my Democratic friends, so tell me, has this ever been employed with effective results by Republicans? I’ll be especially interested in recent applications of it by Republicans. I can’t think of any, myself.
Do you have any evidence that I, or, for that matter anyone else in this thread, has spread the rumor? Other than by posting in this thread? Which already existed?
I’d argue (although there’s really no way to tell) that the main actual effect of the babies-and-pregnancies-and-teenage-moms story as a whole has been beneficial to the McCain campaign, as it has allowed them to play the “oh, the media will not stop hounding a poor 17 year old girl. Leave us alone!” card, and the “Sarah is so brave to be supporting her daughter, who is of course doing the right thing” card, thus distracting everyone from the actual important issues. Granted, I’m going along with them by posting in this thread, but then I’ve already made up my mind on the issues.
And, honestly, you don’t think that all of this:
-Despite the fact that she was an elected public figure, no one knew she was pregnant until very late in the pregnancy
-Photos of her taken fairly late in the pregnancy don’t seem to show her pregnant at all
-Her 17 year old daughter, who we now know was sexually active and fertile, was taken out of school for 5 months with mono
-She has not released either her medical records or the child’s birth certificate
While obviously not proof, or even anything approaching a preponderance of evidence, is enough to even make you give some credence to the possibility of the truth of the rumor?
A couple of points that seem to be consistently overlooked here:
Palin’s doctor has stated that, contrary to her original story, he did not actually approve her activities when her water broke/leaked. She has (probably rightly) been taken to task on this, but note that her doctor presumably made his response based on the fact that he knew about her pregnancy and had been treating her during it.
There was, IIRC, a post in a Lost Weekend thread on this subject which cited a news reporter who had interviewed residents of Palin’s home town who confirmed that the daughter’s pregnancy was common knowledge there. (Anyone able to find this?) This would seem to argue against any last minute cover-up conspiracy.
For the record, I have no standing in this as an election issue, not being American, but as a Canadian, I would be much happier with an Obama/Biden administration running our next-door neighbour, and wish that the Democrats would drop this like a hot potato and concentrate on her real shortcomings.
Would they really? It is odd they haven’t been released. Try this on. The pubbies want to keep this kind of rumor circulating. They want to continue their claim that the rush to find out about SP is actually a sexist attack. They could easily prove the rumor wrong but they are getting more mileage by letting it go on.
I think that any parent would be properly outraged by a “We would like you to prove that your child is yours” demand.
I can understand that, and I honestly don’t think she should. People who think that a candidate should have to answer any question put to them are simply wrong. If some reporter wants to pursue the story let them.
I base the previous guess on the way the GOP has reacted to her being scrutinized, but it is just a guess.