I can’t stand Sarah Palin and voted for Obama, and I think all people who criticize and speculate about her birthing decision are slugs. Andrew Sullivan, whom I like otherwise, clearly has issues with strong women. Something about Palin touched an emotional nerve with him and clouded his judgment. Perhaps she reminded him of his mother on some visceral level.

Frankly, this type of reaction seems to me a true barometer of where we are as men in America with regard to women in power. Not because she didn’t win, but because we make up bizarre shit and criticize her on this level. It’s disgusting.

Um, yes it is. People, as you must know, raise other people’s children as their own all the time. Indeed, we have a legal arrangement to formalize that called “adoption”, so the idea that Palin is not the mother of the boy she calls her son really isn’t that absurd.

If there are answers to Sullivan’s questions about the circumstances of the birth, I’d like to know what they are. “It’s none of your business” is not an answer, it’s an evasion. “It would take a conspiracy more complex than the Moon Landing Hoax” (that’s a joke) is not an answer, because it’s just not true. “She went into labor during a speech at the governor’s conference, but no one noticed she was even pregnant, and then while in labor flew 6 hours back to Alaska against FAA regulations but no one noticed she was even pregnant, and then drove another two hours from Anchorage to Wasilla still in labor to finally deliver on a day there’s no record of any births by anyone named ‘Palin’” isn’t an answer because it’s completely un-fucking-believable.

It’s the reported circumstances of Trig’s birth that rises to the Rube Goldberg-esque level of absurdity and suspension of disbelief. Look, if there are good reasons to believe she’s the real mother I’d like to know what they are. “She says so and you’re a jackass for even asking” is not a good reason to believe anything, it’s an evasion to an uncomfortable question.

“It’s somebody else’s baby” is at least as parsimonious an explanation as the idea of a pregnant woman – in labor – fly [sic] 6 hours on an airplane.

Uhh, no. It’s not. Please try again.

Unless by “is at least as parsimonious an explanation as” you mean “is a damn Rube Goldberg contraption in comparison to”, in which case you’re spot on.

I’m not a “truther.” I’m just not aware of any logical principle that says that mothers never lie about who their babies are. Why is this the one single thing you’re prepared to take her word on?

Do you? Six or eight, maybe, besides the people whose professional obligations already ensure their secrecy (doctors, nurses, everybody at the hospital.) Most of them family members. And, of course, she’s certainly in a position to exact retribution – something she’s demonstrated a willingness to do in the past.

Remember that the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was kept secret for 70 years and involved more than 200 people (that’s in addition to the black men they killed.) People can keep secrets.

Just sayin’