jnail

OBDoc,

You have suggested a very plausible reason as to why this preganncy might be "faked". One could easily speculate that a politician staking her reputation on staunch family values might be so ambitous as to conceal her own families short comings in order to be able to maintain the holier than thou stance and avoid the accusations of being a hypocrit.

Oddly it is just this sort of "family stuff", as in how does a teenage parent manage to raise a child with substantial health care bills, that cause the prolife one size fits all federal policies regarding family planning to be so undesirable.

Now lets your suggested motive turns out to be right. Teh question is then why not just have Sarah adopt her grandson. Is there some legal reason? Would this exclude insurance coverage and put the finacial burden squarely on Sarah? Or are we back to she just wanted to mainatin a front.

Jnail -- please post or send me a PM with your email contact info. I can't seem to send you a PM directly and I want to talk to you.

I, too, was very excited by these pictures. it seems to negate much of the story told by the Palins regarding her relationship with Levi. However, these pictures and, particularly, the captions do tend to help those who claim that Sarah Palin is the mother. The reference to "my little brother" would only be true if Sarah was, in fact, the mother of the child. It would be kind of like a "brother-in-law", sort of, but more accurately perhaps the brother of her planned or current sister-in-law.

Again, the photos have probative value, but the assertions that the infant is, in fact, her "brother" could result from one or more of the following:

1) She believes that Sarah Palin is the baby's mother.
2) She knows Sarah Palin is not the mother, but is maintaining the ruse.
3) She knows affirmatively that Sarah Palin is the mother.

The problem with result 3 is that you have to also then accept at face value that Levi and Bristol are already married, which contradicts the public statements of her parents that they are going to be married. She could testify to what she knew at the time, but would then be subject to cross-examination. If she was not, then her entire testimony is worthless. It could coached or offered to serve her own interests.

I would proffer that I interpret these pictures/captions to reach the following possible conclusions:

1) Everyone considers everyone close family. She could, therefore, be in on the secret.
2) The mono story is crap, since Bristol is around the baby.
3) Everyone considers everyone close family so the birth of Trig by Sarah Palin would be a joyous occasion worthy of pictures and posting.
4) Everyone considers everyone close family so the birth of Trig by Bristol Palin would be a joyous occasion worthy of pictures and posting.
5) You have to be REAL close family to post pictures of your future potential sister-in-law's new baby brother.
6) Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston were, at minimum, engaged as early as the end of April or early May, based on the size of the infant.
7) Bristol Palin could not have known that she was pregnant then if she is 5 months pregnant now, based on the likely date of the pictures (based on the infant's size), since not enough time could have passed.
8) If Bristol and Levi were already married, then there would have been no need to cover up the pregnancy, but the Palin's public statements don't make sense.

I find a couple of strongly supported suppositions:

A) Levi and Bristol were already engaged at the time of these photos. They were probably not married yet based on the other circumstances.
B) They intended to get married with or without Sarah Palin's nomination to VP.

Now things get muddled real fast.

C) Combining the fact of Bristol leaving school where Levi remained, it seems unlikely that they would be engaged if the baby was Bristol's but Levi was not the father. This is inconclusive, however.
D) If Bristol is the mother and Levi is the father, that would explain the closeness obvious in the pictures and that the families seemed to be joined already. If so, it seems likely that they would keep the secret.
E) If Bristol was the mother and Levi the father, it seems HIGHLY unlikely that they would not tell that to Levi.
F) That there were no posted pictures of Levi with the baby cuts both ways. If they were covering it up publicly, they probably wouldn't show him with the baby. If he weren't the father, they probably wouldn't show him. But this is the sister's web page, so this is as best inconclusive.
G) Everyone is VERY close even though Bristol left school. This is consistent with, but hardly proof of, the central assertion of Bristol being the mother of Trig.
H) If everyone is so close, why is there all the secrecy about her being pregnant?

Pictures are worth a lot in the court of public opinion, because critical reasoning is not a skill common to many in the general public. The press has it but ignores it for a story.

I am wildly speculating here and do not suggest this course of action, but if one were to post these pictures without the captions, the public would interpret them this way:

1) This family is so close that it must be Bristol's child, not Sarah's.
2) A new arrival of your best-friend-brother's child (your nephew) by your future sister-in-law (who you already considered married) would cause you to take and post these pictures, not necessarily the birth of your future sister-in-law's baby brother.
3) Gov. Palin's posture in the picture is not consistent with her being the mother.

With these pictures, with our without captions, they would have a lot of explaining to do.

celtish wrote:

"Now lets your suggested motive turns out to be right. Teh question is then why not just have Sarah adopt her grandson. Is there some legal reason? Would this exclude insurance coverage and put the finacial burden squarely on Sarah? Or are we back to she just wanted to mainatin a front. "

One bit I read on another blog (before I started actually keeping track of these things) is that in the event of an adoption before birth, a birth certificate would actually list Sarah and Todd as parents - and since court records for adoptions are sealed for some time, there would be no way around this. I don't know that is actually the case in AK, but if it is, then the birth certificate would still be "clean"...

Does this mean Rove is just playing us until they release the birth certificate? Or is something even more funky going on here?

I still say, there should be pics from the birth. Where are they? Ask for those, if they can't provide them, ask why. It's not asking for the birth cert or medical records, just a photo or video. Heck, just get the vid for the "interview" from Mar 2008... anything.

It appears the room is a hospital room. This baby was just born. Mom has hair done earrings so forth and so on. I am a mother of 4 and know when your in labor after having multiple births they usually come quickly. water leaking is a GO sign. I had the same maternal feeling when they were introduced for the first time. Some one had to have said something. Notice they are going out of there way to have her hold the baby..

Excellent gathering of information and analysis going on here. There are simply too many skeletons in Palin's closet, her drinking children, her PG unwed daughter, the controversy over Trig, Palin's undeniable fascista way, the fright she puts into the hearts of so many of us. Since McCain did not effectively vet her, the American and International Press needs to do the scrubbing and exposing of this woman's vile veneer and deep seated apocalyptic views she bases on her readings of the bible. It'll be incredibly sad if our electoral system fails us once again and the GOP has their way for another term. I'll bet Bush's advisor, Karl Rove, is lovin' Palin. Peace, Pia.

McCain/Palin must be stopped. Vote Obama on Nov. 4. Also, we need help to show our opinion in this PBS poll. Please help.

The PBS poll asks: Is Sarah Palin qualified?

You don't have to give your name or email address in order to vote.

It's very simple.

Here's the link:

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html