Is Bristol Palin Pregnant? Did Sarah Palin Fake A Pregnancy? I Dunno, But Alaska
2 September 2008, 9:25 AM. By Alex Alvarez
We only became aware of the Palin family’s existence not more than 2.3 seconds ago and we’re already saturated. Just days after presidential hopeful John McCain’s announcement of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his choice for VP comes news that her eldest daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin, is five months pregnant. This is following a previous rumor that Sarah’s youngest child — who has Downs Syndrome and is named Trig because Sarah Palin hates babies with Downs Syndrome — was actually Bristol’s and that Sarah faked a pregnancy to cover for her teen daughter, possibly because Sarah Palin is a huge proponent of abstinence-only sex education.
Upon hearing the news, Barack Obama issued the following statement while taking a break from his meal of truffles in truffle oil to turn a cartwheel:
“I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits. People’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories.”
“You know, my mother had me when she was 18. How family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics. I hope that anybody who’s supported me understands that’s off limits.”
Good point! Your family is totally off limits, no matter how many charming anecdotes about them you wish to share during a nationally televised political convention or in however many TV and magazine interview you choose to pose with them. We’ll be sure to pay no attention to the speeches and cutesy exchanges among your smiling kin.
Sarcasm and nausea aside, Obama does have a point. Sarah Palin’s daughter is not Sarah Palin, and Bristol’s choices and actions are not her mother’s. No matter how absolutely fucking delicious the irony of this situation may be. We’re talking delicious like truffles in truffle oil scarfed down by elitists and their families while laughing at the TV. Delicious.
We do have to wonder, though… Why on earth would Sarah Palin choose to accept the nomination for Vice-President (And let’s not kid ourselves - President. McCain is approximately 7,002 years old.) of the United States while aware that her family’s current situation seems to prove that her stances on one of the very few issues she’s been vocal about — abstinence-only sex education — does not work. Of course, we don’t know whether Bristol and her partner, a young man named Levi, used contraception or received a sex education at all. But that doesn’t matter. If it’s insinuated that we’re supposed to vote for a candidate because she happens to be female, how can we possibly be expected to be smart enough not to immediately assume that Bristol’s pregnancy directly reflects on Sarah Palin? Or, like a political party, are we allowed to play dumb only when it suits us?:
Tony Perkins, president of the influential conservative Family Research Council, on Monday issued a statement supporting the Palin family.
“Fortunately, Bristol is following her mother and father’s example of choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation. We are committed to praying for Bristol and her husband-to-be and the entire Palin family as they walk through a very private matter in the eyes of the public,” Perkins said in a written statement.
Are we expected to believe, seriously, that this private matter would have still gone public had Bristol’s mother not decided to run for Vice-President? Are other teen girls who become pregnant harlots or immoral or bad Americans except the daughters of VP nominees - who are just good girls who make a bad choice? Get it we do not.
Palin’s teen daughter is pregnant [CNN]
Palin backed abstinence education [CNN]
FACTBOX: Facts about McCain VP pick Sarah Palin [Reuters]
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This story is less important for what it reveals about Palin — who apparently can’t keep her daughter in her Calvins and out of her Levis (see how I did that?) — than what it reveals about the vetting and decision-making abilities of Creaky McOldenstein. Choosing the Veep is considered the first Very Important Decision a Presidential candidate makes. Good work there, spanky.
I’m sorry, but if it was a democratic nominee’s child, the republicans would be demanding that the nominee step down. same old thing, it’s off limits when it happens to republican.
Nice use of a pun classic in your headline.
The irony lies in the fact that the baby’s father is a Obama supporter!!!
OK…I just made that shit up, but wouldn’t it be funny if it were true?
First of all, the whole thing sounds like a cover-up of a cover-up.
If you read Palin’s story, everything is weird; how no one knew she was pregnant until the last minute, how she took a flight after her water broke even though that never happens AND she has a special needs baby, and that she was back to work right after it happened, as well as the fact that I found 3 telling pictures of her: One month before she “delivered” she is slender, then she announces it and she looks like she’s smuggling a huge basketball in her shirt, then one month to the date after her “delivery” she is perfectly slender again.
None of it washes with me. Sorry.
Now, after a frenzied weekend of rumors it’s announced her daughter is five months pregnant? Three year olds know how to deflect a lie better than this.
And there’s this! Palin married her husband and had delivered her first child eight months later. Shotgun wedding. She then has four children, then for years none, then all of a sudden while Bristol is out of school for five months she has another kid?
No.
Anyway! Why this is relevant:
Palin is an ultra-conservative religious nut who fully intends to roll back and take away every reproductive right that women and men have fought for. She intends to instill creationism into the curriculum and promote abstinence only education as effective birth-control.
If she intends to impose her beliefs upon the American people, then every facet of this baby story is relevant, how her beliefs can only lead to utter debacles, how not informing sexual beings of how control and to keep their bodies safe doesn’t work. Does she intend every set of teenaged parents who’ve already failed the abstinence part to do as Bristol and Levi?
Lastly, I think Thomas Schaller from Salon sums it best:
What’s galling is this: When the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, minority teenage mother growing up in some (presumably Democratic) urban area, that pregnancy becomes fodder for lectures from conservatives about bad parenting, the perils of welfare spending and so on. But when the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, white teenager from some small town in a Republican state, that pregnancy is…a celebration of the wonders of God’s magnificence–and choosing life!
II’m even more encouraged to vote for Leslie Hall. She’s got gold pants. Gold, people. Ones she can dance in and make romance in!
As I read more about this mess, it makes me wonder if the Republicans are wishing for some Bush Twin antics… which kinda seem so tame by comparison.
I just laughed out loud at work, that never happens. Thank you for telling it like it is! “We do have to wonder, though… Why on earth would Sarah Palin choose to accept the nomination for Vice-President (And let’s not kid ourselves - President. McCain is approximately 7,002 years old.) of the United States while aware that her family’s current situation seems to prove that her stances on one of the very few issues she’s been vocal about — abstinence-only sex education — does not work”
I’m crying! I’m crying, because I’m laughing so hard. 7,002 years old! Whew, that was so great. But seriously, how is it that you can embrace the decision to keep the baby while not condemning the decision that led to the baby? I’m a staunch pro-choice supporter, but I respect pro-life supporters (as long as they’re not blowing up buildings and gunning down doctors). But if you say 100% abstinence, you HAVE to condemn Bristol publicly. I mean, then you can support her, but you have to verbalize that she is WRONG and admonish others who follow her footsteps. And kudos to Thomas Schaller who hit the nail on the head.
How are you gonna call a man who was, at one point, on food stamps elitist when his opponent can’t even remember how many houses he has?
Baby trig is 5 months old AND bristol is 5 months pregnant, please come up with a better story, seems too perfect–can’t get pregnant when your’e allready pregnant. wonder if bristol is indeed pregnant or if it’s just a ‘fat suit’, any pictures of her recently that don’t jive? noticed she was hiding her belly at convention- now new pics of her ‘pregnant’ in a skin tight top? really? you know any teen that wants to look like a sausage on national TV. i expect the unfortunate miscarriage of bristol’s ‘baby’ will rally republicans for electing palin as “gods will”.
How gulllible Americans are: “Oh really, so Bristol is pregnant now? So, she couldn’t have been pregnant then…” I’ve seen recent vids of Bristol, supposedly 7 moths pregnat — the campaign seems to have been a sort of weight-loss regimen for her ; )