I can’t believe anyone could honestly think “grandma-gate” is not a huge deal. [View All]

[Nine]

If this story is true, that’s it. We’ve won. There is no way for McCain to recover from this. It makes his campaign look completely incompetent. The only way I see them recovering from this is to replace McCain (which isn’t entirely implausible, and I do have to wonder if they were setting McCain up for this, but that’s a topic for another post).

We don’t have to run ads on this. We don’t have to explain it to the public like healthcare or energy policy. All we need is for the facts to come out. And the biggest, strangest fact of all is Palin’s claim that her water broke at 4 am (a month early and knowing her baby would have special needs and probably need to be in a NICU after birth) and that she waited around 8 or so hours to give a luncheon speech, then went to an airport, boarded a plane, didn’t notify airline personnel of her condition, didn’t tell her doctor she was planning to fly (but was otherwise in communication with her doctor), and flew the 10, 12 or whatever hours from Texas to Seattle to Alaska so that she could give birth in her local hospital. Because she wanted to be with a doctor who knew her medical history. And because she has so much state pride.

This is the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard. Who could honestly say they believe it? If this is actually true, it’s horrendous. This isn’t “should I have a sip of wine in my third trimester?”. This is Britney Spears territory. What would we think if we heard that Paris Hilton or some other celebrity had done this? And incidentally, don’t you believe the BS line some are trying to push that there is a difference between amniotic fluid leaking and water breaking and membranes rupturing. They’re all the same thing. You can have a slow leak or a fast leak, but they’re all the same thing, and if you dispute that, produce some medical reference that makes the distinction.

If Palin really was pregnant but made this story up out of whole cloth to look “tough”, she’s a nutjob. And that needs to come out too. Hillary got raked over the coals for her Bosnia thing, which I truly believe was just a faulty memory, but this was a deliberate lie with no time lapse. And if this special needs child really is hers and she’s cheapening his birth by turning it into a publicity stunt for herself, she should be ashamed.

But I honestly don’t believe she could be that reckless or that this is just a self-aggrandizing lie. I honestly think it’s the daughter’s baby. And I don’t feel a bit guilty or sorry for the teenager that this is going to be exposed. This isn’t the 1950s. This is not going to ruin the daughter’s life. No one even blinks an eye at this stuff anymore. I’d feel much sorrier for her knowing she was made to pretend her son is her brother. So you’re not going to make me shed any tears on that count.

And do you know why else this is important? National security. Don’t laugh. Security checks always including making sure the person doesn’t have any dark secrets that can be used as blackmail against them. If she became vice president with this hanging over her, it would be a terrible security risk.

And of course there is the whole matter of insurance fraud. And the hypocrisy of her political positions. And the apparent effectiveness of policies like abstinence education that she supports.

Obama doesn’t have to do a thing here. And shouldn’t. This is a job for The Internets. There’s not even really anything to dig up. It’s public knowledge that she announced late and never really “showed.” It’s public knowledge that she claims she made that flight. The daughter’s 5-month or so absence from school is not exactly a private fact; everyone at her school would know. All we have to do is keep the story alive (and keep wrong information from spreading) until it gains traction. If people can discuss the circumstances of Suri Cruise’s birth, they can talk about this. Let people hear about that flight and draw their own conclusions – recklessness, self-aggrandizement, or cover-up.

We didn’t create this, we didn’t dig it up from oblivion. But to suggest that we should look the other way and pretend this is all on the up and up is just criminal. There are people dying in Iraq. There are people struggling in poverty. And we should help the Republicans cover up this Desperate Housewives storyline? We should not take advantage of their boneheaded play and go for the win? As Bartcop would say, you must be a Democrat.