Why? Because, first, unlike some rumors which are nearly impossible to prove or disprove ("I hear you used to beat your wife.") disproving a rumor that someone is pregnant BEFORE they would theoretically have the baby should be the easiest thing in the world to do. There is irrefutable and very noticeable physical evidence when someone is pregnant. (Unless your name is Sarah Palin of course.) In fact, I would give proving or disproving you are pregnant, at least late in pregnancy, a 10 on the ease-o-meter.
There are three separate and credible sources that the rumors existed. The first is a post on an online website called, reddit.com. Reddit is a little hard to characterize; people can post gossip, rumors, info, "what's hot." The best way for you to get a feel for it is to go look at it yourself. In early April, prior to the birth of Trig Palin, an Alaska resident posted that he had heard rumors that Sarah Palin's pregnancy was fake and that she was covering for her daughter. The post actually got very little interest, only a couple of responses, but one was from someone who claimed to live in Palmer (right by Wasilla - this is where Mat-Su Hospital is) saying he/she had heard the same thing.
This is absolute irrefutable proof that specific rumors existed in Alaska prior to the birth that Sarah was not pregnant and that she was covering for Bristol. It doesn't make it true, but it does prove that it existed. I've read it stated numerous places that there was nothing the Palins could do because the rumors started after Trig was born, and if true, this would be accurate. It would have been much harder to deal with such rumors if they in fact had started after the birth. They didn't.
The second is the postings of Wasilla caterer Sue Williams, which are covered in another post on this blog. Her rumor reports could be called into question, since they were posted after the announcement of Palin as a VP pick. However, they are curious enough that I consider them credible. First, Sue Williams' initial argument is that Trig IS Sarah's baby. She mentions Bristol and her pregnancy only as an afterthought, claiming that she was pregnant now (and note, that Sue Williams posts came the day before the McCain campaign's announcement, so she was right about that.)
She is basing this on what she heard from many people, including "Willow's eighth grade boyfriend" who was telling everyone in April that Bristol was pregnant. But Sue in her posts is insisting that the pregnancy she is talking about is BOTH Bristol's current pregnancy AND the one which was talked about in April, meaning that Bristol would have been in her third trimester as of 9/1. Sue states this confidently.
I feel strongly that pictures of Bristol taken in early September like this one:
demonstrate that however pregnant this young woman is, or even if she is, she's not in her third trimester. So it's pretty clear that if the rumors Sue Williams is talking about were true, and Bristol was pregnant in April, it is NOT the same pregnancy we are speculating about now.
However, the problem with these two rumor sources is that there would be no way to know from either one of these what and when Gov. Palin knew, and that, of course, is the pivotal issue. She could not be expected to "do something" about it if she never heard about it. Enter Bill McAllister. Our new best friend.
The third concrete source we have about the rumors, interestingly enough, is from Palin's own "in state spokesman," Bill McAllister. Here is Bill's exact quote, from an article in the Anchorage Daily News, on August 29th when the rumors were being discussed all over the Internet:
McAllister was an Anchorage TV reporter before working for Palin. He said Palin once approached him - before people knew she was pregnant - assuming he'd been hearing rumors.
"She said it's not true about Bristol," McAllister said.
At the time, the rumor would have been that Palin's daughter was pregnant.
I've thought about this statement for a long time. There's a lot packed into these four sentences. Why would McAllister admit this, in late August? And then I figured it out. McAllister had no clue what he is actually saying here. He thinks he's helping Gov. Palin. He's not.
Here's what Bill McAllister thinks he's saying: "Those silly rumors? Sarah Palin knew about all that. Heck, she told me a long time ago - last winter some time - that they weren't true."
What Bill McAllister doesn't realize is that he actually admitted - from a source that is unimpeachable - that Sarah Palin both knew about the rumors before her own pregnancy was announced and that she was concerned enough to try to do something about them. He's the only person that has ever admitted this publicly, and he is above challenge; after all, he's HER spokesman. He works for her. And with friends like this, you don't need enemies.
Because now we know for sure that Gov. Palin both knew about the rumors at a time that they would have been easy to disprove and that she was concerned enough about them to approach a reporter. But if she was concerned enough to talk to someone about it, what else did she do? Nothing.
All she would have had to do is appear in public with Bristol once. Organize a "bring your daughter to work day" in Alaska, and arrange a photo shoot at the capitol with her three daughters. Go out to dinner in Anchorage with her family and make sure an ADN photographer is there. There had to be curiosity about the baby. Invite the local paper into her home to watch Gov. Palin and her family paint the nursery. Voila. Rumors are gone without ever having to appear to address them or give them any credence, without ever having even to "involve" her daughter in any but the most peripheral way.
But she didn't do any of that. Instead, she "told" people it wasn't true and continued to play Hide the Teenager. And if this doesn't make you think, nothing will.
