The Palin baby story is this year's "Rathergate".

[girl gone mad]

Remember all the time we wasted discussing and analyzing that? Remember how it turned out?

I won't tell people what I think they can and can't post about. I just want to warn DUers to tread with an enormous amount of caution.

We've been here before. Wasting our time forensically analyzing fonts and bidding on typewriters on ebay. It was a big, stupid distraction and Rove very successfully changed the story from Bush's AWOL to Rather's shoddy journalism.

This time the better story is Palin's lack of qualifications and extremist positions. The Republicans would love to turn Palin into a victim of loonie left-wing bloggers the way they turned Bush into a victim of the "liberal media".

[GOPNotForMe]

1. I completely agree! DROP THIS CONSPIRACY!

[akangel2008]

2. I agree to a point

But as an Alaskan I can tell you there is more to this story that deserves main stream media attention! This won't go anywhere in our state but girls who are friends with Bristol KNOW she was pregnant. MSNBC or CNN needs to pick this up & run with it! So easy to bring her down. She's an extremest and a bad mother and people deserve to know the truth about her!

[cliffordu]

8. Well, you could call them and tell them ALL about it!!!!

OR, you could troll this shit someplace else.

[akangel2008]

18. Did I offend you sometime?

Sorry if I did it was not my intent.

[cliffordu]

23. Not really. I have a bad temper and an itchy trigger finger...Studying to

ride my veteran's status into the White House.


On the other hand, I'd like to see some actual proof of what you are saying.

That's not a snark, I really would like SOMEONE who lives up there to post photos or real articles (scans, maybe??) so we can stop the constant churn of bullshit surrounding this.

[elleng]

13. akangel,

this is a great opportunity for those of us in the lower 48 really to learn some things about ak!

SO hang around, and fill us in, with as many 'facts' as you can!

THANKS!

and p.s., what TIME is it up there? Its 2:24 am here in Florida.

[akangel2008]

17. It's going on 10:30 up here

after a beautiful day of sun! And thanks to those that call me a troll right off the bat; I feel really welcome. Anyway this story HAS been big within the high schools but once it was told to the press it was squished like a bug. It has caught the attention of those outside now which it should. When you put 2 and 2 together you find interesting things. Now should it matter? Well on the 1 hand no, its not our business. But on the other it definitely leads to CREDIBILITY.

[elleng]

19. 'Squished' by

msm, as 'down here?'

And tho I hate to get into this, it is, I think, relevant as to 'judgment;' you said 'bad parent?'

[TexasObserver]

26. please provide your info to someone like Thom Hartman

or Keith Olbermann

[Lithos]

3. It is a distraction to say the least

Even if true, it will go nowhere. And I doubt it is true.

Obama would do better to take the high ground this time.

I'd rather spend my time commenting on troopergate, her own mismanagement as mayor (leaving a town of 5000 22 million in debt due to her bad fiscal policies), her extremist views on contraception and science, and her obvious lack of experience given the short distance of 1 heartbeat away. We already suffered through one President who lacked experience and intelligence, we don't need someone who would make Bush look like a Rhodes Scholar and world traveler.

[snake in the grass]

27. Taking the high ground...

is what has cost us time and time again. If the story is a fabrication, then, by all means, leave it alone, but if it is true then it is something we can use to win. Imagine Palin at a press conference trying to justify the 'broke water in Texas'-story. Priceless. The issue is not whether the daughter is the actual mother but rather the elaborate lie. I often read here how such actions would reflect poorly on us and turn away voters and I'm calling bullshit on that. That's exactly how the Republicans win. Did making John Kerry look like a coward hurt them? Did calling Al Gore a pathological liar hurt them? Did implying that John McCain had fathered a black child with a woman other than his wife (I hate the term 'illegitimate') hurt them? I'm not saying we should lie (we shouldn't) but I'm sick of the high road. The Republican party needs to go the way of the Whigs so in addition to talking issues, an area we dominate, I say take their hypocrisy and rub their noses in it, hit them hard, hit them repeatedly, hit them below the belt, and continue this until there is nothing left of them. The paranoid and the greedy will have a generation to regroup and the rest of us can go about solving the problems they have caused.

[Richardo]

4. K&R

:patriot:

[Neshanic]

9. The idea is to K&R this within two posts.

[dkf]

5. I think wootengate is much more interesting.

She has a history of firing police chiefs. I wonder what is up with that.

[progressivebydesign]

6. I cannot believe that the Mods have not locked that LBN story from Kos.

Nothing against the original poster of that, SushiBandit, but that story does not at all fit the criteria for LBN. Are the mods around tonight? I have yet to see a Kos diary suffice as LBN on DU before.

[depakid]

7. It's an internet rumor that brings attention to a lot of other things

Like those extremist positions that you mention, for starters.

[girl gone mad]

14. I actually think the story distracts from her positions..

the same way Rathergate distracted from Bush going AWOL during Vietnam.

[depakid]

25. First thing I thought was: crikey, this person would force every woman to Downs fetus to term"

or a fetus with any of a hundred other birth defects.

And she'd go to any extent to force that on our daughters, too.

And that was just for starters.

[Nine]

10. Big difference

This is not a scandal we have to dig to find. The scandal is Palin's own words - her account of that plane trip and her broken water claim. It was either

1 a reckless action
2 a lie told as part of a coverup
3 a lie told to exploit her son's birth for political gain

So which is it? The story came from Palin not us. If we take her at her word, her judgment was incredibly bad... I would say negligent. And I think so would most mothers and health professionals.

[bahrbearian]

16. "YUP, YUP"

[Tresalisa]

11. I agree.

I agree, this just makes us look foolish, and it's a waste of time, since there is somuch else that can be said against her.

Besides, with Palin now in the spotlight, if there is anything at all to any part of this, I think someone will come forward.

[dailykoff]

12. The fired producer of that piece has pointed out that the docs were never proven fake.

Heard her on a Democracy Now interview. Goes to show the power of the Big Lie.

[TexasObserver]

15. If the suspicions turn out to be true, it will end her candidacy and McCain's chances.

It is a worthy topic of discussion.

It isn't anything like Rathergate, which supposed a sinister plot by Rove. This involves a set of state and hospital records, and many ways in which a story could get concocted, hidden, and ultimately, found out.

Hide Thread is your friend, and that is your best option. I use it when the board is full of some topic that doesn't interest me, and I highly recommend it to all who see things being discussed they do not like seeing discussed.

[loyalsister]

20. Agreed

Pushing this in the media costs us credibility. It is even hypocritical IMO.
Those of us who are pro-choice want people to stay out of our business yet we would exploit the decision that a desperate young girl made in order to bring down her mother?

We want the press to stay out of Bill Clinton and John Edwards' private lives when it comes to things that have nothing to do with government, yet we would chase this story?

We can justify it however we like, but if we exploit this kind of story we are ethically negligent if we do not reexamine how we would respond if attacked in kind.

I personally have supported Obama because I defended Bill Clinton, was angered by swiftboating and move past the BS. Stooping to that level destroys the disciplined campaign that won that primary and destroys all credibility.

[LongDistanceRunner]

21. things will be talked about, why even try to stop it?

this hasn't even been investigated and you say forget it?

everything will be looked at, and the truth will come out.

[Peace Patriot]

22. You really need to clear your head, and try to distinguish between what is true

and what is Corpo 'news' psyops, disinformation and false narrative. I understand your point, I think, and I'm not arguing with that. Democrats, Obama campaigners and leftist bloggers should most certainly focus on the most serious issues, and avoid stupid, Corpo-generated distractions. But I think you are wrong in identifying Rathergate as a "stupid distraction." Have you read his lawsuit? He was not guilty of "shoddy journalism". He quotes CBS executives saying that a Bush win is in their best interest, and they consequently failed to back him up on a story about Bush that was TRUE and for which there was strong evidence. It was the the one retyped document that was the "distraction," and that had all the signs of a sting. The Corpo media did a number on us--a big number--and destroyed Rather's career in order to elect Bush. That is a major scandal, and also a tremendously important lesson to us on the lethal power of the Corpo media over our country.

We cannot win against them. We must ignore them and convince others to ignore them. We must stop playing their game, stop treating them as if they were important, stop watching their TV news, stop listening to their radio and stop reading their newspapers. And if we cannot, in all practicality, ignore them completely, we must view, listen and read their garbage as an adversarial process, questioning every word, every fact, every headline, every spin, and help others to understand how unreal this delusional Corpo narrative of our country is.

LETHAL POWER. Bear that in mind every time you expose yourself to their poison. If you fall for their deadly hypnosis--as you seem to be doing, using a phrase like "loonie left-wing bloggers"--you are in danger of losing contact with reality. I know how this happens. You are trying to think like them, in order to outsmart them. But this is a dangerous game, is all I'm saying. Your head can get spun out. You start actually seeing things the way they do. You start judging issues of vital importance to peoples' lives, and to country, as "spin." How do they spin it? How do we spin it? How can we win?

We can't win. They have all the power. Five fatcat rightwing billionaires control all 'news' and opinion in the country. And a couple of other rightwing billionaires control the vote counting with 'TRADE SECRET' code and virtually no audit/recount controls. They decide who wins elections. They pre-write the narratives explaining what happened. We really, really, really need to recognize this awful reality, and never, ever, ever dismiss leftist bloggers as "loonie." The bloggers who were following that story, and trying to figure it out, were tracking one of the most important events in the history of this country. That they were marginalized by the Corpo media--who were doing the dirty deed--should not result in our adopting their point of view on those bloggers.

They were not "loonie." Ask Dan Rather. And you can see his brilliant news documentaries at www.HD.net. He is an amazing journalist, to have recovered from that character assassination, and come back fighting!

[Quixote1818]

24. Why are so many people worked up about a handful of threads about

this baby theory? I have been trying to ignore them until something big breaks but with the 100's of threads WARNING us to stay away from this and that it's morally wrong to talk about this I am starting to want them to keep doing them because I am sick of these kind of threads.

Give it a fucking break. This is a bleep on the radar screen and not something we need to worry about and if true it could pay HUGE dividends. Let two or three people check into it if they fucking feel like it.