The Nuts and the Adults

Jack Bogdansky has gone nuts–and in a slimy way. This is what he posted earlier this week:

When we left the saga of Sarah Palin and her supposed fifth child, Trig, early this morning, only one of two things could have been true: Either Palin was not the boy's mother and was faking the pregnancy, or she recklessly endangered the life of the child by waiting almost a full day between her water breaking and arriving at a hospital -- choosing to fly eight hours or more from Dallas to Anchorage after her water broke.

Today we read that her daughter, Bristol, who some suspected was the actual mother of the child, is now supposedly herself pregnant, with the baby due in December. If that is true, she would have conceived in March, and could not have given birth on April 18. If that is true, scratch the theory that Trig's real mother is Bristol.

Palin has now said the right things about her daughter -- the baby is welcome, both children are loved, etc. -- things that she should have said had Trig been Bristol's child. Her "abstinence only" speeches on the stump will now look pretty stupid, as that particular policy did not work too well in her own home.

If the official story being told today is true, Bristol Palin got pregnant while she was reportedly being held out of school with an alleged severe case of mononucleosis. During part of that time, she seems to have been shipped off from Juneau, the state capital, to the Palins' hometown of Wasilla, according to reports of police records in Wasilla, where she had several traffic violations. It's interesting what she was healthy enough to do while she apparently was claiming she was too sick for school.

There is still the possibility, of course, that Sarah Palin is not Trig's mother. As we discussed here yesterday, several pictures of her before and after the birth do not appear to be those of a woman who carried a fifth child in utero. Here she is 53 days before she supposedly delivered a six-pounds-plus baby boy, her fifth child. Here she was in her first pregnancy. Between that photographic evidence and the crazy story of the delivery, it still doesn't add up.

And if Sarah Palin is Trig's mother, there is still the reality that she recklessly endangered the baby. Will she survive both the unwed pregnant teenage daughter story and the bad judgment she showed around Trig's birth, and stay on the Republican ticket? It remains to be seen.

As a member of the Democratic Party, I hope she soldiers on. She's one of the weakest picks McCain could possibly have made, anyway.

MAX Redline in response posted this in the comments section on the NW Republican blog site:

Has Bojack gone nuts?

Well, in a word, yes. At least for a bit. He tried to ban me today and although I'm not sure why, I think it had something to do with his tirade on "reckless endangerment". My reply went:

Umm, one little problem, Jack - let's not get too hasty with the paintbrush, okay?

I may be right, but I'm not right-wing. Don't much care for the stuff of Bush, for the most part. Don't much care for McCain.

However, I have an abiding sense of fairness, which means that I'm really put off by all of the Palin-bashing that's going on around the 'Net. Folks are tossing around anything they can find, in the hope that something sticks.

They dredge up her husband getting a DUI at 22. Heck, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge at 37 and left his passenger to drown - but that's okay; he's a good Democrat.

They attacked Palin's "inexperience" before realizing that unlike Obama, she at least has several years of executive experience. When that didn't work, they got really scuzzy.

They claimed that the 5th child was actually her daughter's. Oops, that didn't work out, either.

So they attack her for being an unfit mother because said daughter is pregnant at 17. This would be okay were she not the daughter of a Republican, or if she decided to abort.

Then, of course, we have the attacks regarding Palin's flight after her water broke; endangering her unborn child. Well, the child was born, and was healthy. Down's is a genetic disorder, and has nothing to do with any supposed "endangering".

It's not an uncommon phenomenon; infants can survive without problem for days after the "water breaks".

Look at the recent elephant calf birth at the zoo: after the animal went into labor, some geniuses decided to make everything suddenly different. They closed the public out, and by some reports had as many as two dozen people packed into the barn. And wonder of wonders, the elephant stopped labor.

This is actually highly adaptive; it's bad form to drop a calf when, say, a tiger may be roaming nearby. So, they changed everything while the elephant was in labor, and she quit. For eighteen hours, until they reportedly induced labor. As long as the umbilicus is not compromised, delay is not a major concern.

Talk about reckless endangerment! Here's a calf, stuck inside for 18 hours after the "water broke". And had they not induced labor, it's likely that the calf wouldn't have been born for at least several more hours, until the elephant felt somewhat comfortable with the sudden changes to its surroundings.

You're great on taxes, fees, condos, and many other issues, Jack.

But you don't know much about biology.

Amusingly, earlier in the day he'd commented on my blog that Anyone who keeps a civil tongue in his or her head is welcome on my blog.

No matter; I just came in from a different IP address and circumvented the block. I've got a better tool-kit, and I know how to use them.

Think he's a little thin-skinned?

However, today he's decided to "put on his American hat": I would like to blog more about Sarah Palin's pregnancy and daring delivery this morning, but like President Bush, I am so overwhelmed with concern for the victims of Hurricane Gustav that I am suspending blogging about that until further notice.

Sure enough, something's snapped.