Republican Vice Presidential candidate and governor of Alaska Sarah Palin used at least two different Yahoo! account for both personal and official Alaska state business, gov.palin@yahoo.com and gov.sarah@yahoo.com. This may be in violation of Alaskan law, which dictates that state business be conducted transparently under their freedom of information laws. Sarah Palin is under official investigation for firing the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner in a scandal known as “troopergate.” It is hypothesized that she may have had a personal vendetta against the Safety Commissioner for refusing to fire her former brother in law, a state trooper.

Someone claiming to be from the group Anonymous, a loose organization of anti-Scientology protesters based online, hacked into one of Palin’s Yahoo! accounts on Tuesday night, gov.palin@yahoo.com and posted screenshots of Palin’s entire contact list and several e-mails to state officials on wikileaks.org. The account was easily hacked using the “reset password” function in Yahoo!, which only requires some background knowledge on the account owner. After the news broke someone tried to reset the password for Palin and warn her through one of her contacts that the account was hacked, but that message with the new password was easily found by someone else and posted online.

Palin’s other e-mail account, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, was being combed over by federal investigators for the troopergate scandal. After the news broke that one of the accounts was breached, both Yahoo! accounts and all associated e-mails were deleted, which may constitute destruction of evidence.

The cryptic Internet posse known for its attacks on Scientology may have found a new target in Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Several self-proclaimed members of Anonymous, a loosely organized group associated with the message board 4Chan, apparently breached the Alaska governor’s personal Yahoo! account (gov.palin@yahoo.com) late Tuesday night.

The hacker posted screen shots of two e-mails, a Yahoo! inbox, a contact list and several family photos to Wikileaks.org, a site that anonymously hosts leaked government and corporate documents. Another screen shot purportedly shows a draft e-mail from Palin’s account to campaign aide Ivy Frye alerting her of the breach:

This email was hacked by anonymous, but I took no part in that. I simply got the password back, and changed it so no further damage could be done. Please get in contact with Sarah Palin and inform her the new password on this account is samsonite1.

Thank you and best wishes,
the good anonymous

The screen shots quickly spread across the Web to blogs like Gawker.

The two e-mail exchanges appear to involve state politicians — Alaskan Lieut. Governor Sean Parnell and Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse last year. Wired magazine reported that McCorkell confirmed the e-mail’s authenticity, though she later refused to comment to the Associated Press.

Palin’s other Yahoo! account (gov.sarah@yahoo.com) had already been hacked, so to speak, by federal authorities who are investigating her role in the firing of Walt Monegan, Alaska’s public safety commissioner. Critics charge that Palin fired Monegan for refusing to dismiss her former brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. (The scandal has already earned a -gate suffix.) After Tuesday’s hacks were made public, both private accounts were deleted — an act that could technically constitute destruction of evidence.

The Alaska governor could also face charges for conducting official state business using her personal, unarchived e-mail account (a crime); some critics accuse her of skirting freedom-of-information laws in doing so. An Alaska Republican activist is trying to force Palin to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public-records request, the Washington Post reported last week.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for the McCain-Palin campaign, issued a statement hours after the e-mail screen shots were posted: “This is a shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities, and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.” The Secret Service requested copies of the leaked e-mails from the Associated Press, but the news service did not comply. CNN reported that the FBI has also launched an investigation.

This is not the first time computer habits have become an issue for the McCain-Palin team. In January, John McCain told reporters that he didn’t know how to check e-mail. When asked whether he prefers a Mac or a PC, McCain replied, “Neither. I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.” He later added, “I am learning to get online myself.” He might want to stay offline for the time being.

[From Time.com]

We support Anonymous’ efforts to expose Scientology, and whoever took credit for this under their name is only muddying the water by hacking governor Palin’s Yahoo! account. They may possibly have a vendetta against the group and did this in an attempt to discredit them. The hacker made it more difficult for federal authorities to do their job and may have committed a federal crime considering that evidence was deleted, even if that wasn’t technically their fault. This is the problem with an organization based online, anyone can claim to be a member and make the group look bad. It may not have been legal for Palin to do state business through a private e-mail account, but the feds were looking into it. Now there’s not much left to see except some screenshots online.

Sarah Palin is shown at a press conference on 2/26/08. Credit: Carrie Devorah / WENN

US Weekly ran a story yesterday about how Sarah Palin had a tanning bed put into the governor’s mansion in Alaska. She paid for it with her own money and it’s possible it wasn’t as astronomically expensive as they’re claiming, $35,000, because used and refurbished models can go for under $2,000, based on the three minutes of research I did. Somehow they’re trying to make a connection between John McCain’s two bouts with skin cancer and Palin’s use of the tanning bed, which she even discouraged in a public service announcement, saying it contributed to cancer.

Self-proclaimed “hockey mom” Sarah Palin had a private tanning bed installed in the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau, Alaska, Usmagazine.com confirmed on Monday.

“She did. She paid for it with her own money,” Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities told Us.

The Narco News Bulletin first reported on the former beauty queen’s penchant for a bronzed body.

“It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion,” Wetherell told the Narco News.

According to Wetherell, the tanning bed was purchased used, from a health club.

Tanning beds can cost up to $35,000 to install in a home – not including the cost of parts, Color Me Tan manager Erin Weise told the Narco News.

“I don’t think it’s normal for people to have a tanning bed in their house, ” Wiese, who is based in Fairbanks said. “It’s expensive.”

Palin’s running mate, presidential candidate John McCain battled skin cancer in 1993, and again in 2000.

“I coat SPF 30 on myself first thing in the morning, and wear long sleeves and a hat whenever I’m in the sun,” McCain has told Newsweek.

Palin declared May 2007, “Skin Cancer Awareness Month.” In the press materials it was noted, “Skin cancer is caused, overwhelmingly, by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and from tanning beds.

[From US Weekly]

Did anyone see that movie with Al Pacino and Hilary Swank, Insomnia? It’s dark all day in Alaska during some times of the year, and light all day at other times. Maybe Palin just wanted some sunshine. Most doctors don’t recommend tanning beds for seasonal affective disorder, but I’ve used them sparingly for that purpose and it does help improve my mood in the winter.This isn’t really anything to fault Palin for and we don’t know if she was tanning every day or if her teenage daughters bugged her to get the tanning bed or whatever.

We have earnestly been cutting back on the political news here after your feedback and the pretty heated discussions about it. More celebrities have talked smack about Palin and McCain, and we’ve stuck to the entertainment news and rolled our eyes. Mollygood has a good take on this and said it’s hard not to do politics because these people are on the covers of all the celebrity magazines. Even if we actively ignore them they’re becoming celebrities on both sides of the fence, whether they’re actively seeking it or the press is helping them along.

Palin using a tanning bed, though, that’s not news. Do any of you use tanning beds in the winter? It really did help me, but I once got burned and have to limit my time in the bed. The politicians should take a similar approach to fame – use it wisely or it’ll bite you in the butt.

I’m a Democrat and I’m all for Obama/Biden. We strive for some kind of transparency here so we try to make our preferences known and most of the writers for the site are Democrats. That said, we’re all getting a little tired of the political banter. Personally I like to focus on the celebrities to take my mind off the big bad world, which sometimes seems like it’s going to hell in a handbasket depending on your perspective. I’ve found that if I pay attention to all the minutiae of politics and the “real news” I can get upset and have to look at the beautiful elite and their problems to remind myself that everything is going to be ok. Look, Nicole Richie’s baby is so sweet and doesn’t she have such personality at that age? See how that lifted your mood? Babies transcend world problems and political beliefs.

When celebrities talk politics though, it’s hard to ignore all of them. Especially when they’re really outspoken and adamant about their political beliefs. Matt Damon has spoken out against Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin calling her candidacy “absurd” and poking fun of her “folksy” image as a hockey mom. While I agree with some of his assertions about her lack of experience and the fact that she just kind of burst onto the political scene, he does get a little too focused on who she is as a person. At the end he says he would like to know if she thinks dinosaurs were on the earth 4,000 years ago, which is something the creationists believe, and if she banned books, which was asserted by Time Magazine in an article about Palin. Damon says there’s a 1 in 3 chance by some estimates that Palin might be become President if McCain is elected.

Despite my similar political beliefs, I’m not really comfortable with seeing celebrities be so adamant against a candidate. I think it makes the side they support easier to vilify. It’s like people will say “Damon is pissed off, who does he think he is to dismiss Palin? Look at his guy.” He seems to be more upset with what Palin and McCain represent than with who Palin is as a person. Maybe he should be talking about what they’ll do for the country instead. It’s possible he did talk about all that, and it got distilled down to this segment where he kind of went off on Palin. A lot of celebrities agree with him, but they’re not likely to be so blunt in the way they state it.

Damon is shown in the header at the Toronto Film Festival on 9/9/07. Credit: Solarpix / PR Photos

The National Enquirer gets more scoops than any other gossip magazine and I have little doubt that their journalistic standards are above the other weekly tabloids they’re often grouped with. They broke the John Edwards cheating and lovechild scandal, and if they weren’t on that story I doubt it ever would have reached the public. This week’s edition of the Enquirer has plenty of bombshells to accompany their cover story on Vice Presidential Republican candidate Sarah Palin. Whether the allegations about Palin are true or not remains to be seen. They don’t say that they’ve independently verified these claims, but quote a source. It’s possible the source has motivations to lie about Palin.

There’s the “Troopergate” scandal for which Palin is currently under an ethics investigation, which involves her firing the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of Alaska for allegedly refusing to fire her ex brother in law, an Alaska State Trooper, over a ongoing feud in Palin’s family. That’s received plenty of press, but there are also new allegations in the Enquirer’s story which may raise some eyebrows. Here are the highlights.

Sarah Palin cheated on her husband with one of his business associates

Another incredible allegation emerging from the family war is that Palin, a mother of five, had an affair with a former business associate of her fisherman husband, Todd.

“Todd discovered the affair and quickly dissolved his friendship and his business associations with the guy,” charges an enemy. “Many people in Alaska are talking about the rumor and say Todd swept it under the rug.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, September 15, 2008]

It’s entirely possible that The Enquirer‘s source is making up crap about Palin for other reasons as we mentioned, and that she didn’t really cheat or tell her pregnant daughter to get married right away, as they go on to allege. There’s no date for the supposed affair and the details are vague. Palin seems to have a lot of enemies who could be spreading lies about her. Here’s how the source claims she tried to handle Bristol’s pregnancy at first – by hiding it and trying to make her get married before the news came out.

Palin tried to cover up 17 year-old Bristol’s pregnancy, demanded she marry before news came out

Palin dropped a huge bombshell when she announced recently that her teen daughter Bristol is pregnant. But sources close to the family say that the governor had desperately tried to cover up her daughter’s pregnancy, a potentially embarrassment for the ultra-conservative governor.

Palin confirmed her daughter’s pregnancy only after it was clear that the media already knew about it and that the news was about to break, according to the sources.

While Palin has publicly expressed support for Bristol and said that she would be marrying the baby’s father, the source says Sarah had been working frantically to get the two married before the pregnancy news came out.

An insider close to the baby’s father says Palin went as far as starting to make arrangements for a small wedding ceremony for the teens in Palmer, Alaska. “She wanted the wedding date to be scheduled before McCain announced her as his vice president – but Bristol refused,” said the insider.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, September 15, 2008]

The source goes on to say that Sarah Palin planned for a small wedding a few days after the Republican National Convention, and that she then wanted to announce that Bristol was pregnant by her new husband. “But Bristol refused to go along with the lies,” the source says, and had a huge fight with her mom over it.

We all know how everything turned out for that family, and it’s still unknown how it will affect Sarah’s bid for the Vice Presidency – whether it will make her more appealing to voters like she has problems like everyone else, or whether they’ll be turned off by the sheer drama of it all.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has urged people not to focus on pregnant 17 year-old Bristol, repeating his earlier claim that families are off limits. His wife Michelle mirrored his comments on Ellen yesterday, saying “I know that they care about their kids, and we should let them deal with this issue. This shouldn’t be an issue for political discussion.”

Pregnant Bristol Palin’s 18 year-old finance, Levi Johnston, sat next to her during her mom’s speech at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota last night. Five months pregnant Bristol, 17, was seen wearing an engagement ring while Levi displayed his devotion with a small tattoo on his left ring finger that spelled out his fiance’s name in script. Bristol and Levi looked a little uncomfortable at times to be in the spotlight:

Pregnant 17-year-old Bristol Palin and her 18-year-old boyfriend Levi Johnston displayed their commitment to each other at Wednesday’s GOP convention.

Johnston debuted a “Bristol” tattoo on his ring finger, while Bristol rocked what appeared to be an engagement ring. (McCain campaign officials have yet to identify the ring.)

In a statement announcing that their daughter was five months pregnant, Sarah and Todd Palin noted that the teenage couple planned to wed.

Levi flew to the convention in Minnesota from his Alaskan hometown on Wednesday. He was warmly greeted at the airport by Sen. John McCain.

Levi’s mother, Sherry Johnston, recently told the Associated Press that there had been no pressure put on her son to marry Bristol and that the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant.

[From US Weekly]

As I said yesterday, I don’t blame the family for making the decision to bring Levi to the convention and put on a show of togetherness. He’s going to marry Bristol, who is due to have his baby in December, and it only makes sense that he should show up after the whole deal was announced. Some journalists and observers are questioning their decision to make an announcement about Bristol’s pregnancy, only to turn around and ask for privacy. It’s not like they could hide her at home, though, where most of the people in their small town already knew about Bristol’s pregnancy. The news was going to get out anyway, and maybe they thought they were trying to head it off or whatever. Now we know that the two kids are crazy in love and that they were supposedly even engaged before Bristol got pregnant.

Debbie Mazar has spoken out about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. Mazar’s mom was just 15 when she had her, and the actress says that it is a private matter and that we shouldn’t make such a big deal out of it:

Mazar knows all about teen pregnancy. Her mom had her when she was just 15 years old.

“I think it’s completely fine,” Mazar told me earlier today of 17-year-old mom-to-be Bristol Palin while promoting her new movie, The Women (I’ll have more on the flick later on), at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills. “And I think Sarah Palin made a good choice in being supportive of her daughter…and I agree that it’s private because those are her children. Her daughter fell in love and had sex. Big deal—it happens.”
But if it’s anything like her own childhood, Mazar says Sarah will likely hit some rough patches with her child because of her age. “My mom is a great mom and we’re very close,” Mazar says. “But because she had me so young, we had hurdles we had to go through. But it made me who I am today…As long as that kid has love and support, I wish her the best.”

[From E! Online]

The first thing I thought of when I read this is that Mazar’s grandmother must have been around to help raise her. If Bristol’s mom ends up being Vice President it’s not like she’s going to be a lot of help to her daughter with the baby. That’s just something that occurred to me and isn’t meant to disparage her choice to run. I don’t like Sarah Palin or more importantly, John McCain, as candidates for other reasons. Someone’s family situation shouldn’t have a lot of bearing on that.

Those blabbermouths at Petit Tresor are getting press again by revealing maybe-fake celebrity purchases at their overpriced baby boutique. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes sent the LA store a cease and desist in May for telling Life & Style that they’d blown over $350k on baby goods for Suri. The Holmes-Cruise’s lawyers said it just wasn’t true and that it violated their confidentiality to even reveal they’d shopped there. The letter read in part “We also understand that you have informed other tabloids that our clients have purchased various items at your stores that they have not in fact purchased, and that they have shopped there at times that they have not.”

So take this latest news as either true and questionable on Jamie Lynn’s part or rather desperate on Petit Tresor’s part. Supposedly Jamie Lynn Spears, herself a famous young mother at 17, sent her latest teen pregnant tabloid replacement, Bristol Palin, also 17, pink burp cloths from the boutique. Does Jamie Lynn know that Bristol is having a girl? It seems more prudent to send blue stuff if the baby’s sex is unknown since Bristol has a little five month-old brother. Bristol is five months pregnant and due in December, so she could know the sex of the baby already. If this story is true, and that’s a giant IF in bright yellow sans serif, then maybe Jamie Lynn knows something the rest of the world doesn’t:

If there’s one person who gets a pregnant teen, it’s Jamie Lynn Spears.

Britney Spears’ little sis is reaching out to Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential pick.

A source close to the Beverly Hills baby store Petit Tresor tells CelebTV.com exclusively that a gift from Plain Mary was sent to Bristol Palin on behalf of Jamie Lynn Spears.

An insider says it was actually Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn’s mom, who called about the gift, and requested the gift come from her daughter.

“It was ordered by phone, and they asked what could be done for under $100. They spent $60 on pink burpcloths,” said the source.

[From CelebTV.com via WeSmirch]

Burpcloths should not cost $60. I was kind of flabbergasted at that price, but then I looked up burpcloths on Target.com and see that even at Target a nice set can run up to 1/2 that cost, which sounds about right if you’re looking at the cost of regular vs. designer goods.

How would Jamie Lynn Spears know Bristol Palin anyway? Could she maybe feel sorry for her because she knows what it’s like to be in the spotlight as a pregnant teen? Surely some pink burpcloths aren’t the way to express that kind of remote solidarity. She might not even be able to use them for all we know.

Update: According to Jamie Lynn’s rep, this story is not true at all. That was lame, Petit Tresor, although you did get a lot of press out of it.

The ‘Sarah Palin’s 17 year-old daughter is pregnant’ story is getting plenty of press coverage, and it’s spilling over into into the celebrity press and entertainment news because frankly it’s pretty good gossip. It’s controversial and polarizing and has sparked a lot of debate. There are pundits saying Palin is exploiting her daughter on one side, and others claiming she’s supporting her as well as a mom can.

The father of Bristol Palin’s unborn baby, Levi Johnston, 18, will attend the Republican National Convention in Minnesota to celebrate his future mother-in-law’s Vice Presidential nomination. That makes sense, because he’s about to join the family and Palin needs to show wary voters that her daughter made a mistake but that she and the father are accepting responsibility and doing their best. Sarah Palin insists that her daughter and the baby’s father were engaged before they learned of 17 year-old Bristol’s pregnancy.

While some say Sarah Palin is somehow at fault for not giving her daughter birth control advice and insisting on abstinence others hold up their hands and say that 17 year-old teenagers get up to all sorts of things and the best you can do is be there for them and help them live with their decisions, which Sarah Palin is doing. This whole incident makes Sarah Palin seem human by some people’s estimation.

Amidst all this controversy over her pregnant teen daughter, outlets are questioning Palin’s fitness for the job and arguing that we should be talking about that, not about her daughter. Her record and where she stands on the issues should be the focus.

US Weekly brings it down to a character issue and points out that Sarah Palin was less than courteous to the president of the Alaskan Senate, laughing along with a radio DJ who made fun of the woman, a cancer survivor, by calling her a “cancer” and “a bitch” and mocking her size. When it came time to apologize Sarah Palin did it half-heartedly, doing one of those “I’m sorry if you misinterpreted” type responses:

On January 15, Alaska governor Sarah Palin laughed along with an Alaskan shock-jock DJ who called her political rival Lyda Green a “cancer,” a “bitch” and ridiculed her weight. (Green is a cancer survivor.)

“People were so nice and were motified. Newspapers that were never Lyda Green-friendly, they demanded that [Sarah] apologize,” Green told Us.

“You know what she said? She said, ‘I’m calling to apologize. I hope you didn’t misunderstand the radio program,’” Green says. “I told her, ‘I didn’t misunderstand.’”

The Alaska state senator added, “It’s not a good way to behave. Why would anybody call a shock jock?”

So what did Green think when she heard Palin was John McCain’s vice presidential candidate? “It’s been very difficult to work with her,” she tells Us Weekly. “I wish there had been more vetting.”

Monday, Palin released a statement confirming that her daughter Bristol, 17, was five-months pregnant.

Mom-of-five Palin is antiabortion (even in cases of rape) and opposed to sex-education classes (she believes in abstinence instruction for teens).

In the wake of the announcement about Bristol, questions have begun to arise about the governor’s candor and McCain’s judgment (The New York Times reported that McCain’s camp vetted Palin only the day before her selection was announced.

“It’s conceivable a 17-year-old girl just screwed the GOP,” Democratic strategist George Lakoff tells Us Weekly.

Though hailed by many family-values supporters for standing by her daughter during her difficult time, Barbara Belknap, former president of the National Organization of Women’s Juneau chapter, is less glowing: “Here’s a textbook case of how abstinence – only doesn’t work in practice, even if your mom’s the governor.”

[From US Weekly]

It’s pretty clear where US Weekly’s allegiances are, and we can’t blame them. Most of us here are Obama supporters, and while we wouldn’t go about discrediting Palin in quite the same way we did run that ridiculous conspiracy theory story about Trig being Bristol’s son. Sometimes it’s hard to pass up such incredible gossip, even if it defies logic. Whether it’s helpful to Obama or not to go after Palin is another story, but the other side has been doing it for quite a while and it seemed to be wholly effective against Senator Kerry four years ago.

I don’t like it when people bash policies or programs by saying they failed one high-profile person so they must be ineffective. That’s logically a very weak argument and a sample of one. We have plenty of other better statistical evidence that abstinence education doesn’t work, we don’t need to hold up this poor girl as an example.

Once the news came out that 17 year-old Bristol Palin, the 17 year-old daughter of Republic Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is five month’s pregnant, people started focusing on the father. Sarah Palin released a statement yesterday acknowledging her daughter’s pregnancy and saying that she was due to marry the father, 18 year-old Levi Johnston. Outlets quickly found Johnston’s MySpace page, pointing out that he made some moderately obnoxious statements on it, as teenage boys often do. He had some expletive-laden statement on his Myspace about how he’s a redneck. Johnston also said he didn’t want children. He hasn’t accessed the page in over a year, though, so he wrote all that stuff when he was 17 or younger. Teenagers can change a lot in a year. Johnston is about to become a dad and a husband, so he’ll need to do some maturing fast if he wants to make his marriage and family work.

The NY Daily News points out that just about everyone in Bristol Palin’s small community in Wasilla, Alaska has known for at least a few weeks that she’s pregnant. She’s been with Levi Johnston for over a year and they were attending the same high school up until mid year last year.

He’s a superhunky bad-boy ice hockey player from cold country; she’s a chestnut-haired beauty and popular high school senior.

The all-American teen twosome will make GOP vice presidential pick and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a grandma at age 44 – just in time for Christmas.

Doe-eyed Bristol Palin, 17, and ruggedly handsome Levi Johnston, an 18-year-old self-described “f—in’ redneck,” have been dating a year, locals in Wasilla, Alaska, told the Daily News.

And the pregnancy? An open secret in the close-knit town of 9,780…

On his MySpace page, Johnston proudly declares: “I’m a f—in’ redneck.”

“I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing,” he says on the site.

He also warns that if anyone messes with him, “I’ll kick ass.”

The Web site, before it was removed, appeared not to have been accessed for a year.

On it, he admits to having a girlfriend.

On the part where it asks about children, he wrote, “I don’t want kids.”

Mark Okeson, the assistant principal at Wasilla High School, told the Chicago Tribune that Bristol started her junior year last fall, in the town where Sarah Palin grew up.

He said Bristol inexplicably transferred to an Anchorage high school midyear, leaving Levi behind.

“I never heard the story why,” he said.

[From NY Daily News]

Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has responded to all of the controversy surrounding Bristol’s pregnancy. He repeated an earlier plea he made before the scandal broke that families of the candidates should not be smeared, and said “I think people’s families are off limits and people’s children are especially off limits.”

Some are saying that Sarah Palin should be focused on because she shows that abstinence-only education is ineffective. If anything this case shows that teen pregnancy is all too common, although that’s something that’s been painfully obvious for years. It’s a sensational story given her mother’s political aspirations and it’s hard not to pay attention to the pregnant 17 year-old daughter of a conservative Vice Presidental candidate. It’s like a movie of the week, and this surely isn’t the last we’ll hear about this young woman.

Earlier today we ran a conspiracy theory story that stated that Vice Presidential Republican candidate Sarah Palin, 44, was actually the grandmother of the five month-old baby she claims is hers. Palin has a 17 year-old daughter who missed out of either five or eight months of school around the time she was said to be pregnant. Palin went to great lengths to return to her home hospital after she was leaking amniotic fluid – taking an eight hour plan ride and then driving another 45 minutes to get to a remote hospital. She also returned to work as the governor of Alaska just three days after giving birth. There were a lot of strange coincidences, some embellished, that suggested this was a plausible theory. It’s a damn juicy story and the gossip-lover in me really wanted to believe it was true.

As it is, many of you offered better evidence that Sarah Palin was indeed pregnant, that she was just stubborn and wanted to give birth with her own obstetrician, and that her daughter probably wasn’t pregnant all. I went away believing it was all a trumped-up story that was too sensational to be true. It seems to have been based on some evidence, though – Bristol Palin, 17, is five months pregnant. Presidential candidate John McCain is said to have been aware of this fact when he picked Palin for his running mate:

Bristol, the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is five-months pregnant, Palin said in a statement on Monday.

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us,” the Palin’s said in a statement to Reuters.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support,” the Palins said.

The Palins asked the news media to respect the young couple’s privacy.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates,” the statement concluded.

[From US Weekly]

Maybe Bristol Palin really was pregnant in those pictures that were floating around, as she happened to get pregnant right before her mother gave birth. That kind of explains how the conspiracy theories got cooked up, and it also shows that there’s no way that Sarah Palin faked a pregnancy and claimed her grandson as her own child. I wonder how the Republicans are going to spin this one. They’ll probably use it to show that Palin has her family trials like everyone else, which would be a decent way to handle it.

Sarah Palin is anti-abortion and is a non-denominational Christian. She is the mother to five children which range in age from four months to 19. She’s about to get a grandchild and a son-in-law in short order.

Update: this photo is dated from 2006, and could not possibly show Palin’s daughter pregnant with Trig given his age.

Update 2: Bristol Palin, 17, is five months pregnant now. It is impossible for this story to be true at all and our apologies to their family for spreading it. Bristol was possibly pregnant in one of the photos below, but not with Trig.

One of the most interesting parts of political campaigns are the secrets that inevitably leak out. Yet more often than not, they’re not all that interesting – just interesting given the person’s position in society. But recent republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin – who’s very nomination shocked plenty of people – appears to have been keeping quite the secret of her own the last several months.

Not a Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky level of scandal. Palin’s (alleged) secret is a much more private, familial matter, and her motivations could be argued as either self-centered or altruistic, depending on your point of view.

Palin, the Governor of Alaska, supposedly gave birth to her son Trig Paxson Van Palin in late April. However there is a detailed timeline on the website Daily Kos that indicates that it is unlikely (to the point of nearly impossible) that Palin gave birth to Trig, and that he is actually the son of her 16-year-old daughter Bristol.

Palin didn’t announce that she was pregnant until she was 7 months along. Her entire staff was completely shocked. Palin is 44 and has given birth to four children – women tend to show earlier and more obviously the more children they have, and the later in life they are. The exact opposite happened here.

I’m going to quote a few highlights from the article, but what really makes it clear that this story is probably true is the entirety of the evidence. I thought it seemed too sensational to be real (and certainly to go undiscovered) but once I finished reading every single point, I’m pretty convinced.

On Friday, April 18th, 2008, Sarah and her husband Todd were in Dallas, Texas for a Republican Governor’s Convention. They had been in town for three days already, but Sarah had yet to give her keynote speaker address on energy policy. Then early Friday morning at 4:00am, Sarah began leaking amniotic fluid. Instead of checking into a hospital, she instead made a call to her doctor, and delivered the keynote speech.

“I was not going to miss that speech,” she says.

She rushed so quickly from the podium afterwards that Texas Gov. Rick Perry nervously asked if she was about to deliver the baby then.

The oddities only grow from here on, as instead of rushing to a Dallas medical facility that could treat a mother who’s amniotic fluid has been draining for hours on end (made even more crucial due to the fact that this is occurring a full month prematurely), Sarah & Todd instead opted to… Fly all the way back from Texas to Alaska. A dangerous choice, as with each pregnancy (once again, in this case after four previous), a mother’s window of labor to delivery grows shorter and shorter.

Aboard Alaska Airlines, the flight lasted for eight hours, with an additional landing in Seattle. The majority of commercial airlines require mothers seven months pregnant to provide a doctor’s letter to fly, but Sarah did not inform the airline of her condition. Alaska Airlines is one of the few airlines that do not require such a notice, despite the possibility of an emergency landings being required in such scenarios. That said, no one on board noticed that Sarah was going into labor.

Eight months pregnant. A 6.2 pound fetus. No one notices a visible trace. By the third trimester, a perfectly fit woman not wearing anything less than a space suit should be easily spotted as pregnant. Not in Sarah’s case.

The plane then made a landing in Anchorage, Alaska. Does Sarah then visit a medical facility that can accommodate a premature birth in Alaska’s most equipped city? No. She drives 45 minutes away, to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, right outside the small village she used to govern as Mayor, Wasilla. Trig Palin is then delivered one month premature, Friday night. Sarah returned to work after three days.

Her sixteen year-old daughter was.

Checking with the Anchorage High School that Bristol Palin attended, reporters were given word that her family had taken Bristol out of school due to contracting infectious mononucleosis. The amount of time Bristol was absent shifts from five to eight months.

Mono can last anywhere from two weeks to three months, but an eight month infection is a freak oddity. Yet it remains a common excuse given by girls in private & Catholic schools around the nation when pregnancy comes into play. Not the first time, not the last time.

[From the Daily Kos]

The article is very detailed and gives a chronological timeline that really makes you wonder how Palin could possibly be pregnant. It also makes you wonder how in the world she thought she could get away with something like this as a public figure. And as much as anything, it makes you wonder why the family made this decision, and if it had to do with what was best for Bristol or what was best for Sarah Palin’s career.

A lot of people are saying this isn’t that big deal, doesn’t matter, and won’t change people’s opinion of Sarah Palin. I agree that a pregnant teenager is a private family issue, and if the family had handled it differently that’d be one thing. But hearing someone is an outright liar about something this important is pretty upsetting. I know it happens, and it’s certainly not the greatest political lie of all time. But that doesn’t mean we should accept it.

Politicians aren’t perfect, and neither are their children. Who I really feel most sorry for are Bristol and Trig. They’re going to be under a lot of scrutiny. People make mistakes, and teenagers make a lot of them. Rarely is something like this so public, and I really hope the Palin’s choose to place a greater emphasis on what is better for their children/grandchildren than what’s best for their political image.

Note by Celebitchy: The baby in question has Down’s syndrome, and a lot of people are saying that points to an older mother. Of course Downs is more common with older mothers, but 80% babies with Downs are born to women under 35 due to the fact that more women under 35 have babies.

There are two pictures below of Palin’s daughter from the time she would have been pregnant – when she was out of school for 8 months for “mono.” I know this is a very sensational story, as Jaybird mentioned, but the evidence is compelling. The John Edwards story was ignored by the major news outlets until it became impossible to ignore. This is the potential Vice President of the United States and this type of story is incredibly newsworthy. Palin never looked pregnant (update: not true – see below) – her daughter did and dropped out of school, and the circumstances surrounding Palin’s pregnancy and birth are suspect to say the least.

The first picture is Palin six months into her pregnancy at the National Governor’s Association at the White House. Second picture is from February 28th, and the third is from March 3rd. The fourth photo is of Palin supposedly seven months pregnant after her official announcement. The fifth photo is Palin’s daughter Bristol in late 2007, and the sixth one is from the Anchorage Daily News published on March 9th.

Update: It’s entirely possible these are all a series of strange coincidences and that the baby is indeed Sarah Palin’s and not her daughters. If all these details are true – even if Palin just decided to fly 8 hours after her water broke, then drive another 45 minutes before giving birth – you can see how someone could come up with this conspiracy theory. Here are two photos of Palin looking very pregnant along with a link to the header caption which shows that the photo was taken in 2006 when Bristol could not possibly have been pregnant with Trig. [Thanks Scott F!]

Update 2: (same text as top update on page) Bristol Palin, 17, is five months pregnant now. It is impossible for this story to be true at all and our apologies to their family for spreading it. Bristol was possibly pregnant in one of the photos below, but not with Trig.

Bristol Palin is shown holding Trig in a photo taken at the the announcement of Sarah Palin as the VP candidate on 8/28/08. Credit: Emily from Dayton, Ohio, found on Wikipedia