Raw Journolist emails on ‘Palin’s Downs child’

Michael Cohen
Aug 30, 2008, 5:34pm

The upside is that if this is true she is done and so is McCain. It will be like McGovern in 72. The GOP won’t be able to survive this.

Adam Serwer
Aug 30, 2008, 5:37pm

I doubt it’s true. Palin’s child does not look pregnant in those pictures.

Mark Thoma
Aug 30, 2008, 5:42pm

Eric Rauchway has a post suggesting she tends to be controlling:

http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/queen-of-the-wild-front…

What sort of executive is Sarah Palin?

The newly elected mayor of Wasilla has asked all the city’s top managers to resign in order to test their loyalty to her administration…. She’s also been criticized by the local semiweekly newspaper for a new policy requiring department heads to get the mayor’s approval before talking to reporters. An editorial in The Frontiersman labeled it a ‘gag order.’”

“Wasilla’s new mayor asks officials to quit,” Daily Sitka Sentinel, 10/28/96, p. 3.

Does that sound like a management style familiar to you? (What was that phrase? “Mayberry Machiavellis”?)

Kathleen Geier
Aug 30, 2008, 5:50pm

> I doubt it’s true. Palin’s child does not look pregnant in those pictures.

Well, she didn’t look like she was in her ninth month or anything — but then again she was allegedly not that far along at the time. But to me she looked like she could have been pregnant.

Moira Whelan
Aug 30, 2008, 5:57pm

if it is true, fine: she raised the kid. The conservatives will try to give her a medal. I still think, however, that most of America would find this just plain weird. If I were the mccain campaign, I would confront Palin now, have her make a statement about how she was protecting her daughter, and let it fall into the context of a campaign. afterall, if she decided she didn’t want to put her daughter through the public scrutiny, anyone could understand that. The woman is from the sticks and didn’t even go to Juneau–let alone anywhere else–until she was in high school. Having lived in the sticks, I can attest to the fact that people make wacky decisions like this.

in the meantime, if this were my issue, I’d collect every piece of information I could find on what she’s said about unwed mothers.

I still consede, it may not be true, but I like others am waiting for the thing that makes me think that it’s BS. I’d like to think it’s bs. I’d rather not talk about this crap in an election, but I am suspiscious.

I did think it was odd at the announcement that the daughter was holding the baby and thought that it was hers…I just thought it would be the father holding the child…These are the first pictures I’ve seen of her holding the baby…and most of them are of Willow.

http://www.mccainblogette.com/

and I’m noticing CNN starting to run b-roll of her with the baby…a lot.

But can I also just say, the names Piper, Willow, Bristol and Trig are a bit…odd.

Adam Serwer
Aug 30, 2008, 5:59pm

A family member points out that it would be very unusual for a teenager to give birth to a kid with down syndrome.

Brad DeLong
Aug 30, 2008, 8:12pm

Which is why I think the balance of probabilities is that it is her kid–unless Trig has not Down but fetal alcohol syndrome, in which the balance shifts back the other way.

Yours,

Brad DeLong

On Aug 30, 2008, at 2:59 PM, Adam wrote:

> A family member points out that it would be very unusual for a > teenager to give birth to a kid with down syndrome.

Remembaer: if Trig is Sarah Palin’s grandchild she is just doing what mothers have always Donne: protecting her daughter. In a culture of slut shaming, it is much better to have a long bout of mono and a sister young enough to be your daughter than to be a teenage slut with a baby to be shamed.

Attack McCain for picking an unvetted running mate. Attack the system of slut-shaming. Attack McCain for seeking electoral advantage by courting the slut-sjamers. But say only that the story, if true, shows credit to Sarah Palin, a strong woman embedded in a slut-shaming culture doing her best to protect her family.

Brad DeLong
Aug 30, 2008, 8:15pm

On Aug 30, 2008, at 2:57 PM, “Moira Whelan” wrote:

> if it is true, fine: she raised the kid. The conservatives will try > to give her a medal. I still think, however, that most of America > would find this just plain weird. If I were the mccain campaign, I > would confront Palin now, have her make a statement about how she > was protecting her daughter, and let it fall into the context of a > campaign. afterall, if she decided she didn’t want to put her > daughter through the public scrutiny, anyone could understand that. > The woman is from the sticks and didn’t even go to Juneau–let alone > anywhere else–until she was in high school. Having lived in the > sticks, I can attest to the fact that people make wacky decisions > like this.

I have relatives who have lived on places like Madison, Berkeley, and Boston who have made whacky decisions like that…