BS:  Laura, as I wrote to you the other night, I had an insight that helped me understand what probably happened with Babygate. Can we have a conversation about this?

LN: Your comment surprised and intrigued me, Brad. And I know that a few others have wondered too what epiphany you might have had. I believe your comment came out of a brief discussion in comments about your theory, or feelings, on Bristol giving birth to a child with Down syndrome. Let’s go from there.

BS: Well, the person most responsible for getting me to rethink my views was Henry Blodgett, the head of BusinessInsider.com. After BI recently published my Babygate article, Henry and I exchanged several emails about whether a Palin family member could likely be Trig’s mother. And then, as you note, I bounced ideas about that off some of your regulars here. Finally, a few nights ago, I was literally lying awake, tossing and turning in bed, when all those ideas from everyone came together and produced a lightning bolt of understanding – and I was so excited I had to get up, go to my computer and send you that message.

My epiphany was that citing the odds against a teenager having a Down syndrome child is not very useful in figuring out what likely happened with Trig. Before the insight, my reasoning went like this: 1) because it was very beneficial to Sarah for Trig to have Down syndrome, and 2) because the odds against a teenager having a DS baby are remote, then Bristol probably was not the mother – Sarah Palin could not have been that lucky, I thought. I was virtually convinced that a Down syndrome ringer had been brought in from the outside, to benefit Sarah politically.

But here’s the flaw in that logic: it overlooks the likelihood that Sarah would have found a way to help herself politically from virtually anything that happened to be wrong with Trig. I realized that Bristol can be a strong candidate for the birth mother, because it’s not that unusual for a baby to be born with some disability – and in Trig’s case, Ds happened to be the disability. But if it had been multiple sclerosis, spina bifida, etc., Palin could likewise have milked it for political advantage.

By the way, I know some will say we don’t need to speculate on Trig’s bio-parents, just the fact that Sarah perpetrated the hoax. But I believe that without a plausible story as to what did take place, the public won’t accept that the hoax happened.

LN: I agree with you there. Besides, the “who” and “how” are as fascinating as the “what” might have taken place. There are those who look at the broader view and the political implications behind the hoax. I see their point entirely. And there is the view that this was a personal story exploited for personal reasons, and the “greater good” as far as Sarah could see.

BS: Well, my insight got me to view the entire birth narrative in a new light. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Bristol gave birth to Trig around Feb. 15, 2008. Let’s also assume nobody knew in advance the baby would have Down syndrome – after all, that’s not something teenagers are often tested for. If that’s the case, perhaps Sarah did not develop a plan to fake anything until after the baby was born.

Here’s a research challenge for your readers: what’s the earliest date that anyone can find for Sarah wearing her pregnancy “disguise” of a big flowing scarf? She’s wearing it in the Newsweek interview on March 4. But on Feb. 13, Sarah appeared in the video where she walks around Juneau drinking coffee, etc. Below to the left is a still shot from that video, and to the right a lightened close-up of her torso.

BS:  Notice that there is no scarf. And Sarah allowed herself to be shot with the wind blowing her jacket against her, showing a belly that looks as flat as a board – nothing at all like the belly of someone more than six months pregnant.

She seemingly hadn’t formulated the fake-pregnancy plan at this point. But why not? Bristol had been pregnant for quite some time. Sarah had plenty of time to figure out what to do. She would have been far better off starting the ruse when she was supposedly five months along instead of seven.

My take: Palin did not plan to fake the pregnancy until after Trig was born, when she learned he had Down syndrome. She certainly had the means to “hide” the baby and the fact of his birth, at least until after the election, if necessary – and that probably had been the plan until Trig arrived. But I think that after learning Trig had DS, Sarah opportunistically hatched the scheme to fake the birth.

Does this theory make sense, Laura?

LN: It does. And it’s almost too perfect for words. Let’s say for a moment that baby had been born with a far more esoteric defect or chromosomal disorder. Would that story have “played” well with the masses? Probably not. But if there is one thing that is universally known, or heard of, it’s Ds.  And if there is one disorder that better exemplifies the RTL argument, I can’t think of it. Instead of making Sarah appear to be more of a burden (on the ticket) saddled with a challenging newborn, she was seen as a savior holding a poster child aloft.

BS:  Another thing that had tripped me up before was the two Trigs angle. I could not figure out why two different babies had been displayed as Trig, but I figured something that bizarre must relate to an elaborate scheme to bring in a DS ringer. But one of your commenters explained the reason for two Trigs quite simply the other day:

Some people immediately could tell that the baby, Bristol’s baby, that Chuck Heath showed the KTUU camera crew at the Mat-Su hospital on April 18 was not a newborn preemie – and they immediately wrote that at the Anchorage Daily News web site. The comments were quickly taken down, but the Palins realized that for the next month or two, they needed a younger stand-in for Trig for photo ops they would orchestrate.

That’s where the ruffled-ears baby came in. Whose baby that really was, we may never know, but the baby met two key requirement: he (or she) was smaller than Trig and had Down syndrome. The Palins did not foresee that the ear problem would give the game away.

So a party was arranged at Kristan Cole’s home in honor of the baby, and it took place sometime in May. Pictures from the party were posted to the Internet, but whoever posted them made a mistake – she (or he) uploaded them as high-resolution photos, meaning people could zoom in on the ears and see the birth defect. By contrast, the Gusty-interview photos where Sarah wore her orca whale prosthetic were downsized so that not too much detail showed.

Incidentally, that means Kristan Cole, former Palin government appointee and BFF, is definitely an insider to the hoax. She must have seen the ear deformity of the baby at her house and knows the real Trig has no such deformity. The pictures of Ruffles were uploaded to her real estate business homepage. So I guess she is the one Sarah should blame for not downsizing those shots. Bill “I’ll slap you” McAllister (one might assume) was more careful with the Gusty photos.

So Ruffles served his purpose, but by September enough time had passed so that the real Trig could be shown at the Republican National Convention without his apparent age being an issue.

LN:  Allow me to interject something here. When I saw Trig at the RNC, my immediate impression was that he must be deaf and was awfully big for a 4-month-old. The following month, he was brought on stage following the debate. It was as if three months had passed before my eyes. That baby, that night, was SO much bigger than the baby the month before. In fact, I wondered aloud to a doctor friend of mine whether the baby had some sort of metabolic disorder. I couldn’t fathom how he could get that big that fast.

I don’t say this to clarify, or muddy, any points. It’s just not something that I’ve said aloud before. And it’s always nagged at me. But here is something I have said many times:  nothing in this story adds up. Not the sofa bolster bust at the RNC, not the size of the various babies in their TV appearances, not the announcements of their births, not the shape shifting women who are supposedly their mothers. Nothing.

BS:  I couldn’t agree more. A finalnote. If this narrative is correct, it makes clear that the hoax happened strictly as an act of political opportunism. Palin did not fake the birth to help Bristol; she did it to give herself a better shot at the vice presidency. At some point, I predict, the hoax will be exposed. And you can bet Palin will say it was all about protecting Bristol. And that will be yet one more brazen lie.

Laura, with your permission I would like to share with your readers a letter I sent to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, the facility where Palin claims she gave birth to Trig. Last month I sent the hospital a copy of my article on Palin and the press, along with a cover letter, seeking comments. (You may recall that on Oct. 3, 2008, Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson – or more likely, some lawyer writing on her behalf – had artfully referred to Palin’s “home community hospital,” a seeming reference to Mat-Su that nonetheless made it possible to avoid naming any hospital as Trig’s place of birth.)

My letter reached Mat-Su on August 12, per the USPS tracking number. I addressed it to the hospital’s director of marketing (i.e. head of PR), Sterling Grover. Here is the letter:

Dear Mr. Grover,

I have attached a copy of an article I will probably publish in the next month. I am sending it to you as a courtesy.

As you will see, Mat-Su Regional Medical Center looks in the article as if it may have been (possibly inadvertently) involved in a hoax relating to the alleged birth of Trig Palin by Sarah Palin on April 18, 2008, at your hospital.

I am aware that HIPAA regulations prevent you from commenting without a patient’s permission on any lawful activity that occurred. On the other hand, it may be that such regulations would not apply in the case of fraud.

Please answer the following questions, even if the answer is “no comment” or some variant of that. For convenience, please feel free to send your responses to me by email at [email protected].

              .         1.            Can you state unequivocally that no employee of the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center participated in fraudulent activity relative to the alleged birth of Trig Palin by Sarah Palin on April 18, 2008?

              .         2.            Can you state unequivocally that no employee or board member of Valley Hospital Association participated in fraudulent activity relative to the alleged birth of Trig Palin by Sarah Palin on April 18, 2008? [VHA largely runs Mat-Su.]

              .         3.            Can you state unequivocally that no physician then on active status at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center participated in fraudulent activity relative to the alleged birth of Trig Palin by Sarah Palin on April 18, 2008?

              .         4.            Is it possible a former board member of Valley Hospital Association could have stayed in a room of your hospital on April 18, 2008, without your staff being aware of it? In other words, is it possible for a former board member to obtain a room at your hospital without going through the usual check-in procedures?

Changing directions here, on April 28 of this year Dave Weigel posted the following at Slate.com:

Yesterday … I called up Mat-Su Regional Hospital, where, according to contemporary media reports, Trig Palin was born. I was patched through to the family birthing center. The director had left for the day, sadly, so I spoke to a unit clerk who answered my questions but politely asked for me not to use her name.

Why'd I call the hospital? One of the original concerns Sullivan had with the Trig Palin story – one that's based on an absent fact, and not on innuendo – was that Mat-Su Regional did not list Trig Palin's birth on its website. There's a portion of the web site, the baby nursery, where newborns are listed. Trig, born on April 18, 2008, is not there. And that's somewhat curious. So: Is every baby born at the hospital listed on the web site?

"No, it's not automatic," said the clerk. "Truth be told, we do take security photos of all the babies, but if the parents want their babies listed on the web site, they can request it. We're really sensitive about it, though. I think the hospital took up the policy not to publish names automatically because of possible baby kidnapping issues."

The clerk, realizing that Washington, D.C. reporters don't typically cold call her hospital, asked me if this call was about "our former governor." It was. Was Trig Palin born there?

"Oh, that's not even a question," she said. (If my reception was better I could have heard her eyes rolling at this point.) "Yes. Everybody here remembers that. Yes, this is where the Palins come -- this is their family hospital."

So, an employee of your hospital apparently said it’s “not even a question” whether Trig was born at your hospital, adding; “Yes. Everybody here remembers that. Yes, this is where the Palins come – this is their family hospital.” Please answer the following:

              .         1.            Is it the policy of your hospital to allow clerks to anonymously make statements like the one Mr. Weigel says a clerk made to him?

              .         2.            Do your employees receive instructions or training concerning giving out patient information that may violate HIPAA regulations?

              .         3.            Do you confirm the veracity of the statement Mr. Weigel attributed to your clerk concerning the birth of Trig Palin at your hospital?

              .         4.            If not, what is the hospital’s position on the question of whether Trig Palin was born at Mat-Su?

              .         5.            Do you believe Mr. Weigel wrote truthfully about what he alleges happened?

I ask that you answer each question I have posed. If you do not answer each question specifically, I will feel free to write that you “failed to answer” or “choose to ignore” or some similar construction. I am requesting all the above information under relevant Alaska and federal Freedom of Information statutes.

Thank you so much.

Sincerely yours, [etc.]

I wasn’t counting on getting a response, so I wasn’t devastated by the fact that I did not get one. I’m guessing Mr. Sterling passed the letter and article on to the hospital’s legal counsel, who instructed him not to say a word.

But let’s just examine what Mat-Su’s silence here implies. In my first set of questions, I essentially ask Mr. Sterling if he can state that no one connected to the hospital engaged in fraudulent activity on the day Trig was reportedly born. How depressing it must be for a PR flack to not be able to deny wrongdoing by his employer. But I hear his silence loud and clear.

Mr. Sterling’s silence concerning the second set of questions, relating to Weigel, is just as dismaying. The head of PR can’t even defend his people from a charge of gross violation of HIPAA rules, which is what happened if that clerk truly said what Weigel alleges.

Also, I have to say that if Weigel told the truth about what the clerk told him, then I think he got played. He claims he made a cold call, but I simply don’t believe it was totally “cold” – I would bet someone recommended he call the hospital around a certain time, and that the scenario he described then followed a script. (Of course, Weigel could have lied, but why would he do so?)

So, Laura, I am interested in what your readers make of Mat-Su’s role in all this, and of the hospital’s silence to my letter.

One more thing: that letter was not my first effort to get a comment from the hospital. Several months ago, I sent similar questions via a questions box at the hospital’s website; I got no response then either. So, Mr. Grover, for the third time, I am now asking you to respond to the questions raised in this post.

A recurrent theme on many of the blogs we all frequent is "proof". What constitutes it and what doesn't when it comes to Babygate...and for whom? And who's to decide? Professor Brad Scharlott and I have been talking about this and share our discussion here. 

BS: Laura, an interesting question to me is, What standard of proof should a journalist use in deciding whether the Babygate hoax likely happened? And if you conclude that it probably did happen, how do you present the alleged hoax to the public in your writing?

LN: I notice that you use the word “alleged” in your own writing here, Brad. That’s what we’re trained to do. and rightly so. But let’s step back a minute. A journalist does not have to decide on their own, or on the merits of the information available on the blogs - because, let’s face it, that is where the best reporting on this subject resides - that the birth story is a hoax. A journalist only has to see a reason for doing a story. And they have to have the integrity, and perhaps the stamina, to pursue all sides fairly. To give voice to dissent. Is that what happened with the Anchorage Daily News? Did they simply run out of stamina? Where they overwhelmed by Palin's protestations? Because as the then governor continued to be reported on in the blogosphere, the baby hoax was the primary subject. It was still being investigated by a lot of really, really good bloggers who have not chickened out. The newspaper did.

BS: Let me note that one problem we as journalists face is the unwillingness of Palin herself to even respond to questions about the alleged hoax. In general terms she has denied there was a hoax, but sometimes in artful ways.

For example, in an email she asked Pat Dougherty, editor of the Anchorage Daily News, if his paper was “pursuing the sensational lie that I am not Trig’s mother.” Notice that she did not say “biological mother.” Did Sarah Palin adopt the Down syndrome child she calls Trig? If she did, then of course she is his mother, his adoptive mother. And even if there was no adoption, she could argue that simply holding herself out as the mother makes her the mother.

LN:  But note, also, too, that she says “sensational lie” right out of the gate. Not “the story” or “the allegation.”  But she planted the idea that the allegation was a lie, without even having to explain why it was a lie. And she never did. She put Dougherty on the defensive. And, well, you know how I feel about this. He whined until he gave in – but not until he reassured her that he was on her side. How’s that for an independent press?

BS:  And as you know, she stonewalled him after that, even after he published this line: “It strikes me that if there is never a clear, contemporaneous public record of what transpired with Trig's birth, that may actually ensure that the conspiracy theory never dies.” The fact that she never responded has always struck me as a tacit admission of guilt on her part.

LN:  People probably wonder why bloggers don’t go to Palin directly and pose their questions. And perhaps snorting, “Oh right, like she’d answer me” isn’t a good enough answer. Instead, I asked Rebecca Mansour many times on Twitter to respond to my blog posts. And I invited her, many times, to do an interview with me. It was only fair. And she was predictably mute.

You, on the other hand, went directly to Sarah. Tell us about that, Brad.

BS:  I’ve revised my original Babygate paper as a magazine article. A couple of weeks ago I sent that to Sarah Palin’s Wasilla address, and she received it on August 15, according to the USPS tracking service. In a cover letter I asked her to respond to the article, and I also asked six specific questions that stem from it, such as whether she was truly pregnant in 2008 and whether she wore a fake pregnancy belly when Andrea Gusty interviewed her. I told her I planned to publish the article within a month, and I promised her I would include her response with it.

Of course, she has not responded. So what can we concluded from that?

LN:  One, she’s too big for us. And I can honestly understand that (although word has it that she is afraid of me.) There are a lot of demands on her time. Why? I have no idea. But there are. Two, why add fuel to the fire? To respond to you and/or me, or any blogger, lends credence to what we are saying. She’s hoping we’ll go away. Three, like I said in an earlier comment. We use subjects and verbs. And we use them in agreement. I think Anon on Gryphen's blog is right: that scares her.

BS: Well, if she did NOT perpetrate a hoax, there would be an extremely important reason to respond to my letter and article. In that cover letter, I wrote:

“As you may recall from your journalism studies in college, you are considered a ‘public figure/official’ for First Amendment purposes, in light of NY Times v. Sullivan. By providing you this opportunity to respond to my paper, I trust I am demonstrating beyond any doubt that my article bears no ‘actual malice’ towards you.”

Since I was forewarning her that I plan to publish the article, by NOT responding she essentially forfeits any conceivable opportunity to sue for defamation. That is not the same as admitting she is guilty, of course, but could you imagine an innocent high-level politician ignoring an article that made such sensational allegations of wrongdoing? After all, I’m not just any crackpot. Palin knows my paper in April made news around the world.

LN: So then, let’s go back to standards of proof. Clarify the issue for us.

BS:  Two are commonly used in court. In civil trials, where one individual brings a lawsuit against another, the standard chiefly used is “a preponderance of evidence.” This might be interpreted to mean “more likely than unlikely.”

Joe McGinniss has seemingly reached that point in his blog concerning Babygate. Not long ago he wrote that, regarding Trig, “anything is possible, but … it’s more possible than not that Sarah’s whole story is a lie.” But does that mean he is ready to call Palin out on the hoax when he hits the talk show circuit after his book comes out? Not necessarily. In the same post (June 14, 2011), he also wrote:

“I’m still not convinced (i.e. persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt), but recent close readings of the newly-released Palin emails by Jesse Griffin at Immoral Minority and Andrew Sullivan at Daily Dish bring me closer to concluding that Sarah’s tale is an absolute and utter fraud and that Trig, in fact, was not her baby.”

We see in his parenthetical expression above the other chief standard of guilt: “beyond a reasonable doubt.” That’s a higher standard than “preponderance of guilt,” and it is used in criminal trials. A few months ago Joe suggested that this higher standard is the one that should be used by journalists concerning Babygate, because Palin’s crime against the American people, if she did perpetrate the birth hoax, would be tantamount to a capital offense.

When Joe writes above that he is still not “convinced” that Palin perpetrated Babygate, what I think he means is that he does not feel that he or any other journalist, at this time, can make the case beyond a reasonable doubt that Palin faked the birth. I suspect in his heart of hearts, he harbors little doubt about her guilt, but until he’s ready to publicly call her a hoaxer and back it up with a near air-tight case, he probably feels a need to carefully calibrate his public comments. And that strikes me as both responsible and pragmatic.

LN:  I agree. There is little margin of error for a well-known and highly regarded reporter/writer who is about to launch a book in which he must objectively report on many facets of this woman’s life and career. Babygate is just one subject. If he got sloppy and merely jumped on a bandwagon about this sensational subject, it could cast doubt on how thorough or objective he was while reporting on more mundane or drier aspects of her career.

Meantime, how about you, Brad? You’re a journalist and an academician. How do you phrase it to people who ask?

BS:  In my spiral-of-silence paper that was posted to the Internet in April, I wrote that it was “likely” that Palin had perpetrated a birth hoax – and I used that not-too-forceful phrasing when media interviewed me. So I was effectively arguing that merely a preponderance of evidence suggested she perpetrated a hoax. However, in my heart of hearts, I believed that it was a near certainty – beyond a reasonable doubt – that she had lied about Trig. But ethically and pragmatically, I felt it was prudent to be cautious in suggesting Palin had lied.

I felt it was ethically best to be cautious because, unlike in a courtroom situation, when you accuse someone in print of wrongdoing, the accused gets no immediate chance to rebut the accusations. And it was pragmatic to be cautious because the alleged wrongdoing in this case borders on the unbelievable – it’s breathtaking to think a woman capable of such a staggeringly devious hoax could have gotten within a heartbeat of the presidency. I was concerned last April that if I came across as too cocksure there was a hoax, I could be dismissed as a partisan or a lunatic.

I know that you also have wrestled with these issues, Laura. What works best for you in thinking about and writing about whether Palin is guilty of perpetrating a hoax?

LN: I wrote about this in my Watergate post a few weeks back. I called it the “Bradlee 1%.” It’s not intentional or legalistic, but I find that I employ the same phrase, and that is that Palin’s story “doesn’t add up.”  Furthermore, I say that there is more evidence to make someone question her version of events than there is evidence to suggest she is telling the truth.

But I really try to separate my own personal feelings about the woman, her politics of hate, and her obvious lack of education. And this allows me to easily say that her story about this birth simply does not add up.  It really warrants broader investigation and attention. And so we cycle back to why the mainstream media avoids it like the plague. 

But instead of holding up the MSM as all mighty and worthy, perhaps we need to establish new criteria. The bloggers are all doing great work with this in their own way. There are strengths in this community that simply don’t exist elsewhere. One might ask: who needs the MSM any longer? Who are they to us? What value do they hold for this particular story?

BS: Those are great questions, which we perhaps can address in a future post. Meantime, I’m hoping Joe McGinniss feels he can call Palin out on the hoax when he hits the talk show circuit. I hope he believes he can make the case – beyond a reasonable doubt – that Palin has tried to pull off one of the greatest hoaxes in American political history. Nobody can say Joe lacks guts. And I can say, without a doubt, that Joe is one of America’s greatest living journalists.

As for me, when my revised article does appear, I’ll be more forceful than before in suggesting that Sarah Palin very likely is a deeply disturbed pathological liar who possesses an inordinate fondness for foam undergarments.

LN:  Thanks so much Brad. You inform and educate. And you make me laugh. It’s always a pleasure working on these posts with you.  

LN:  I was just reflecting the other day on how you and I met, Brad. Or rather, how we connected. You had written your paper on the spiral of silence surrounding the Sarah Palin birth hoax. And Gryphen posted some information about it. I read your paper and found it fascinating. So, I emailed you and asked if I could interview you for my blog. Next thing you know, here we are, going on five months later.

BS:  Some might say you and I have become the Stiller and Meara of all things Babygate, but I prefer Woodward and Bernstein. (I’m the one played by Robert Redford.)

LN:  That’s okay. I never wanted to be Robert Redford. I only wanted to date him. Anyway, I know that in this time since we’ve worked together, you’ve re-written your paper and pushed it out into the world a few more times. Tell us where you are with all of that.

BS:  I’ve rewritten it in magazine format. The original format was as an academic research paper, but it was in truth always more of a journalistic expose than a theoretical paper. The theory part, about the spiral of silence, was only the last five pages; the first 20 pages was an expose of Babygate. So in rewriting it, I have made its form true to its overriding original purpose: to expose the shortcomings of the press in covering Babygate, which necessitated exposing Babygate itself.

LN:  They go hand in hand don’t they? And I can say having read all the versions that you make an excellent case for both. Your writing is tight and sophisticated. And it’s also evolved as you’ve worked through the story. Explain what your goal was with that.

BS:  The rewrite is shorter, bolder, and much more forceful than the earlier paper. In the original paper, I avoided any mention of Gryphen’s “Tale of Two Trigs” theory. In the rewrite, I include that stuff. And I think the multiple Trigs idea has probably spooked some magazines from accepting the article. That does not surprise me. In April, I would not even mention in radio interviews the possibility of different babies being shown as Trig at different times. I did not have a strong sense then that that part of the story was almost certainly true and crucial to understanding what happened. But now I do feel that way.

LN:  And yet, the editors you’ve submitted to are still not biting. What kinds of things are they saying?

BS:  Here is part of a nice rejection note I got from a British publication: “Thank you for your interesting read. I am sorry but I am not sure that it is something we would take on as I would need to start from scratch to satisfy myself of all sources etc. and I am not 100% sure that even this would get to the bottom. What is needed is a whistleblower. Her daughter's doctor – or something.”

The online editor of a different publication, one in the U.S., indicated he definitely would use my article, in fact would feature it, based on seeing my original paper. After I sent the revision, he decided he’d better check with his publisher, who said no.

LN:  How did you react when you heard back from both these editors?

BS:  Their reactions did not surprise me. If you haven’t really familiarized yourself with the facts surrounding the hoax, it does sound a bit surreal.

LN:  In your paper you are very critical of the press for being timid and easily manipulated by Palin. Now you sound sympathetic to those who will not accept your revised article for publication. Aren’t you being inconsistent?

BS:  Well, I need to draw a distinction. It was the press corps covering Palin in 2008 that deserves the most criticism. There were red flags back then that a hoax had probably happened. When the McCain campaign responded to the fake-birth rumors by throwing Bristol under the bus and claiming she was five months pregnant – and thus could not be Trig’s mother – the journalists’ bullshit sirens should have been blaring. (As it turns out, since more than one baby has almost certainly been displayed as Trig at different times, there’s no telling what relation Bristol has to the current “normal ears” Trig with Down syndrome.) As for current editors who are encountering much of this Babygate stuff for the first time, I can understand how they might find my revised paper on the very edge of believability, despite all the evidence I present.

LN:  So isn’t this a Catch-22: Many editors find the Babygate saga unbelievable because no one in the mainstream press has written about it, but no one in the mainstream press will write about it for fear that people will find it unbelievable?

BS:  Yep. That sums it up nicely.

LN:  And what about their standard of proof? They talk about sources or whistleblowers. Can you appreciate that and/or understand where they are coming from?

BS:  Well, libel laws in the U.K. are much stricter than in the U.S., so the editor of the British publication presumably was worried about the possibility of a defamation suit, among other things. He wanted a whistleblower for legal protection.

In the U.S. there is great protection for publications against libel suits when dealing with public figures. But even so, an editor might have legitimate legal concerns: for example, would Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson be considered a public figure for libel purposes? Actually, I am so careful in dealing with Dr. CBJ in my article that there should be no concern along those lines, but editors are not lawyers – they don’t know where those legal lines are.

But I suspect that even more important to U.S. editors and publishers than legal concerns are worries related to being attacked and ridiculed. Make no mistake, not just Palin lovers will attack any publication that would publish my article, so would Republicans who see the danger to their party if the details of the hoax became known. After my original paper went viral in April, we saw some pretty grubby things: “recovered memories” of how pregnant Palin looked in 2008 by underemployed journalists, columnists at supposedly liberal publications flogging those recovered memories and other nonsense in journalistically abysmal pro-Palin pieces, and of course right-wing bloggers calling me an idiot and worse.

Anyone who would publish my revised paper has to be ready for an onslaugh – just as Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington post, needed steely resolve as Woodward and Bernstein uncovered Watergater. In corporate America today, I don’t think there are many Ben Bradlees left.

LN:  Does that mean the truth will never come out?

BS:  I don’t think so. In the first place, just because I’ve had no luck so far finding a more traditional publisher to publish my revised article does not mean I cannot get that out to the larger world. I could post it at Scribd.com, for example, and then try to publicize that fact. But far more important is that Joe McGinniss, “Fred” (as he/she is known at Gryphen’s), and Levi Johnston have books coming out soon, and the first two, at least, and maybe Levi’s as well, should focus attention on the hoax.

As someone who has published in history journals, I am confident that in time the story of the massive fraud concerning Trig’s birth will eventually emerge. The question for me is, How long will that take? Are you likewise confident the truth will out, Laura?

LN: You know I’m one of the most widely read women writers on Scribd. It’s an excellent place to promote one’s writing. In fact, your original spiral of silence paper is up there.  But I think you’re right in that the forthcoming books that will land in people’s hands might make a real difference - if nothing else, in telling a story that makes no sense. While we don’t know what kind of evidence these books will reveal, we can assume that they will describe a climate where enough people doubted the very odd official version of events. And how far people are willing to go to dig into Palin’s past will have much to do with how much she inflicts herself on our collective future.

Thank you, Brad, for once again joining me for a great discussion. And for sharing these past five months with me here on my blog. I've really enjoyed your company and your expertise. 

LN:  You know, Brad, there I am, reeling at the new issue of Newsweek with Palin and her BOOBS on the cover, although I did find comfort in this hysterical post Gryphen did on that. Then I find myself sitting in a doctor’s office opening yet another Newsweek winner. This issue features Princess Diana at 50. Their artists have melted her face, plumped out her hips and even created a Facebook page for the Queen of Hearts. Tina Brown tells us who she thinks Diana would be at a half-century, who Diana would have reconciled with, how she would have felt. What cheek. Talk me down. 

BS: I subscribe to Newsweek, but it’s getting harder to justify the expense. As you suggest, the magazine is getting fluffier, more like People magazine – and who am I to say Tina Brown, the top editor, is wrong in a financial, let’s-boost-the-circulation sense for going in that direction. The magazine has been hemorrhaging money for years. 

But, you know, she could have gone in a different direction. It was in April, as I recall, just after she took the reins at Newsweek (and merged it with the Daily Beast online operation) that she lured Andrew Sullivan from The Atlantic. I thought, foolishly it seems, that his move there signaled that the magazine would become more hard-hitting, and might even go after Babygate. 

In fact, I contacted Newsweek about the time Sullivan went there, and I pitched the idea of the magazine publishing my spiral-of-silence article. Being lazy, I did so using some online send-us-your-comments box, so my pitch may never have gone up to the decision makers.  

But my pitch went something like this: This is your chance to do something fantastic – break the damn spiral of silence surrounding Babygate and make Newsweek stand for powerful, tell-it-like-it-is journalism. They had a chance to do that. Would that have made good business sense, Laura? Or is there no market for that anymore? 

LN: I applaud your effort. And I am chagrined at their short sightedness, yet not surprised. Some have said that USA Today was the downfall of modern intelligence or the appetite for news, what with its short stories and colorful layout.  Newsweek now seems to have completed the trajectory into inanity. A mocked up Twitter page for Diana? Why stop at that?  How about @JackieOh! with more than a million followers.

Truly, I’d like to think that your comment got lost in the shuffle. You and I both know how difficult it is to keep up with my blog. Yet, they make room to create stories, how about making room to finish reporting on one. And let you do the heavy lifting, Brad.

I wish I had an answer for you. It goes back to that “ick factor” which is shorthand for all the reasons no one wants to touch this baby story. It will piss off the people who want short articles and big BOOBs on the cover. And it probably isn’t cost effective for the legal eagles that have to protect the rag, excuse me, magazine, and thereby protect their phony-baloney jobs, as Mel Brooks would say.

BS: I was aiming for a high-brow tone to my comments, sort of intellectual and refined – a Masterpiece Theatre kind of tone – but since you have brought up BOOBS twice (those capital OO’s remind me of something … I was very young … and hungry …), WTF were they thinking at Newsweek? Who’s the bigger whore in this transaction – Palin, for thinking she can seduce the male electorate into voting for her by thrusting her inflatable hooters at us from the magazine’s cover … or Newsweek, for thinking American men are so puerile and horny that inflatable hooters on the cover will make us to reach into our pockets and grab our limp … wads of cash.

(Remind self … Masterpiece Theatre … Masterpiece Theatre …)

LN: Since when did it become important or integral to a story to have multiple photos of the subject reclining on a dock or standing in a field? What does that say about the subject or the topic at hand? Nothing. It says “we’re about titillating the audience.” That’s all. And that’s sad.

BS: So the cover and the semi-masturbatory photos (meaning you can’t get off on them unless you have a water balloon fetish) and puff piece article should be a giant embarrassment for everyone connected with Newsweek.

But something caught my eye. The writer said that in August 2008, when the McCain campaign introduced Palin to the public, she’d been accompanied by four of her five children, “including their youngest, Trig, who’d been born four months earlier with Down syndrome.” I can see no reason the writer would cast that in the passive voice other than a deliberate effort to avoid naming Sarah as the birth mother.  

So the writer must know the truth and he’s trying to avoid repeating the lie about Trig’s birth. And that’s certainly progress on the Trig front. On the other hand, the writer did say Trig was born four months earlier, thus sticking with the probably fictitious April birth date given by Palin – but hey, you can’t have everything.

Still, word of the hoax seems to be getting around. Earlier this year, when Tina Fay was four months pregnant and barely showing, Bill Maher sent out this line on Twitter: “When Tina Fay commits to a role, she really commits!”– an obvious reference to Palin’s amazing six-week barely-showing pregnancy.

So if the media are taking baby steps toward Trig truthfulness, maybe they are not totally hopeless. Anything else in Newsweek strike you as a hopeful sign, Laura? 

LN: Truthfully? I don’t have much hope when once again, Mrs. Palin says her husband is a registered Independent when I believe it’s been solidly established that he was a member of the AIP.  But it appears that the stenographer at Newsweek did their job and took down Palin’s facts as she determines them.

A final thought on Newsweek and Palin: even though Newsweek has never caught up with Time magazine in circulation, it distinguished itself as a worthy rival with innovative approaches to the news. For example, in recent decades it did some outstanding reporting on social ills and pushed for solutions. It was thus an early practitioner of “civic journalism.” Osborn Elliot, the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University when I was there, was most responsible for those achievements at Newsweek. He died in 2008.  Even though I considered him a pompous ass, I can’t help thinking he must be turning in his grave to see what “journalism” has come to today. And here’s where I can say I agree with Palin on something: mainstream media has become irrelevant. It’s not doing its job. It’s not failing in the way she thinks. But in the way its not reflecting on what she says and does. It’s become shallow and stenographic.

BS: These are perilous times financially for many publications. Despite my unkind words for this issue of Newsweek, I understand that there needs to be experimentation, that the next decade may be a time to try out new business models in journalism.

Maybe the Benjamin Day for our times will soon appear. Benjamin Day started the first penny newspaper in the U.S., in New York City, in 1833 – his competitors sold papers for a nickel or more.

And guess what: the new factory workers, and immigrants, and housewives – people who had never read newspapers before – started buying these penny papers as they were hawked by newsboys in the street (also an innovation). And all those new readers attracted advertising – which became the key to how the penny paper could be sold so cheaply. And the penny papers, which hired reporters who dug up lots of sex and crime and man-bites-dog stories (also innovations), drove out the stodgier, more expensive papers.

Benjamin Day found the financial formula that would serve newspapers, and magazines, very well for 175 years or so. But now it’s time for another Benjamin Day (or more likely, Bertha Day) to appear.

LN: And they probably will. But I don’t think it’s Tina Brown. Don’t get me wrong: I want to write like her when I grow up. I think she’s a fabulous journalist. Her book on Diana was spectacular and gripping. But a story about what would Di do on Facebook? Not so much.

BS: Taking the long view, I’m not despairing about the sad state of journalism today. I think we need to wait for this new-fangled Internet thing to sort itself out. Then the Steve Jobs or Bill Gates of the news biz may transform journalism, except “he” is likely to be a “she,” since women are more and more rising to the top in our field.

And that’s why Palin with her inflatable BOOBS is so depressing. The Playboy bunny is dead. Someone should tell Sarah. Like maybe the press baron that runs Fox, Rupert Murdoch.

LN: Maybe he will, except I hear he’s busy in meetings in London and will probably be grilled by Parliament next week. Maybe when he’s done getting filleted by the tabloid masses, maybe then he’ll tell Palin to pack it in and go home. 

Tell us what you think, readers, about this issue of Newsweek and Palin’s glamour shots, and also about the state of journalism today. Brad and I want to hear your views and react to them.

BS:  One of the things I found fascinating when researching my spiral of silence paper was that there is no compelling evidence that Tripp was born to Bristol and Levi in late December of 2008, as reported. The first dated images of Tripp come from the Feb. 16 interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox. Here is a screenshot from that:

The only prior images of Tripp I am aware of are a few undated pictures seemingly taken by the Palins and shown in that interview or posted at a site for family pictures, or both. Here is one of those pictures, which you just featured in a post, Laura: 

So photographic evidence does not help establish a date of birth.

Also noteworthy is this composite of three photos of Bristol taken at the Iron Dog competition on Feb. 8, 2009, and originally shown by Gryphen:

Here is what Gryphen wrote at the time concerning the fact that Bristol’s belly looked somewhat large, perhaps a post-partum effect, even six weeks after the alleged delivery:

"… I did some research and found that post partum bellies come in all shapes and sizes. And that it is conceivable that this is how Bristol's stomach still looks after giving birth only 6 weeks ago. However I also found that it was even more likely to be that size if the birth was more recent or if it was not the woman's first baby." [Italics added.]

So what’s your take, Laura? Does Bristol look six weeks post-partum? Or might the birth have been more recent?

LN: I don’t want to muddy the waters here, but if I had no idea what you were talking about and I saw this photo of a total stranger for the first time, I would say she is pregnant. Ha! So, then let’s say she is post-partum. And I have no way to tell if this is recent or six weeks later. I just have no idea how she fit into jeans. Period. As usual, nothing about these women and their before and after shots makes any sense.

BS: Again, there is no compelling evidence that Tripp was born in December of 2008. The “announcement,” such as it was, came from a great-aunt in Washington state who had not actually seen the baby, and who told People magazine about the birth. Sarah Palin’s office refused to comment on the alleged birth until People had published the information – thus giving Palin an "out" if the date was later shown to be wrong, as she could say she was relying on the magazine.

The AP tried to confirm the birth, but the Mat-Su hospital would not comment, nor would the grandparents, Chuck and Sallie Heath, even though Chuck was the one who sent the information to the great-aunt in the first place.

LN:  Why the shell game? Especially for a baby whose birth is the reason why Bristol could not have theoretically given birth to Trig. One would think that the date of his birth was critical to their narrative.

BS:  Well, maybe the baby was born later than Dec. 27, as Gryphen’s comment above suggests. How much later? Who knows? But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the baby was born about Jan. 27, 2009, one month later than the reported date of birth, and see how the available evidence squares with that.

Let’s begin by counting backwards. If the baby was born in late January, that means he was likely conceived in late April.

In that case, this photo from August 24, where Bristol, in a loose-fitting top, shows no apparent baby bump nor enlarged bosom, seems to make good sense, as she would only be about 4 months pregnant:

What doesn’t make sense, however, is this picture from the Republican National Convention 8 to 10 days later:

LN: Obviously, her bust did not explode in size in less than two weeks – and the baby bump suddenly became apparent. What happened? 

BS: I have a theory about that. To make that theory clear, we need to start with the following news photo of Sarah, published on March 14, about a week after she declared she was 7 months pregnant, showing her with a flat belly that simply cannot belong to a middle-aged mother of four at that stage of pregnancy. On August 28, the same day McCain named her as his VP choice, a post appeared at the Daily Kos site and then quickly spread across the Internet accusing Palin of faking the birth of Trig, and the post included this picture:

My guess is that when Steve Schmidt, the head of McCain’s re-election team, first saw the photo, he nearly shat himself, because it made clear that McCain’s apparently un-vetted VP running mate almost certainly had faked Trig’s birth.

LN: That’s a career-killer, all the way around.

BS:  Right. So, I’m guessing a highly charged meeting took place a day or so later, with Schmitt, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and her press secretary Bill McAllister (at least) attending. Palin presumably fessed up about the hoax, explaining that she claimed to be Trig’s mother to cover for Bristol.

Schmitt and McCain knew it would be suicide for the campaign to either throw Palin off the ticket or acknowledge the hoax. But two things must have given them hope they could bluff their way through. First, someone (presumably McAllister) allegedly had the foresight to stage a few pictures of Palin looking very pregnant (almost certainly while wearing a fake pregnancy belly) in April. And Palin revealed to them that Bristol was again pregnant. And again, my supposition is that Bristol was only about four months pregnant at the RNC.

If I am right about that, it follows that the McCain team then devised one of the most daring campaign ploys in the history of American politics. They decided to exaggerate and announce that Bristol was five months pregnant and therefore could not possibly be Trig’s mother if Trig was born in April, as Sarah Palin claimed – and thus, the logic went, Sarah must be the mother.

Of course, this would work only if the press corps was so gullible they would not figure out that if there had been a hoax, Trig very possibly was not born in April. But sadly the press corps in this country have often proven themselves quite gullible, and the Trig affair was no exception.

LN: And of course, they were dealing with sacrosanct information:  medical information. No way to get anyone to go on the record about that stuff.

BS: So the plan was set, and the April photos of big-belly Sarah were posted to Flickr on August 31 by an untraceable person – they would soon be shown to reporters as proof of Sarah’s pregnancy. The next day, Bristol was thrown under the bus as her pregnancy was  announced to the world. And the lap dog press – not to be confused with the mythical watchdog press – said to Sarah, “Tell us anything you like and we’ll accept it as truth, no matter how preposterous,” instead of “Show us Trig’s birth certificate” or “Why would a sane women wait 20 hours after her water broke to go to a hospital?”

But what could the McCain team do to make Bristol look demonstrably pregnant?Bristol probably did not bring maternity clothes to the RNC and she could not go shopping unnoticed. My guess is Meghan McCain, John’s daughter, gave Bristol one of her dresses. Of course the voluptuous Meghan is much larger in the bosom than Bristol. Here is a comparison:

Apparently the way they filled out the top of the borrowed dress was to put something like a small pillow over Bristol’s chest, accounting for the very odd shape of her bosom at the RNC. They seemingly put some padding around her belly as well.

So does this theory sound plausible, Laura?

LN: It does. It sounds as plausible as anything else. Whatever the explanation, Bristol’s bust line at the RNC will, and should, go down in history as the strangest, most awful presentation of a young woman on the public stage ever.  No matter what the story, her mother should feel shame every time she sees one of those photos. Every single time. 

BS: After the RNC, very few pictures of Bristol appeared in 2008. Here is screen capture from the Keith Olbermann/MSNBC show  of Oct. 14:

To my eye, Bristol looks closer to 6 months pregnant here than 7 (especially if we assume it is her second pregnancy), which supports a late April conception date and the idea she was only 4 months pregnant at the RNC – but of course pregnant women can vary a great deal in appearance. For comparison, here is a picture of Demi Moore in the seventh month of her second pregnancy:

So what is the truth relating to Tripp’s date of birth? If forced to bet, I’d wager either he was born after Dec. 27 or his birth was induced at least a few weeks early on Dec. 27. In the later case, the press would have been kept away to prevent them from learning of the induction, because only a full-term birth in December would support the story told by the McCain team at the RNC.

But stop and think, Laura – this is the second Palin baby born within a year for which no official information is available. Why did the Palins find it necessary to blow smoke into the eyes of the press and public for both of these births? Why have we been forced to speculate like this in our effort to find the truth?

LN: Especially since we’ve already said that this birth should have been shouted from the tree tops. It was the proof, the only proof, of what they had claimed.

You know, I want to add one more thing here. In that Greta interview, there comes a point when Bristol’s own baby is brought in, and then a babysitter brings in Trig. For a fleeting moment, Bristol looks at Trig and there is such sadness in her face. I nearly fell over the first time I saw it. As I recall, Trig was very hypotonic, meaning low muscle tone, and seemingly low functioning at that time. I didn’t see a sister thinking, Oh, he’s so cute. He must have just woken up.  I saw a young woman looking at her own child with the agony of someone keeping a deep secret and someone who has had to hand over that child. If it’s true, I can’t imagine the kind of cognitive dissonance required to survive in that household. It was a brief moment, but it was a form of “proof” that I’ve never forgotten.

Thank you again, Brad Scharlott, for taking the time to talk with us about this. And thanks to reader Molly for sending a great collection of photos. 

BS:  Laura, I take it you’ve had a chance to read the though-provoking article I sent you:

“Redefining the ‘Private Lives’ of Public Officials - Women journalists have played a major role in this changing coverage.” (Nieman Reports, Spring 2002.)

The author, Florence George Graves, points to the media coverage of the sexual abuses of Senator Bob Packwood in the early 1990s as a breakthrough for the press in how it defines what is private vs. what is public in a politician’s sexual behavior. 

Up to that time, most editors shied away from stories of sexual predation by powerful men, viewing such behavior as “personal,” perhaps even a perk of high office. But thanks especially to women journalists, that old barrier fell. Does her thesis ring true for you?

LN: This is a wonderful article and I encourage everyone to read it. About half way down, Graves cites a fellow, male reporter who described editors as “skittish” about covering stories involving sex. That is the same word people have used over and over for nearly 3 years when writing about the Palin pregnancy controversy. It took Graves, as a woman, to break open that Packwood story, and it’s taken women to say Palin’s story does not pass the sniff test now. Now, that is not to discount any of the myriad men who have called Palin and her husband out on the improbability of their Trig story. But had women not been willing to talk about fluids and body parts, perhaps men might have stepped back, out of concern for propriety.

BS: I was struck by how the journalists reporting the Packwood matter focused on the human cost of ignoring what Packwood had done: dozens of women over the many years he was in power had been abused. Many were terrified of the man and quit their jobs rather than face continued sexual harassment. Ultimately, many of those women testified against him in congressional hearings, leading to his expulsion from the Senate.

Which brings us to Sarah Palin. Obviously, the actions of Sarah Palin are very different from those of Bob Packwood. But, even so, do you see any parallels?

LN: If you define Packwood’s problem as one of an abuse of power, then yes. We now know that Palin was found to have abused her power as a governor in terms of Troopergate. But can we define her secrecy at the time of her pregnancy, and the redaction of 2,000 emails since, as abusive? We can if in fact it was all in the service of a hoax. Abuse can cover unethical behavior and a lack of awareness for the dignity of those around us. Did she lie to the reporters covering her? Did she lie in her daily diary? I mean, where exactly are all those prenatal appointments that should have been on the books throughout that winter and spring?

Now Brad, let me ask you something. Graves goes on to write briefly about Gary Hart and his frolicking on the Monkey Business yacht in 1987. He did nothing illegal. But the ethics of his cavorting were enough to make him a funny footnote in American political history. Why hasn’t Palin been laughed off the page yet?

BS: Graves pointed to the “evolution” of reporting in the context of the Packwood case, and I think that’s apt. The evolution to that point, in the early 1990s, meant that men’s sexual offenses, if they were substantial enough, were no longer off-limits. The Hart affair in the 1980s may have been a special case, coming as early as it did, because he dared the press to prove he was a womanizer – and the press took him up on it. But certainly the press treated JFK’s sexual peccadilloes in the 1960s as beyond the pale of what they could report.

This evolution of reporting apparently has not reached the point where women politicians are subjected to the same scrutiny as men in all matters relating to sex. For example, two different men claimed last year, when Nikki Haley, a married woman, was running for governor of South Carolina, that they had had affairs with her. Yet the allegations received little attention in the press and she was elected governor.

But Palin, of course, is in a different universe from Nikki Haley. I am not aware of any other politician in U.S. history who most likely faked the birth of a child. There’s no precedent for how the press should respond. Reporters learned to use words like “penis” and “semen-stained dress” during Clinton’s impeachment trial but balked at asking whether amniotic fluid leaked out of Palin’s vagina. Nicole Wallace of the McCain election team used that very word – “Are you really asking what came out of the governor’s vagina?” – to shut down a male reporter who tried to ask about Palin’s purported leaks.

LN: I am so struck by Graves’ memory of trying, as a freelance reporter, to convince many periodicals to allow her to report on Packwood. Only The Washington Post took a chance on her story. One of the excuses other news organizations gave her was:  If it were truly a story, someone would have done it by now. Sound familiar?

BS: Well, with Packwood there was general acknowledgement he had been a serial womanizer, at the very least. In the case of Palin, I cannot think of a single prominent U.S. journalist who publicly says he or she thinks Palin likely committed a hoax – I’m counting Andrew Sullivan as mainly a blogger here – but Joe McGinniss recently came right to the edge of calling Palin out on the fake birth. I have been told off-the-record that various high-level journalists concede the likelihood that Palin perpetrated a hoax, so McGinniss is unique only in his willingness to go public with his suspicions.

LN: But let’s get back to the question of harm. What is the harm, Palin supporters ask, even if she did fake the birth of Trig?

BS:  I would say that a pathology of fear has enveloped much of Alaska, especially the Wasilla area, over this issue. You have to remember that Sarah Palin is demonstrably ruthless, unethical, and vengeful – it’s good to keep in mind her campaign to destroy the career of Mike Wooten, her former brother-in-law. Plus, in the space of four weeks in late 2008 and early 2009, fires in Wasilla damaged Palin’s church and caused the death of a former neonatal nurse, Dar Miller.  The church fire was due to arson; the cause of the fire at Miller’s home was not determined. Some people speculated that adoption records perished in the church fire, but I can find no confirmation of that.

There’s no evidence linking the Palins to those fires. But several Alaskans have told me that Wasilla residents fear they may suffer similar fates if they cross the Palins. Certainly Alaskans have good reason to fear they may lose their jobs if they anger Sarah Palin, as safety commissioner Walter Monahan did when he refused to fire Mike Wooten. She may not be in power now, but many of her loyal appointees are.

LN: And I might add here that I know first hand about people who talk, and then clam up, because they know that people are whispering about them. I know about people in government putting pressure on reporters not to report. About newspaper reporters who were talking to me one day, and then shutting down the conversation the next.

BS: And then there are stories of people who know too much or said the wrong thing about the Palins, who then suffered vandalism or worse, such as the documented case of a car window being shot out while children were inside – the apparent reason: an anti-Palin personalized license place.

I would further argue, Laura, that this pathology of fear has spawned a pathology of deceit. You recently noted how all the reporters, editors and columnists at the Alaska Daily News have seemingly been told to sing from the same hymnal concerning the fake birth question – contradicting earlier actions by ADN staff – even though the newspaper provides no documentary evidence to support the claim that Palin birthed Trig. And as I’ve noted before, former ADN reporter Wes Loy, who famously wrote that Palin “simply does not look pregnant,” for some reason decided to recant, despite evidence I provided that directly contradicts his alleged change of heart.

I am reminded of the fall of Saddam Hussein. After the liberation of Iraq, Iraqis came forward to say how terrible it had been to live in a society where saying anything negative about Saddam could have fatal consequences, and that therefore they were careful, even before their own children, to never to speak too freely. Alaska is not Iraq, of course, but I am sure there are people in Alaska who likewise are afraid to say what they know about the Palins and who dissemble in front of their children, lest loose lips lead to horrible consequences.

LN: It’s fascinating to me that this situation in Alaska with the Palins calls up for you a brutal regime where there were dire consequences for trafficking in the truth.

BS: Yes, and I am very serious when I say Alaska is in the grip of pathologies of fear and deceit. Packwood’s awful behavior affected dozens of women. Palin’s awful behavior has affected an unknown number of Alaskans (but surely many more than the number of victims in the Packwood case), who live in fear to this very day. Plus there are many more Americans who effectively have been defrauded by this woman because they sent money to SarahPAC, or paid to hear her speak, based on massive lies she has told.

And speaking of deceit, Sarah Palin’s books, and the just released book by Bristol, might be called works of “magical realism,” where some elements of reality mix with seeming magic, such as superhuman control over leaking bodily fluids and birth contractions, in the case of Sarah; or the recovery of virginal innocence – until a fateful night of wine coolers – by a teen who used to call herself a slut, in the case of Bristol.

But maybe Bristol’s book went too far in suggesting Levi was guilty of date rape. Just after her book came out, the two photos below were “discovered” at Mercede and Sherry Johnston’s home (and a giant hat tip to Gryphen for first publishing them):

These photos raise a host of new questions, especially why a very young looking, frosted-hair Levi appears to be wearing a wedding band while holding Trig at Mat-Su Regional Medical Facility. Perhaps these pictures can be the springboard for another conversation, Laura, but for now, let me ask: Do you think the press will ever do the right thing concerning Palin as they did concerning Packwood? Where’s our Florence George Graves? Could that be you, Laura?

LN: It could be me, Brad. I am willing and able. And, just as importantly, it could be any member of the posse of incredibly dedicated and fearless bloggers and writers who have not been afraid to say, for close to three years now, that this story, and many others involving that administration, stinks. When people say this story is too old now, and offer a who cares shrug of the shoulders, Graves’ article reminds us that it took years for the truth to come out about Packwood. Cognitive dissonance was alive and well in California for – how old is Arnold’s love child? – two full terms. Edwards and Wiener look like pretenders, who got the short end of the stick (if you’ll pardon the pun) in terms of a reprieve from the media who were on to them, compared to Schwarzennegger. But in the end, the press exposed all three of these men. So is the press now ready to go after Palin?

Considering what we know of corporate-owned MSM, I doubt it. They are hemorrhaging money and they employ armies of attorneys who will advise them that they can’t afford to hemorrhage any more. Which, at the risk of sounding smug, is too bad, because this is a hell of a story to work on. And the final barrier of protecting a woman politician, and her private parts, needs to come down.

Thank you, Brad, for sharing this enlightening article with me. I enjoyed reading it and talking with you once again.  

Sarah Palin’s Big Shoulders and Bendable Belly Pregnancy, a Conversation with Prof. Brad Scharlott

When people comment on the incredible shape-shifting, one-month-miracle pregnancy of Sarah Palin, they often allude to the various video clips of her being interviewed by Newsweek magazine. The interview was conducted on March 4, 2008 in Los Angeles, and next to Mrs. Palin is then-governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano.

This link will take you the most interesting clip, where Mrs. Palin talks about “huntin’ and fishin’” and her big family. The interviewer at one point interjects: “And you have four?” meaning, children. And Palin replies, “I have a bunch of kids” before rapidly changing the subject. Was this because she wasn’t sure how many she would have in the following days, or because she wasn’t yet prepared to tell the world about a fifth? “A bunch of kids.”  How maternal.

It’s not just that Palin was supposedly 7 months pregnant during this interview. It’s her behavior, posture, and her stunning announcement the next day that still mystify, dumbfound and disturb so many followers of this fairy tale.

Brad Scharlott, correct me if I am wrong, but the lady doth lean over a lot and doth have crosseth-legs-eth?

BS: Unquestionably-eth. Here we see a screen capture (lightened a bit to show detail) from that March 4 interview with Newsweek:

Throughout her entire Newsweek interview, which was at least 10 minutes (judging from several YouTube clips), she remained in that forward-leaning position with her legs crossed. 

LN:  What an amazing woman.

BS:  Amazing indeed. How late into your own pregnancy, Laura, could you comfortably assume that position and hold it several minutes?

LN: Are you kidding? I still can’t, and my baby’s now 16 and rides a BMX bike.

BS: As you noted, Laura, this interview took place on March 4, which was Super Tuesday, the day McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination. And it was also one day before Palin announced that she was seven months pregnant. So, at this point, if a hoax had been planned but not yet started, Palin perhaps was not yet very mindful of how a seven months pregnant woman should sit.

LN: Yes, but she already had her disguise on – big scarf, black dress. So maybe she really was pregnant and a miracle of biomedical engineering. Or, that was just a serious suit for sitting next to the future head of Homeland Security.

BS: Or maybe she’s planning on being an undertaker. In any event, even though that black jacket she has on clearly has padded shoulders, they do not make the shoulders of her physique look unnaturally large, just well-proportioned. And seeing that made me think of how in some later pictures, her shoulders do look quite large. With that in mind, I put together the following montage:

The first picture is the one we just looked at. The next one came from Elan Frank’s home page – he’s the Israeli filmmaker we talked about earlier – so we can assume he shot it on April 8 or 9, when he did his video shoot of Palin. The April 13 picture is a cropped version of a photo taken immediately after the famous Gusty photo we viewed last time. More on this picture later. And finally the April 17 picture was taken by a Texas photographer just before Palin gave a speech at the Republican Governors Conference. This was, according to Palin, after her contractions had started and shortly before her “wild ride” trip back to Alaska, which ended the next day with Palin purportedly giving birth to Trig.

Does anything strike you as noteworthy about these photos, Laura?

LN: Well, clearly in the second set of photos, she is wearing the same jacket, but it’s different from the first. Notice the cuffs. But the jacket also sports massively large shoulder pads. The kind we all threw out when 1989 was over. But there is a correlation between big shoulders/big belly. Maybe she just needed a big jacket to cover her girth?

BS: I’m inclined to think it’s the same jacket throughout, and that she simply turned up the cuffs to make sure her now very large belly bump is not obscured by the sleeves. Perhaps your eagle-eyed readers can weigh in on that question.

But I agree that something got a lot bigger. Look how wide she appears in the bottom two photos. Either she had a phenomenal growth spurt from April 8 to April 13 or she’s wearing something very large under that jacket … something much larger, it would seem, than the apparent square pillow we discussed recently. In addition, something about the “very pregnant” Palin pictures does not seem quite right. Consider the following:

We viewed this eBay fake pregnancy belly last time and saw how similar in shape it seemed to Palin’s belly in the Gusty photo. Even though the shape of her belly isn’t quite as obvious in the two middle pictures above, the basic shape still reminds me of that eBay belly – and that shape strikes me as too symmetrical. By contrast, look at the shape of Natalie Portman’s belly (far right) from earlier this year. You can see the effect of gravity. Her belly is more like a pear than a beach ball. At least to my eyes. All of which gives weight, in my view, to the idea that Palin was not actually pregnant on April 17.

LN: All women carry in different ways. But I’d bet that Natalie Portman wasn’t miraculously “not pregnant” looking at 7 months. I mean, we all saw her at the Oscars. It was evident. You waddle, you sway, you lean back, and burp. I simply don’t know where a baby was scrunched during that Newsweek interview. Though a belly full of foam would have neatly folded and cooperated. Either way, Palin looks like she had to pee through the entire session.

Look, I am neither Palin’s family practitioner, who seems unable to speak, nor her friendly foam purveyor on Ebay. I’d be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on this pregnancy. Problem is, the immaculate maternity tale has more holes in it than my kitchen colander. I really think Mrs. Palin needs to refudiate the story for once and for all. By the time the Family Circus Vacation Paid With Political Money But Not A Campaign Bus progresses to Fanueil Hall, Palin should see this as a mandation of liberties to tell the truth about Trig. After all, she is campaigning “on the Constitution.”  And stuff.

Or....The Amazing Shape Shifting of Sarah Palin in 2008. A conversation with Prof. Brad Scharlott

LN: I am back with Professor Brad Scharlott. Today he offers his analysis of the few photographs available on the Internet of Mrs. Palin purportedly pregnant in the Spring of 2008. Here he compresses them into a fascinating timeline.

BS: Let’s examine changes in Sarah Palin’s shape in the month or so before April 18, 2008, when she claimed to give birth to Trig. Consider the following four pictures, all of which have been lightened to show better detail, but no other changes have been made:

The first picture, on the far left, appeared in the Anchorage Daily News on March 14, 2008, nine days after Palin announced that she was seven months pregnant, and four and half weeks before she allegedly gave birth to Trig.

The next picture, to the right, was published on April 14 of this year (more than three years after it was taken) in the Anchorage Daily News, accompanying an article by Julia O’Malley titled “Make. It. Stop.” (The “It” she wants stopped is any further examination of the faked-pregnancy question. The point of the picture was to “prove” that Palin was pregnant in March 2008.) This picture, as far as I can determine, was not published in 2008.

Next over are two screen shots, one above the other, taken a fraction of a second apart as a video camera panned down. These were taken by Israeli filmmaker Elan Frank on either April 8 or 9 (he shot footage on both days). Palin, standing in her kitchen in these shots, was talking on a phone while smoothing her scarf. Fox News bought the video footage and showed the clip these screen shots came from. (The screen shots were captured at about the 0:16 mark of this video: Elan Frank Interviews Sarah Palin-April 2008 part 1.)

Finally we see Palin shot from the side five days before the purported birth. This picture is a cropped version of a photo showing Palin being interviewed by KTVA-TV reporter Andrea Gusty in the capitol building in Juneau. The curious circumstances surrounding the origin of this photo will warrant a closer look in the future.

Laura, does anything jump out at you as you view these four pictures? Keep in mind they are in chronological order.

LN: The first thing I notice is that Mrs. Palin appears wider in March than she does in April. But playing the contrarian here, I’m going to say that’s just angles and lighting.

But also (too) in March, Mrs. Palin appears to have, as crazy as it sounds, a bulge in her upper back. And worse still, a light stripe down her back, just along her shoulder blade. As if she had a bullet proof vest or something ELSE PADDED on underneath her black suit. Again, I recognize that I have a tendency to SHOUT a lot during our conversations. But you see, I feel as if I’ve just fallen down a rabbit hole and I want to make sure you can HEAR ME because these photos are freaking me out. And I just want someone to Make.It.Stop.

The third thing is that the final picture, known widely as the “Gusty Photo,” indicates a rather massive amount of fetal development over the course of four days. And of course, the absence of the ubiquitous scarf. As if to say, “Look at this!”

BS:  Let’s take those points one at a time. As to Palin’s width, she looks wider in that photo than the human eye would have perceived her because of lens distortion. The right-hand picture in this box is how she would have looked to someone viewing her at the scene:

For the technically oriented, the distortion fix involved a “keystoning” correction (because the photograph was shot from below) and a horizontal perspective correction because a wide-angle lens caused a “stretching” of elements. (And thanks to commenters on your blog, Laura, who helped me correctly diagnose the distortion issue in this picture after we discussed it here a short time ago.)

So you are right, Laura, she truly was not as “wide” as she appeared in the first picture – which makes the contrast between the first and second pictures in the timeline box even greater. Let me also say I am virtually certain she is wearing the same jacket in both those pictures – note the collar and the pockets. (It may be the same jacket in all the pictures, in fact, but it’s harder to tell with the last ones.) So the jacket is big enough to accommodate a very pregnant Palin. But for some reason she is not filling it out in the first picture. And note the flat stomach below her scarf.

In the second picture, the extra room in that jacket is being taken up by … what? … huge shoulder pads? Not to be unkind, but Palin looks like a linebacker in this photo. And compare that torso profile to the one in the two screen shots just to the right of it – she looks positively svelte in those. Plus Palin’s profile simply looks wrong in this photo. I just looked at a bunch of side shots of very pregnant women online, and the way her back slopes from her head seems abnormal. With most very pregnant women, the weight of the large belly causes the back to arch forward, but in this shot of Palin, the heaviness of her torso seems to hang straight down from her shoulders.

And finally the most remarkable change of all – the appearance of a large round belly on April 13, whereas four or five days earlier, there was no baby bump at all in the screen shots. Again, the Elan Frank video played on Fox News and can be seen on YouTube; its authenticity cannot be doubted. And while the fourth photo appeared under mysterious circumstances, there is no reason to think it has been altered.

So my question to you, Laura, is what could account for the change in body mass in those four photos – she seems to go from smaller to bigger to smaller to bigger, and not just a little bit. The change from the video screen shots to the last photo are especially striking.

LN: See, I disagree with you here on one point, Brad. I think she does look like there is something under her ubiquitous black jacket in the Elan Frank video still shots. So I wouldn’t say completely flat. But certainly slimmer than what, quite literally, pops out at us in the right-hand side Gusty photo. But remember that those Frank photos were taken during the same shoot as the Sponge Sarah Square Pillow photo we analyzed the other day. And I might add that someone contacted me to say that he is a Photoshop “expert” himself and that everything you said about the square pillow was right on target.

As far as explaining this to you, I cannot. I would like to claim, yet again, angles and lighting and some other-worldly force that can explain the shape shifting that went on with this woman and her pregnancy. All I can say is that in a recent post I showed myself at 5 months. I got big. And then I got bigger. And then bigger with my own pregnancy. There was simply no going back.

And speaking of backs: Do you think that is the bulge and outline of a pregnancy belly? Don’t you have a photo of one of those things somewhere?

BS: Well, there’s no getting around the idea that Palin might have been wearing a prosthesis – a “fat suit” – in the second and fourth photos. A variety of such fake pregnancy devices are available on the Internet and through other channels. In the graphic below I show one from eBay and superimpose it over the image of Palin from the Gusty photo.

BS: And yes, Laura, as you suggest, a fat suit could account for the bulge in the shoulder and other oddities in the second picture.

I’m not going to sugar-coat this. I can see no explanation other than a prosthesis for the astonishing changes in Palin’s body shape in the month before her purported delivery of Trig. And I seriously would like your readers in the comments section to let me know if they have other ideas.

LN: Thank you again, Brad, for your time. I also want to highlight this fascinating website:

I know there are a lot of models out there and places to purchase fake baby bellies (who knew?) But I found this site interesting because it shows the different stages one can purchase.  And how small and portable these devices can be (and how easily they might fly back from Texas!)

And finally, I want to leave this post with this thought: I am wide open to hearing from anyone, anywhere, who knows for certain that the then-governor was indeed pregnant - and can prove it. Because the idea of a sitting governor strapping on fake baby foam, in an assortment of sizes and colors, just gets too crazy town for me. And I want – I welcome ­- someone to prove that Mrs. Palin gave birth to Trig on 4/18/08 so we can put this puppy to bed (even though the good neonatologist has shown in a recent, barn-burner of a post, that the baby presented as such was born earlier than that day.)

Problem is:  I’m hearing about a definitive hoax from “readers in the know.” Trust me when I say that a great many of you in Alaska are reading this blog and writing to me. And so far I’m only hearing from folks who say it was common knowledge that Mrs. Palin faked it. And it was common knowledge that “other” family members were pregnant.  Others who supposedly can offer proof of a pregnancy are closing down like Ipswich clams. Please, email me at:  [email protected]

Sponge Sarah Square Pillow, or How ‘Tight Abs’ Palin  Made Christina Aguilera Look Chubby, by Prof. Brad Scharlott

Sponge Sarah Square Pillow.  There is no other name for it. But is there an explanation?

LN:  What a composite, Brad Scharlott. But, please, MAKE.IT.STOP! I don’t mean to shout. But my head hurts from looking at this freeze-frame (the lower one above) of Mrs. Palin’s mid-section circa April 2008. 

BS:  What we are looking at is a screen capture from one of the famous Elan Frank video scenes shot April 7-8 in 2008, when Palin was supposed to be about eight months pregnant – about 10 days before she reportedly gave birth. For those who have seen it, this is the point in the video where Sarah thumps her stomach while making some strange comments (which we’ll get to shortly) about her tight abs helping hide her pregnancy.

I have no idea who deserves credit for first brightening this segment of the video, but for at least a few years folks have known that if you lighten a screen grab from this part, what you see looks remarkably like a square pillow where Sarah’s stomach should be. (Andrew Sullivan recently ran essentially the same picture in his blog.)

I thought it might be helpful to see another very pregnant belly for comparison, so here is Christina Aguilera at about seven and a half months pregnant:

Now let’s juxtapose the bellies: 

Of course this is not a fair comparison, because Aguilera was 27 years old and in her first pregnancy, whereas Palin would have been in her forties with her fifth full-term baby, so of course you would expect Chistina to have a smaller … um … it seems Christina has a bigger … hmm … how tight are Sarah’s abs, anyway?

LN:  But you’re also talking different angles, fabric versus skin. Sitting versus standing.

BS: I did look for picture of an eight-month pregnant woman sitting like Palin, but not many are to be found. The standing versus sitting actually helps make my point – the belly of a pregnant woman will bunch up more when she is sitting than when she is standing, yet here we see the standing Aguilera with a bigger belly than the sitting Palin. Likewise, the lack of material around Aguilera’s belly should make it seem smaller versus Palin’s, which is clothed.

As to the angle, the side view of Aguilera’s belly gives us a sense of the typical roundness of a very pregnant woman’s stomach. We don’t have that same angle with Palin, but two things let us know that her belly is more flat than round. First, the position of her hands, which we can see are nearly flat as they slap against the belly. And, second, the pattern of light being reflected off the material covering the stomach. I uniformly lightened the picture – I did not move any pixels nor did I give isolated areas special treatment. So the relative flatness you perceive in the stomach area is an accurate depiction of reality – her belly really does look more like a first-base bag than a basketball.

LN:  But let’s be honest: Couldn’t Palin’s appearance easily be explained by the way the black shirt folded under her bust and under her belly?

BS:  Well, Laura, perhaps you should watch the video here: ‪Elan Frank Interviews Sarah Palin-April 2008 part 1. (Go to about 0:27 for the belly thump.) As you can see, the camera pans up and down from her face to her midsection, and you can see the black shirt is hugging her body – there are no odd folds creating an illusion.

LN: The shadows on the sides. They can be shadows, right? Not necessarily the contours of a SQUARE PILLOW! I’m sorry. I’m shouting again.

BS:  Well, actually, Frank was using professional lighting equipment to ensure there would be no distracting shadows.

Sadly for me, I’ve never experienced a pregnancy up close and personal. My wife and I have adopted two children, but we have not had children biologically. So I have no good sense of what shape an eight-month pregnant lady’s belly may take. But I sense you are not comfortable with the square pillow shape. Why is that?

LN: Because I simply do not want to believe that this woman – any woman – shoved a square pillow under her shirt. I do not want to believe anyone could so smugly mug for the camera and thump a pillow. It’s abnormal beyond reason. It would be insane.

BS: Well, as I mentioned, Sarah says some odd things when talking to Frank – let’s have a look at a transcription:

[Sarah talking as she thumps her belly] “I feel great! It’s been extraordinarily comfortable and easy this pregnancy. In fact, I did not tell anyone I was pregnant until last month, and I hid it till last month, and then … didn’t even purposely really try to hide it, just, ah, my abs were tight, and I could hide it [laughs] – till this month, there was no way …” [video segment ends here]

Sarah seems here not entirely sure what story she wants to tell: Was she hiding the pregnancy? She kind of says yes, then kind of says no, then points to her tight abs.

LN:  I agree. The conflict is there. Her ambivalence has been critical to the story. It’s been the reason she hid the pregnancy, according to her. But it also alludes to not really being sure what her narrative was. Or maybe it was an indication that she didn’t know the story herself until the baby would have been seven months along. Kind of like a child who makes up the story as they go.

BS:  Again, I am not an expert on pregnancy, but it seems to me that a woman with tight abs would show a pregnancy sooner, not later, than other women, because there would be so little fat to camouflage the baby bump. What’s your take on that, Laura? Can tight abs, perhaps, squash a fetus into a smaller size and thus hide it?

LN: First of all, or rather, finally, let’s debunk Mrs. Palin’s tight abs theory. I was so lean and buff when I was pregnant, you could bounce a dime off my ass. I was fit, ten years younger than she was, and it was my first pregnancy. And my belly was showing before 4 months. So abdominal muscles are a moot point. But she has had a good way of deflecting points for 2.5 years. Rhetorical mention of DNA, stretch marks, and tight abs are a method of deflection. They make the interviewer laugh nervously and look away.

BS: And men reporters, especially, I imagine, have been willing to let her play the “mommy parts” card – they have shied away from asking about leaking fluids and breast-feeding, and have avoided confronting Palin about the shape of her body during her purported last pregnancy.

For what it’s worth, Palin’s abs have seemingly gotten tighter over the years. Here is a photo of Sarah (on the right) in what has been widely reported as her first pregnancy:

BS:  So maybe Palin can produce an exercise video for forty-something moms expecting another child who would like to hide their pregnancies until the third trimester. It might be called “Abs of Steel: Is that a Baby in Your Pillow?”

LN:  Thank you again, Prof. Brad Scharlott, photography expert and close follower of this story. I really appreciate your time. Up next, our “resident” neonatologist has some analysis for us that is sure to make some people thump their heads.