She faked a pregnancy, but didn't bother the fake the weight gain?

[Bucky]

Did she just wake up in her hotel room in Texas one morning with a light bulb over her head and say, "By Jove, I've got it! I'll fly back to Alaska (Right Fucking Now!) and just tell everyone that I'm the mama! My God, I'm brilliant!" Whereupon she began to smooch her bathroom mirror.

If Occam had to argue against these moronic baby-swap theories he'd end up slashing his wrists with that razor.

[MH1]

1. Ah, the fresh air of sanity. eom.

[Beausoir]

2. The primaries brought to DU alot of real kooks.

I actually laugh at them now. Absolute nutjobs.

[Bucky]

4. I'm about to start putting the more vocal conspiracy theorists on ignore

I've got about a dozen hate mongers from the primary season on ignore. A few more won't hurt.

[Fumesucker]

3. Images of her obviously pregnant?

Governors get photographed, a lot.

Surely there must be pictures around somewhere of her obviously pregnant.

That would really help put this rumor to bed.

[Bucky]

5. She went into premature delivery and panicked and flew back to Alaska (how 9/11!)

She wasn't showing all that much yet, being only 7 months along when her son was born. There won't be any such photos. If any such photos show up now, the conspiracy junkies will just start yelling "fraud!" and "photoshopped!"

You can't reason with some people.

[Fumesucker]

8. Peple have been looking hard for such an image..

And I don't think any have shown up yet.

It would take a real expert at Photoshop to do an image that couldn't be spotted as such by other experts.

I'm pretty damn good at Photoshop myself and wouldn't want to try and do that.

[LisaL]

10. Panicked? She gave a conference after her amniotic fluid broke.

She is like a super-human.
Seriously.

[intheozone]

11. According to her, she was 8 months along when she delivered. nt

[JDPriestly]

14. Only 7 months? You show at 7 months.

As I recall, you gain most of your weight in the months 5-8. You don't really gain that much more in the final month, just a little maybe. By month 7, you have usually gained quite a bit. Her baby was over 6 pounds, so it was not tiny. How tall is Sarah Palin?

Here is information on pregnancy at 7 months.

By the end of the seventh month (week 31), your baby will be about 17.5 inches/ 45 centimetres long from top to toe. Her body is well formed. Fingernails cover her fingertips. She may try to turn towards a source of bright light.

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/months7/\\

Welcome to Month 7


Your Body

You’re now putting on weight at the rate of about 1 pound a week. Fetal movements will be stronger and more frequent. Pressure on your rib cage can cause pain, as well as heartburn and indigestion. Backache, leg cramps, swelling of the ankles and feet, lower abdominal achiness, hemorrhoids, varicose veins and constipation continue. You may also feel Braxton Hicks contractions in preparation for delivery. You may experience shortness of breath, as the baby grows upward. By the end of the month, your uterus will extend well above your navel. As the uterus expands, you may see stretch marks. It’s getting more difficult to sleep. By the 27th week, you’re in the home stretch. It’s the third trimester!

http://www.lcmwomen.org/pregnancy/pc_7.html

pictures (not obscene but explicit?) at

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=pregnancy%207%20months&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

If Sarah Palin has a strong musculature (and she probably does) and is fairly tall, she might not show that much even if she did gain weight.

[mnhtnbb]

7. The images of her at 7 months when she announced her pregnancy

have been mostly scrubbed. She does not look pregnant.

On the other hand, there is video of her when she was a sportscaster for a local TV station
in AK in 1989 where she clearly looks like a woman in the last trimester of pregnancy.

Her oldest was born in 1989. She eloped in August 1988 and has claimed she didn't have a wedding
due to expense. Eyebrows have been lifted for years that there was another reason to not have a wedding
when a baby arrived less than 9 months later.

http://www.ktva.com/video?bcpid=1641243975&bclid=1632695727&bctid=1761990935

[Sanctified]

29. Here is a photo where she looks pregnant.

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080829/img/pot-mccain-veepstakes-palin-90aef0b6c220.html

[enki23]

6. the rumor isn't that implausible

that doesn't mean the story would necessarily help our cause. sure, there's the "liar" and "flake" angle, but there's also the "devoted mother who goes waaaaaaaay out of her way to help her daughter in a way that is consistent with (most of) her stated principles" angle.

in any case, it's far from clear what the principle of parsimony would say about this particular case. the rumor would actually be a pretty straightforward and simple explanation for a number of unusual behaviors by her and her family during the time in question. when it comes to "multiplying entities unnecessarily" a pretty strong argument could be made for the rumor rather than the original story. but the fact is, occam's razor is a prescription for how to structure one's inquiries, not the final determinant of their outcome. and when it comes to complex human behaviors, parsimony is a pretty difficult thing to determine in the first place.

anyway, it really isn't clear whether the rumor itself (regardless of it's truth or falsity) would do us any good to propagate. that is, unless we were to go full republican and spread it under the radar to those groups for which it focus grouped well for us. i, for one, am not really comfortable with that sort of politicking.

[LisaL]

9. No, she apparently found out her amniotic fluid broke,

had to give a conference (obviously more important than about to give birth prematurely), got on commercial plane, flew for hours back to Alaska so the kid could be a "fish picker." Seems like a true wonder woman to me.

[undeterred]

12. First woman we know of to give a half hour keynote address

to governors with amniotic fluid leaking, NOT bother going to an emergency room to have the status of her labor checked, and take a 10 hour flight which involved changing planes all the way to Alaska without telling any of the flight crew that she was at risk of going into labor. That deserves an award.

[LisaL]

13. Yep. She apparently is as tough as it gets.

[undeterred]

15. If she actually did that she is totally irresponsible

As soon as her fluid was leaking she was at high risk for infection, and that could have killed her child. I don't think she's that stupid. I think she was rushing home to be with her teenager giving birth.

[Nikia]

19. Why would she lie about being totally irresponsible?

If she had this planned. Even saying that she had to leave when she first noticed she was having contractions would have seemed less irresponsible than having fluid leak. It would have been even better to just say that she didn't feel well due to the impending birth.

[LisaL]

22. Were people saying she was reckless after she gave birth?

[Warpy]

16. It deserves a trip to the booby hatch

First, she'd have had to give that speech in a diaper. The fluid leaks for a long time and it doesn't smell like roses.

Second, there is a risk to the fetus of cord prolapse through the cervix. She could have killed it just by standing to give a speech.

Third, there's a risk of infection as amniotic fluid is a great culture medium for bacteria and the hole in the amniotic sac provides a great entry route.

Fourth, premature rupture of the membranes can lead to precipitous labor, meaning she could have abruptly delivered in the middle of that speech or on the plane, a terrible position to put the flight crew in.

She'd had four other children. There is no way she could be that ignorant of the birth process.

The whole story smells of something far worse than amniotic fluid. I don't know if there was a baby swap with a daughter. I just know her story stinks out loud.

And for the record, I've seen the baby swap in real life.

[undeterred]

21. Exactly, she's way too smart for this.

All she did was call her GP in Alaska who told her: Sure, no big deal. Give a speech if you're up to it."Put your feet up." Get here when you can.

She told Texas Governor Rick Perry she was having contractions before the speech. What the hell? I wonder why he didn't talk sense to her- he was probably afraid she would think he was sexist.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122002615833483595.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[seemslikeadream]

24. yep

four previous births that baby could have come in 5 minutes, a 44 year old mother would have been in panic mode, I know I was near the end and my water didn't break

[undeterred]

25. She was in a panic to get home to her teenager

and not thinking about the details of the cover story.

[seemslikeadream]

17. 44 years old water breaks and you don't rush to the nearest hospital?

instead give a press conference and take a 12 hour commerical flight home, knowing the baby has Downs, fuck that.

two pooches to prove it, notice the breath holding?

[Nikia]

18. People don't usually premeditativly lie when it makes them look bad

Especially politicians and others who make their living in a more public position. If she wasn't really pregnant and her water didn't really break, it would have made no sense for her to say that things happened that way when what she did would be perceived as reckless. If her daughter really had gone into labor and she was covering for her, she could have simply said that she wasn't feeling well and thought that she better get home. Even mentioning the start of contractions rather than water breaking would have been perceived as less reckless than water breaking.
With your point out weight gain, even if she didn't plan this scheme until shortly before announcing her pregnancy, faking the weight gain still would have been a good plan as some women don't show as much until late in the pregnancy, when the baby grows more.

[seemslikeadream]

20. My first baby at 21 10lb weight gain

left the hospital same weight before I got preg, last baby 40 years old 50lb weigh gain!!

[LisaL]

23. Were people saying this makes her look bad, after

she gave birth?

[undeterred]

26. There was a poster from Alaska yesterday

who said that people in Alaska were not critical of her- they like it when Alaskan women act like "wonder-women" even if it involves a little exaggeration sometimes. Women in AK fish and hunt and do lots of outdoorsy stuff. So they probably thought it was great that she didn't want to have the baby in Texas and toughed it out to come home. So I don't think anyone delved into the details until now.

[LisaL]

28. I know.

So, I think that the argument that she would not tell the story unless it was true doesn't really hold water.

[LibDemAlways]

27. If her story wasn't concocted, and it happened as she

described it, then she was indeed reckless and ought to be perceived that way.