Andrew Sullivan's Two Options

Andrew Sullivan wrote in "The Day Trig Was Born," in part:

... It seems to me we have two options. It's possible that Palin simply made up her drama of labor, or exaggerated it for effect, when in fact it was a routine, if rare, pregnancy, and she had mild warnings that the birth may be premature, and she gussied that up into a tall tale of her pioneer spirit, guided by her doctor, who refused to take the NYT's calls as soon as Palin hit the big time. I think that's the likeliest explanation, given the sheer world-historical weirdness of the alternative.

But it's also possible that she never had that baby at all. I mean, if you read the emails and independent reports above and were asked if this woman were in labor with a special needs child, and that her water had already broken, would you believe it? Just put all the facts in front of you and ask yourself that question. ...

Sullivan recognizes that it is possible that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Palin and even states that it is likely that she did. I agree with him, because no one has proven that she did not. Like Sullivan, I am inclined to believe that what has commonly been called the "wild ride" -- the trip from Texas to Alaska just before the birth -- is nothing more than a tall tale; however, I would not go so far as to say, like Sullivan, that Palin told the story, "guided by her doctor, who refused to take the NYT's calls as soon as Palin hit the big time."

The "investigation" into the "faked pregnancy" is like one done by The Keystone Cops. It is completely amateurish. The "investigators" don't obtain original, source material; for example, in "Sarah Palin and The Neonatologist - Part Two - POW!" a poorer picture was used than one that is available at the L.A. Times; one attributed to an Associated Press photographer, by name!

All of the "photo proof" -- one way or the other -- should have been analyzed by a professional, who would have asked the photographers questions like: What was the lighting? How far away were you from the subject? Which camera was used? What was the focal length of the lens? What size is the camera's sensor? ... . And a professional investigator would have asked for the pixels from the camera, knowing that news organizations often tweak a photo in order to get publishable contrast and color values.

Some will say, "Look! Here's a photo showing that she wasn't pregnant;" ignoring or dismissing photos that tell a different story; and ignoring a very important fact: If you added up the exposure times of all the photos taken of Palin during that time, they probably wouldn't amount to an hour out of her life, if that. It typically takes less -- much less than -- one second to take a photo. There are 3600 seconds in an hour.

Well! Believe it or not! I'm a neonatologist now, too. I've written about a newborn.

Palin Family Circus News - Sunday, May 29, 2011

Here, we see Sarah Palin riding on what's known, among bikers, as the bitch seat. That view is confirmed by another photo accompanying "For Palin, a Short Ride With Lots of Rumbling."


A senile, old-man quip may occur to you after learning that John McCain said that Palin can beat Obama in 2012.


A good introduction to film editing can be found on the Blu-Ray of Bullitt. After seeing that, you may understand how all films -- successful ones, anyway -- are manipulative. So is Andrew Sullivan testing Godwin's Law? He's implicitly compared Palin's The Undefeated with Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of The Will. Sullivan claims to be "terrified" for America, and, again, makes a Triumph of The Will comparison at the end of this video:



That feature-length video on the Bullitt Blu-ray has some footage of Riefenstahl's film, along with some of the same film's footage after being edited by an englishman to make a point quite different than Riefenstahl's.


Are you miffed at the notion of "Sarah Palin Is A Social Conservative?" But before anyone tries to make hay out of this, it might be wise to recall that some thought that when Bristol Palin's pregnancy was announced that it would be a disaster for McCain/Palin. It wasn't; convention goers understood and sympathized with Palin's "plight." Levi Johnston's life with the Palin family was told in a Vanity Fair story, "Me and Mrs. Palin." If you read carefully, you may realize that Levi's story was fact-checked.

Update: The L.A. Times has an interesting story about Palin's ride, with video. "I love the smell of emissions" -- in the morning? -- is reminiscent of "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" (from Apocalypse Now). Does that scare you? If so, why? Frankly, I think that raw fear of Palin isn't a rational response to her.

Update: George Will responds to Palin with what may be, instead of raw, emotional fear, a rationalization of Palin's unfitness for the presidency. He doesn't need to say he's "terrified."

Who knows what's in Sarah Palin's head?

Salon has posted a story from Jonathan Bernstein's blog, "What we do (and don't) know about Sarah Palin and 2012."


Bernstein begins:

Andrew Sullivan has a good roundup of some of the recent punditry about Sarah Palin and the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. I've given my position before: Anyone who thinks she has it locked up is nuts, and anyone who thinks that there's zero possibility of her winning is also nuts. But that does raise the question: What can we know now? What should we ignore? And by the way, how does the nomination process work, anyhow?

He goes on to offer five interesting thoughts about Palin/2012 and recommends ignoring anyone who claims to know what Palin will do. Then he concludes by describing the nominating process:

Now, bonus content: Presidential Nomination Process 101. I said that nominations are controlled by "party leaders." That does not mean that a handful of people sit down in a room in Washington and dictate the nomination. What it means is that quite a few people, including the leaders of party-aligned interest groups, local and state party leaders, big donors, opinion leaders, major politicians at the state and national levels, and ordinary activists, collectively try to come to a decision. The role of the voters over the last couple of decades has been three things. First, and most basically, voters ratify the decisions of party leaders. Second, in cases in which party leaders split, voters may determine the outcome. And, third, it appears that party leaders sometimes use voters in the early primaries and caucuses to test how a candidate they are considering supporting will play with the electorate. So Howard Dean failed that test in Iowa in 2004, while Barack Obama passed it in 2008. Those insiders narrow down the field during the "invisible primary" -- hey, wait, that's happening right now! That's why, for example, by the time the voters started choosing in 2008 such reasonable-on-paper candidates as Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson were reduced to asterisks; they had already been winnowed out before anyone even voted.

OK, that's what we do know. What we -- that is, what political scientists -- don't really know is which party leaders are the most influential in any one party at any one time. We're much better at figuring that sort of thing out after the fact. So there's plenty of scope for good reporting, especially over the next year or so when things are beginning to matter. Things such as the National Journal's insiders poll are helpful; campaign finance reports will start being helpful; endorsements are helpful. But it's also helpful to poke around aggressively to find out which interest group leaders are thought of as serious players and which are resting on their reputations; which state and local party people carry resources with their endorsements; which Washingtonians are really plugged in to conservative networks, and which are just repeating stale conventional wisdom. Good reporters can get to that kind of stuff as it's happening. So my advice is to pay attention to reporters and pundits who seem to know what they're talking about when it comes to the Republican Party network, and less attention to those who think they know what's in Sarah Palin's head.

Jonathan Bernstein's post originally appeared, here, in his A plain blog about politics.