Trig Paxson van Palin

In re: the Hurricane Gustav of the blogosphere: the scurrilous rumors surrounding Sarah Palin and her fifth-born child, Trig Palin.

Edit 2 – 1:34pm, 1 Sept 2008: Barack Obama has condemned the explosive attention to the emerging Bristol Palin pregnancy scandal and rumors. He stated in no uncertain terms that he “would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18,” he continued, “and how a family deals with issues and, you know, teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits.”

See more on ABC News.

Well, now I feel a bit chastised and juvenile. Nevertheless, it’s part of my nature–and probably human nature–to revel in painfully exposed episodes of hypocrisy, especially from politicians, and especially from the condescending, moralizing holier-than-thou Christian Right.

In any case, Bristol’s pregnancy is a singeing example of the failures of abstinence-only education, very close to home with one of its very visible and vocal proponents.

Edit – 10:45am, 1 Sept 2008: The Associated Press has released an announcement from Sarah and Todd Palin that their 17-year-old daughter, Bristol Palin, is pregnant. The article states that they claim Bristol is about five months along–effectively ruling her out as the mother of four-month-old Trig. We shall see, dear readers!

It started here: Daily KOS

I don’t believe that Bristol Palin is the mother of Trig. Or, I’m skeptical, at the very least.

But I do know that either:

1) Sarah Palin was reckless and potentially endangered her child by traveling from Texas to the small and poorly equipped hospital where Trig was born.

Or

2) There’s a bigger scandal afoot.

I also know that a lot of the pictures used to support this theory are highly suspect. The most prominent picture used (below) was taken in October of 2006, and so is completely bunk.

But the whole scenario is so tremendously strange that it will, inevitably, reflect negatively on Sarah Palin, in one form or another.

Right-o. Well, after a whole day of reading the myriad articles speculating wildly about the situation, and following the literally thousands of Wikipedia article revisions, I’m going to bed. I’ll let this thing work itself out on its own, I suppose.

Also, in other news, David Keto and Christina Carr have announced their intention to marry (…each other). When asked why, they both gave incoherent answers about “lots of cool stuff … extensive registry list …”. More news when I have it.

Here! a worthwhile article!
What McCain Didn’t Know About Sarah Palin