Sarah Palin and the idiots that cannot stop attacking her, namely, the insane Andrew Sullivan, or as Stacy McCain calls him "Dr. Andrew Sullivan, M.D., OBY-GYN."
Yes that is snark, because Sullivan isn't a doctor, nor in the medical profession, he is a writer for the Atlantic, in which another Atlantic writer says, straight up, that his stories on Sarah Palin are highly "misleading." (H/T Stop the ACLU)
I am the only other person who has read all the obstetrician interviews, the interview with a reporter at the scene, and all the primary sources. I strongly believe that there is nothing to this story. Andrew writes:There is no formal record of Trig's birth at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, although there is a record of two other babies born on the same day.
This is highly misleading. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) (pdf) protects patient information. The "formal record" Andrew is referring to is a list of newborn babies on the Mat-Su website. This list is voluntary. Parents have to give their approval for their children to be listed (The Dish checked with the hospital). Trig not being on this list isn't proof of anything.
Forget about grainy inconclusive photographs: reporters saw Palin pregnant. This was one of the primary reasons Alaskan papers stopped investigating the story. Additionally, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Bristol Palin was pregnant during this time. The Dish interviewed Lori Tipton, an Alaskan TV reporter at the hospital the day of the delivery. Here's part of that interview:
Sarah [Palin] was in another room, and they said that she was sleeping when we arrived. And so, we got a little bit of footage of Sally [Heath] holding Trig, and Chuck [Heath] standing next to her. And Bristol [Palin] was in there, and I said to Bristol, "We should get some footage of you and your brother and your grandparents." And she’s like, "No I really don’t like to be photographed." And I said, "Are you sure?" And she’s like, "Yeah, yeah, no." And she didn’t have any make-up on or anything, but she was dressed in typical teenage attire, a tight shirt, low-cut jeans, you know, and we had heard the rumors before the delivery of this baby also, that Bristol was pregnant, and so, when my photographer and I got to the hospital and we saw her, I thought, well, clearly there’s no way that that girl just delivered a baby seven hours ago.
So, what brought up Sullivan's nonsense, yet again, about Sarah Palin?
A hit piece by Vanity Fair about Palin, to which cause political pundits to start sparring.
A hard-hitting piece on Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair has touched off a blistering exchange of insults among high-profile Republicans over last year’s GOP ticket – tearing open fresh wounds about leaks surrounding Palin and revealing for the first time some of the internal wars that paralyzed the campaign in its final days.
Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes. Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.
William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and at times an informal adviser to Sen. John McCain, touched off the latest back-and-forth Tuesday morning with a post on his magazine’s blog criticizing the Todd Purdum-authored Palin story and pointing a finger at Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager.
Schmidt, of course, denied the allegation, but it was confirmed by Randy Scheunemann, a longtime foreign policy adviser to McCain:
“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press. It was like meeting Tony Soprano.”
In case Sullivan and Vanity Fair are unaware, the campaign is over and Sarah Palin is still Governor of Alaska and by all accounts and polling, her constituents are very happy with her, her job performance and her family.
Why so the attacks against Palin continue?
To answer my own question, I did some searches and found out.
Fear.
Unadulterated fear from the left and some on the right, because the latest poll (June 24, 2009- Pew Reasearch) shows that while Palin is a polarizing figure, she is still more popular among Republicans than Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or Michael Steele.
Among Republicans, however, the balance of opinion about Palin is more positive than it is regarding Romney or other leading GOP figures, Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele. More than seven-in-ten Republicans (73%) express a favorable opinion of Palin while just 17% have an unfavorable opinion. Romney, Gingrich and especially Steele are less familiar figures – among the public overall and Republicans – than is Palin. While comparable percentages of Republicans rate Palin and the other Republicans unfavorably, far more view Palin favorably. And Palin continues to be overwhelmingly popular with key parts of the GOP base – white evangelical Republicans (84% favorable) and conservative Republicans (80% favorable).
You have to love a woman that can make grown men like Sullivan, salivate and mutter incoherently.
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