In her book, Sarah jokes about having had contractions during her infamous ‘my Down Syndrome son isn’t due for a month and my water broke but I don’t need to go to a hospital’ speech in Texas. And yet here’s an excerpt from her press interview given to the ADN (Anchorage Daily News) just 4 days after the alleged birth of Trig Paxson Van Palin:
FAMILY FEELS BLESSED: Back at work already, governor says she wasn’t in labor in Texas. By LISA DEMER [email protected] Published: April 22nd, 2008 01:11 AM Last Modified: October 20th, 2008 02:15 PM
“I am not a glutton for pain and punishment. I would have never wanted to travel had I been fully engaged in labor,” Palin said. After four kids, the governor said, she knew what labor felt like, and she wasn’t in labor.
So which is it? And how, after delivering four other babies, could she not know that the slightest twinge of labour (false or not) can become fully engaged labour without notice or provocation?
And why didn’t her ghost-writer know to check the local news archives so Sarah’s book would reflect versions of events already in print or on tape? Had the writer never researched a book prior to ghost-writing this one? Would Harper Collins have sent a green ghost-writer to handle such an ambitious, potentially lucrative endeavour? Would they not have wanted to protect their investment with a proper writer? The idea that all the discrepancies in Sarah’s book can be attributed to an inexperienced ghost-writer seems a bit too convenient to me. And fishy too, also.
But put all that aside because we have other discrepancies upon which to focus today. Below is a photo of Trig, a premature baby of almost 5 weeks, at a reported birthweight of 6 lbs 2 oz, being held by his grandmother, in the hospital corridor, just hours after he was allegedly born:
And here is a photo of Trig on Mercede’s lap, in Sarah’s dining room, at least 1 – 7 days after said birth:
Did you get that? Ok look at it another way. BabyTrig, home from the hospital beside my friend with her ‘just born’ bub, Missimoo.
The two babies pictured above are meant to be only 1/4 pound different in weight. Four ounces. 113 grams. That difference is equal to 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 stick of butter (US) or a 1/4 pound Big Mac (without the bun and lettuce).
Look again at the photos of Trig, one allegedly taken only a few hours after his birth, and the other on or just after his homecoming (which was reported to have been the day after his birth):
Now do you get it? The bub Trig in Mercede’s lap is noticeably smaller than the newborn Trig in grandma’s arms, and yet that photo was taken at least one day after Trig’s birth. The photos could not have been mislabelled or taken in any other order because the photos of grandma showing off her ‘hours’ old grandson’ is well documented by newspaper and television crews. Obviously, then, the aunt Mercede holding baby Trig while seated in one of Sarah’s dining room chairs photo, had to have been taken after the hospital hallway photo, after mum and bub have gone home from the hospital.
And yet the two bubs in the photos of Trig don’t appear to be the same age or weight.
Head – meet desk!
For the record, I hadn’t really paid attention to any of these photos when they were first shown a year ago. But some time after Missimoo was born, and I was looking through her hospital photos, the penny dropped. Look how Trig fits in the crook of Mercede’s arm. She needs only one arm to support him and only the one hand to secure his bum and his classic premie-baby, fetal-positioned legs. That was my epiphany. That’s exactly how my 4 lb 4 oz premie son looked and fit in the crook of my arm until he was about 5 lbs (around 4 weeks old). Missimoo, on the other hand, spills over her dad’s arms (see next) and her brother needs both of his arms to balance his sister (see summary). Plus, when you look at the photos side by side, the bub in Mercede’s lap has the look of a premature infant while the bub in grandma’s arms, with his well-rounded face, clearly does not.
This is a 6 lb+ newborn baby:
This is not:
The only logical explanation is that Trig was actually born several weeks prior to his public debut and that the MySpace photos (mysteriously wiped from the internet during the 2008 Presidential campaign) more accurately depict his real homecoming. Sarah’s wild McRide across the US was an amateurish exercise in misdirection, deliberately executed to establish her pregnancy as fact and garner credibility and favour with the media.
The photo-op pictorial of Sarah’s parents holding their newborn grandson in the hospital corridor the next day is as McPhoney as McSarah’s new McCheekbones. But it does establish her parents as willing cohorts in her scheme to separate the American McPeople from their McCash.
And for me, here’s the icing on the cake – if it turns out that baby Trig was born not on April 18, but in February or March, my (and a lot of others) original observation that Bristol and Levi, as two teenagers brought up under the misguided banner of abstinence only, erroneously thought they had a window of opportunity to safely engage in unprotected sex following Trig’s birth, thus resulting in Bristol’s falling pregnant a second time, fits surprisingly neatly into the timeline of a second son, Tripp, being born in December.
I cannot possibly know which of the Babygate theories is true, if any of them are true, but I can tell you that my eyes are not so old I can’t tell the difference between the premie look of the bub in the photos gleaned from Mercede’s MySpace, taken in Sarah’s home, and the more matured weight and look of the bub displayed in grandma’s arms, allegedly taken no less than the day before the dining room photos and purportedly only a few hours after his birth for the benefit of news crew cameras.
If (after you’ve stopped banging your head on your desk) you’d like to explore this subject further, there are more opinions, theories and photos on several blogs dedicated to exposing the truth behind politicians in general and Sarah Palin specifically at the following links. Some of my photos were pinched from news archives and these sites:
When I look at these all together in a group, an old Sesame Street song pops into my head. And thanks to youtube, here it is 🙂
To comment on this post please scroll back to the title “The four Ounce Gambol (McPhoney McPhotos) nd click the word comments directly beneath – Thanks, OzMud
Seems a week ago Amazon and Wal-Mat entered a price war on their ten top selling books. You could purchase a copy of Going Rogue for the low low price of $9.00 from either online venue. According to the above link the price has already begun crawling back up but it’s still rather funny to think a best seller has dropped half it’s price in just over a month of sales.
There’s also a story bouncing about on how Sarah worked a deal with her publisher to sell discounted books to Republican groups (by the thousands) – quite possibly to give her initial book sales a healthier appearance while she was on tour 🙂
You have to know the money isn’t going to last. I’m guessing she’s spent a large portion on building her fortress and another on bribes gifts for family – clothes, cars, jets, etc. So you have to know without even needing to check, the money she’s come into of late is going to be gone in a very short time.
It doesn’t look like there’s going to be much in the way of future printings for Going Rogue, so if she expects to rebuild her nestegg, she’s going to have to write another book. Or think of something entirely different. Oooo maybe the Alaska Fund Trust (Alaska Trust fund? I can never get the title straight) will be her next project.
Speaking of Foney Funds, anyone in Alaska know how Andree is coming with her charges?
While one of Sarah’s writers (you know, those people she employs to make it seem like she’s talking when really it’s someone different, entirely, and you know when it happens because suddenly Sarah’s sentences are coherent? Heh, I just flashed on Sarah as a wooden puppet, sitting on a ventriloquist’s lap only it’s the puppet calling the shots not the human… wait – The Twilight Zone or a movie – can’t remember, but one of them did that already and it was a great story as I recall… where was I?)
Oh, here… while someone was writing for Sarah on her FB (see previous post) somene else was writing on a news *cough* website. CNS News (with the logo) “The Right News. Right Now.”
I got chills.
The author’s name is Ben Shapiro. He’s got a three-point plan to defeat the Democrat’s evil plot to force America into socialized medicine. His full article is here. This is his lead-in:
“Congressional Democrats, after all their faux wrangling, open bribery and bully tactics, are poised to reach agreement on a massive makeover of the American health system. This makeover will bankrupt the insurance companies, raise premiums, and eventually lead to the full nationalization of health care.
That’s what it is intended to do. By forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, the Democrats will destroy all profit margins for the insurers, expecting that the healthy insured will pay for the unhealthy insured. To prevent the healthy insured from opting out of the system, the Democrats levy the threat of fines and jail time. And when the insurers go under, as they surely will, the Democrats will be waiting.”
His plan is to (1) force doctors into refusing payment from medicare or private insurance. As he explains, doctors only charge lots of money because they know the insurance companies will pay them, and anyway doctors don’t actually need all that money… blah blah blah.
(2) Mr.Shapiro wants every (healthy) American to refuse private medical insurance and when the government starts fining people for not buying health insurance, they can each sue the government thereby choking the legislative resources into bankruptcy. (Every citizen who doesn’t buy health insurance is going to be fined? Really?)
His third step is the best though. I love that he even thinks of this as a step in a three-point plan. Ready? Got your sports cup in place? Ok then, here ya go:
“3. Stop electing socialists. This is the most important element, of course. The first two steps of this three-step plan will do heavy damage to both the health insurance companies and, by extension, the Democrats’ plans. When the health insurers begin to flounder, Democrats will immediately begin caterwauling about the need to fully nationalize the health care system. Pay them no mind. The government created the problem, and the government will not fix it. Democrats are not concerned about your health care—they are only concerned with creating a massive entitlement program that will cement their lock on power for the next 50 years.
Only an infusion of capitalism and entrepreneurship can solve the problem of skyrocketing health care costs. And only adherence to constitutional principles can ensure that infusion. Any government that controls health care has total mastery of its population. Our government must not be given that mastery; our founding principles reject such mastery. It’s time to exercise a bit of backbone in defense of our values—more backbone than we exercised in electing a bunch of power-hungry liars and thieves to high office.”
First, I can’t find entrepreneurship in any dictionary. At least when I make up a word I admit it up front. I’m pretty sure he meant free enterprise, but I can’t see how free enterprise gets health care to the less fortunate or anyone with a pre-existing health problem which is then denied coverage by today’s current health insurers. But that’s just me.
Second, in a true democracy, mulitple persons campaign for a single position. An election is held. One person wins, the others do not. Can someone please tell me when the Republican party decided all Democrats were enemies of the state as opposed to say – election opponents? There’s an awful lot of comparing American Democrats to the old Communist Party. Where does that come from?
And no, I don’t usually troll the Republican sites. I found this through a link in one of the comments made to Sarah’s post, and because the comment itself was so – unclear, I decided to chase it down, simply to get clarification.
And then there was this other comment that leapt out at me from the page while I was scrolling because it confirmed my worst fears about Sarah and her ilk. This comment, my friends, is the whole point of this post.
A couple of months ago, when Shannyn Moore was doing her radio show, I called in (Australia to Alaska) and actually got a slot. I’d been hearing and reading this line of thought in several pieces, and wanted her (and AKM’s and Gryphen’s as they were on the show that day and boy was I ever excited to get to say hello to them!) reaction to what I was picking up on. Unfortunately, I hadn’t worded my thoughts clearly and Shannyn took my question in a different direction. Before I could correct myself, my overseas connection disconnected and I never got back on.
But here’s the thing; There is a movement out there, by a growing mob of Sarah devoutees, who are quite literally declaring war on the Democrats as if all Democrats are enemies of the state and not their fellow Americans. And somebody in a position to actually handle this, better start taking these people seriously because the guy below isn’t the only one out there who’s thinking like this:
It’s one thing to enter into a competition and want passionately to win. It’s quite another to inspire a third party to kill off your opponent so you can win.
Dear Elblogo,
Government-assisted health care for people who cannot otherwise afford health care when they are ill and need treatment is not the beginning of communism or the fall of America.
American Democrats are not the enemy – they are American citizens just like you except they have a different idea. Isn’t having a different idea what America is all about? -OzMud
So while (most of) the rest of us are reading bedtime stories to the kids and helping them choose the best food to put out for Santa and Rudolph, Scarey-Scarah is still wearing her halloween costume and crapping on about the evil Democrats and their even more evil Death Panels.
Is there no one in the country who can get this woman to stop spewing her hateful, crunchwrapped garbage?
What take-over? What Death panel? And how can you possibly claim a bill which has been publicly disected for MONTHS to be… rammed through?
Democrats are as American as Republicans and even if ‘their’ version of the health-care bill passes, it’s NOT A TAKE OVER WHEN BOTH PARTIES ARE ABLE TO VOTE you ignorant, spiteful, malicious miscreant.
I wish no harm to befall Sarah Palin. But if someone could just separate her from her Blackberry for a month or so that would be good.
What a disgraceful display of censorship. Having selected media banned from a book signing, (Going Rogue, Sarah Palin, 22 Dec 2009, Wasilla Alaska), an event listed and promoted by your company as a public event, was at the very least a shameful act of cowardice, unbefitting a business dependent upon a citizen’s right to freedom of speech.
The local Alaskan media banned from this event had every right to attend, to report, to ask questions of your author, and to get their copies of her book signed. None had reputations or past histories of creating public disturbances. They were neither armed nor posed any form of threat to your author. To ban certain media ahead of an event based solely on the premise they ‘might’ ask the hard questions or ‘might’ write an unfavorable review only shows how ill-deserved your client is of the fame you proffer her.
I am so appalled by your role in this anti-American act of media censorship I will never again purchase another book with the name Harper Collins on the jacket.
You’ve lost a long-time customer.
Respectfully,
Lynn ….
In light of how Gryphen, Dennis Zaki and Shannyn Moore were banned from the public book signing in Wasilla yesterday, I have just emailed the above letter to each of the addresses below.
I’m also urging all of my family and friends to cease purchasing any and all Harper Collins products and hoping you will all do the same.
United States of America
HarperCollins US
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
United States of America
Tel: 1 212 207-7000 [email protected] www.harpercollins.com
United Kingdom
HarperCollins UK
HarperCollinsPublishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
London
W6 8JB
United Kingdom [email protected] www.harpercollins.co.uk
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers New Zealand
31 View Road,
Glenfield, Auckland
New Zealand
Tel: 64 9 443 9400
Fax: 64 9 443 9403 [email protected] www.harpercollins.co.nz
Two years ago my very Christian friend Larry sent me the following Christmas story. So moved by the little tale, I simply could not resist creating the photo above and turning it into my Christmas e-card.
This is for Larry – may his soul find as much love in Heaven as he left behind here on earth…
Three sinners die in a bizarre car crash on Christmas Eve and find themselves standing in front of the Pearly Gates. St. Peter was there to greet them and said “In honour of the day, you’ve only to show me some object on you which symbolizes Christmas and I will let you into Heaven.”
Still pretty blitzed, one man reached into a pocket and pulled out a lighter. His eyes sparkled as the the clarity of the moment replaced the fog in his head. Plunging the lighter high in the air he flicked open a flame and shouted “Christmas lights!” St. Peter smiled and waved him through the Gate.
The next man thought for a moment, then with childish glee retrieved a set of car keys from his jacket. Producing a tinkling sound as he jiggled the keys in the air, he looked at St. Peter straight on and proudly proclaimed “Jingle Bells!” The chuckling Angel waved him on.
The last man stood, head down, shoulders slumped. Half-heartedly, he fumbled through his clothing, turning all the pockets inside-out. Finally and sheepishly he held in front of him, for St. Peter’s scrutiny, a lacey pair of women’s panties. Bright red. St. Peter crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow and sternly asked “And what, pray tell, might these be?”
The blushing man replied “Well, sir, these would be Carol’s.”
Have a lovely, warm, safe holiday, whatever your beliefs.
Last April my friend Larry (in the US) complained to his doctor about a pain in his back that wouldn’t go away. The doctor ordered x-rays and gave him pain meds. When the x-rays came back inconclusive the doctor wanted to order an MRI but because Larry is self-employed he had to pass. His small home-operated company could not afford healthcare insurance. The $2000 test was out of reach as they were still paying off a medical bill from the previous year when his wife needed a $10,000 breast biopsy.
By June the doctor had upped his pain meds and had him walking with a cane.
By September he was in a walker.
Two weeks ago his wife called to say he was in the hospital, unable to get in or out of bed under his own steam. They’d performed an MRI and found Larry had cancer. They were calling it lung cancer even though there was only one small spot actually in the lung – there were metastasized tumors on the upper vertebrae causing the progressive inability to move. The doctors gave him a year to live if he underwent aggressive radiology and chemotherapy treatments.
Larry, aged 57 and who had otherwise enjoyed good health, said emphatically he would fight it. They booked him into radiology.
Late last week they were ready to send him home so he could enjoy Christmas with his wife, children and grandchildren. But he developed an infection. Last night, alarmed and frightened at his worsening condition, his wife and step-daughter stayed the night with him. Sometime in the wee hours, holding his hand, knowing he was in a great deal of pain his step-daughter asked “Dad, do you still feel close to God?”
Larry, a most devout Christian and wonderful father, said “Yes – in fact I can see him standing right over there.” Then he closed his eyes and slipped away.
Nobody won today.
Last year Larry and I disagreed on politics. Originally Democrats, he and his wife were gutted by Hillary’s defeat. They didn’t know anything about the candidate Barack Obama except that there was all this talk about him secretly being a Muslim. They did like McCain. He seemed to be an honorable man. And after a while they grew to trust Sarah because (after all) McCain trusted her.
Well John – Sarah – one of your trusting supporters died last night. A man who didn’t take welfare, who paid his own way, took care of not only his own two children but the two children of his wife from a previous marriage. He was the dad who drove them around on rainy days and saw to it they were fed and clothed and loved. He gave them Christianity for their hearts and was an excellent role model.
And because for seven months he could not afford a simple imaging test, cancer grew inside of him until it was too late to stop it.
Nobody won today. You, John Mccain and you, Sarah Palin, and each and every one of your misguided supporters who joined in the teabaggery and obstruction of the public option healthcare reform bill should all be ashamed of yourselves.
The American Government is not a sport. Healthcare reform is not a contest. There are real people out here, with real illnesses who need access to qualified doctors and testing facilities denied to them by the greed-driven insurance companies that you, John McCain and you, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party now openly and shamelessly support.
Stop spewing rhetoric designed to fire up the voters of 2012 and start earning your salaries as government employees! Stop figuring out ways to get the White House back under Republican control and spend some time figuring out a way to get medical help to the American people.
It makes no sense to me that ordinary citizens in the richest, most powerful country in the world (American citizens) are dying because they can’t afford basic healthcare.
Nobody won today. My friend is gone. The hope and promise of real healthcare for the US is slipping out of our reach – and I’m angry at every politician on both sides of the aisle who could have made a genuine difference for behaving like snot-nosed, narcissistic little children instead.
My husband watches Fox News . Meh. He says it’s because all the silly Yanks amuse him, but I’m sure he watches it just to annoy me. That, and he’s confident I won’t stay in the room long enough to notice the bevy of blonde boobiage (please don’t google that I just made it up) the studio heads parade across their pseudo-news sets masquerading as guest speakers or experts on world politics and modern Christianity. (Because nothing says religion like a shiney gold cross twinkling above the neckline of a low-cut sweater.)
So a few times each week I’m exposed to (like it or not) the spewings of people like Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham. And the one question that always, always, always pops into my head is… why are these people so angry? I don’t care what subject they’re crapping on about, they’re always talking over each other, yelling, shaking their fists at the camera and girating like agitated bob dolls.
They’re always mad at President Obama. Every single thing President Bush did while in office is now magically and uniquely President Obama’s fault, including the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the big corporate bailouts, the long unemployment lines… and the most ludicrous… the fact we haven’t yet found and captured Osama Bin Laden.
I holler shoot me now! from the next room but all I get is a chuckle.
President Obama didn’t earn his Nobel Peace prize. That was the idea of some foreign lefty who just wanted to make the Republican Party look bad. (Oh please – you don’t need anyone’s help there.)
President Obama leads an army of Washington Elitists who are scheming to takeover their government and destroy their country through the elitist tactic of… wait for it… higher education! (How dare they!)
President Obama is not to be trusted because he’s an eloquent speaker and can therefore fool us all with his fancy-schmancy words and trick us into doing bad things like – fixing our health-care system or *gasp* paying the taxes that pay for things like unemployment and medicare benefits!WE DON’T NEED NO STUPID GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS! WHY WON’T THEY JUST LEAVE US ALONE!!!
I exhaust myself just trying not to listen.
So with Sarah Palin conveniently hiding out vacationing in Hawaii (even though she disliked Hawaii so much when she attended a Hawaiian college she had to quit and go find another college in another state) I thought today would be a day of serenity.
And it was! All the way up to the time I poured a cuppa and logged onto the blogs to do some reading. Yikes! Sarah’s taking on the Schwarzenegger! Run Arnie! Run!
We’re supposed to be the United States of America.But… our Republican Party is broken. There’s nothing but dissention and anger amongst the rank and file, and one can’t really build a party platform where no two people can agree on a plan.
The Republican base is changing. Sarah’s influence on the dissatisfied, discontented, we-want-answers-now portion of our citizenry is stirring a rebellion of distrust which will ultimately have us turning on each other just when we really need to be coming together – when we seriously need to focus on solving world problems rather than spitting out new ones.
The Republican Party is broken. Democrats are no longer talked about as colleagues who simply have a different slant on world affairs, Democrats are now talked about as if they are the enemy and the enemy must be destroyed.
Democrats are now outsiders and don’t belong in America.
If you’re not Christian you don’t belong in America.
If you believe in pro-choice, you don’t belong in America.
The two-party political system we’ve enjoyed for a couple of hundred years, where compromise has been the main force pushing us ahead as a giant of a country is being slowly choked by the hate, bigotry and ignorant rhetoric issuing from the ranks of the Republican base.
And no one inside the Republican Party seems to be stepping forward to herald the voice of reason.
The Republican Party is broken. Which means the American Eagle can’t fly. A healthy bird needs both it’s wings to fly. But the right one is broken. And today’s Facebook entry by Sarah Palin and the comments it elicited- are a pretty good indication of why:
It escapes me, all the fuss being made in the media about The Intimate Life of Tiger Woods. Are there not more important things tugging at our apron strings – like the 19km-long iceberg heading toward the southern coast of Australia or Bolivia running completely out of drinking water because their million year-old glaciers have all but disappeared?
How does the sexual appetite of a guy who plays golf for a living trump the water shortages in our own backyard? Where’s the Queensland reports (dry as they might be) on how many new dams we’re getting built next year? (Are we getting any new dams built next year?) How has my effort of lining my kitchen sink with a plastic tub to trap every drop of excess water and use it on my garden affected our water supply?
Am I wasting time and energy arguing with my 85 year-old father-in-law when he tries to hose down the driveway or decides he’s entitled to use all the water he wants on a couple of tomato plants because (to his way of thinking) he can afford to pay the bill?
Because if it’s not having a positive effect, I’m happy to stop nagging my husband to turn off the lights when he leaves a room or to leave my tub in the sink because its doing something important even though it’s in his way and go back to wasting water and electricity with the rest of the population who thinks our resources will be in abundance forever.
I run through this same thought process every time one of our own pollies is stood down after being outted for having had an affair in office. Seems to me politicians having sex is old news and if the act of behaving like tom cats doesn’t affect job performance (pardon the pun) I just don’t care who’s sleeping with whom.
We should be more shocked at the number of people who die each year because they can’t heat their homes during winter.
And here’s a clue: Where there’s an ‘office’ there are at least two people who’ve had sex inside it’s walls. Get over it.
I never understood the justification for America having spent millions of tax dollars to investigate President Clinton’s after-hours romp with Monica Lewinski. But then I never understood the public fascination, especially 50 years on, with trying to prove Marilyn Monroe had an affair with JFK either.
And while I’ve only been a part of Australia for a bit more than a decade now, I’ve been a citizen of the human race for six times that and I can tell you with all certainty, where there’s a man with great charisma, ambition and drive – there’s a sexual appetite to match – and odds are he’s getting some on the side.
I just realized why Jeff Goldbloom (oops! Sorry! Goldblum even) repeats himself so often, saying one thing two or three different ways in a row. It’s not an acting technique at all. It’s that he’s desperately attempting to dislodge that one perfect word he knows is trapped somewhere in his brain behind a stack of useless phrases that he doesn’t want at all. But he needs to keep spouting the close-but-no-cigar phrases, moving them around so the perfect word, stuck in the back, has room to work itself free and strategically fall out of his mouth – just in time to make him sound amazingly intelligent 🙂
Well if it’s good enough for Jeff, it’s good enough for me. Here we go: I’m calling dibbs. I’m… reserving the right. I’m… taking the fifth. This isn’t working. Maybe if I suddenly grew very tall…
I’m needing to convey, in all sincerity, that I’m completely aware that the topic of this post is childish and that I’m posting it anyway. I’m embracing the child in me tonight and calling dibs on – the right to behave like a four year old.
So there.
Or in the wise words of my daughter Samantha when she was four, “Well fine then cry!”
This wouldn’t even be an issue with me, were it not for the fact that Sarah habitually grabs credit for things which can’t possibly have originated in her head under all that hairspray. (Everyone knows original ideas need oxygen.) The most recent credit-grabbing incident being President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech given in Norway, in which Sarah claims, in a radio interview, (and on Facebook!) to have found passages from her book.
Really Sarah, do you honestly think the President of The United States of America (long with his staff of professional writers) became so befuddled and desperate for speech material that he sent an intern off to buy your book so he could skim through it looking for ideas?
I actually get headaches trying to think like her.
So, whoever you are reading this, stand up. (Go ahead, nobody’s looking, honest!) Place one hand on a hip, lean into it, point a finger with the other and repeat after me… SARAH PALIN… LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE… YOU STARTED THIS!
Geez, that felt good! Ok. Here’s the deal.
Some of the book reviewers and Palinbots, reading Sarah’s book, have been swooning over the dedication line to her kids – I breathe you – and I just want to set the record straight. While it may be a touching sentiment, it’s not her line.
Nup.
Not Sarah’s.
It actually appears in the chorus of two different songs, both originating in 2007/2008. This one’s my favourite:
I Crave You (new song 2008) Shontelle
(chorus) I crave you, I breathe you, I taste you I see you in my dreams I’ll never replace you, escape you, crazy as it seems You said you’ll never go any where But every time I look around boy you gonna dissapear Still I cry still I try to save you Baby boy I crave you (crave you) Don’t you know I love you Don’t you know I love you
This isn’t bad either:
Always (Posted on youtube Feb 27 2008) Anime [Doomsday]
(chorus) I love you I hate you I can’t live around you. I breathe you I taste you I can’t live without you. I just can’t take anymore This life of solitude I guess that i’m out the door And now i’m done with you.
It was a perfectly lovely comment between mother and children. Lovely. But she could have at least surrounded it with quotation marks and given the authors proper credit, and when people say to her, in person, how taken they were by the words, she could at least say something simple like “yes, it struck me the same way the first time I heard it…”
Because I was watching this Countdown video clip at The Immoral Minority just a few minutes ago and – sheer disbelief had me watching it twice more.
Watch closely between .40 and .59 seconds on the tape.I pinched this but it’s a blur and I’ll most likely have to take it down anyway because I don’t have permission to use it.
But…
Anyone else notice how mom is dressed in full winter gear while the one-year old with health problems is in a summer hoody, bare-handed, bare-headed and the wind is blowing and it’s snowing …
I can almost understand the not putting on a full coat or wrapping him in a blanket to just walk the few feet from the car to the door. But could they not have at least put the bub’s hood over his head? It’s not like dad Todd has both of his arms around him protecting him from the chill or anything…
Who are these people?
====== Comments ======
#7 Anon: “It was really cold–below freezing, as it was sleeting and snowing. The forecast that day for the D.C. region was from 3-5 inches of snow. 31 degrees?”
#3 Albert Lewis: “I visit Alaska at least once a year and must tell you that Alaskans are often in shorts and t-shirts when it’s cold enough to put me into a sweater and jacket, plus hat.”
#12 CG: “Some Alaskans do wear shorts/t-shirts in the winter, but really only those who live an urban lifestyle and don’t expect to be outside – going from car to mall. [Which is kind of stupid to the rest of us Alaskans.]”
Oz- My normal attire when living in snow country was K-Mart special long underwear, jeans, flannel long-sleeved shirt and snow boots with a pair of men’s tube socks. If the sun was shining, I might leave the shirt unbuttoned and roll up the sleeves. When it wasn’t, everything was buttoned up and a nice thick, zip-up jacket was added. The jacket always had a hood and I always had a knitted hat in one pocket and gloves in the other, because temps dropped on a dime.
I raised a special needs kid. The first 5 years were critical to his well-being. It was explained to me by highly educated people that this is when the lion’s share of special needs kids health problems all manifest themselves and act as a prelude to his adolescent years. He would be more prone (than my other kids) to chest infections, ear infections, eye and sinus infections, and the more we could prevent those from occurring while he was little, the less likely he would be to suffer from chronic infections later on. And I don’t mean to sound catty, but his corrective eyewear was worn all the time, not just for photo-ops.
#9 MAnxMama: “I’ve commented on this particular picture before. WTF is the Palin family thinking? People most always ensure that their children are dressed adequately, even if that means going without themselves.”
#11 Chelsea: “I can’t tell you how many times I got my little ones all bundled up and into the car (and yes, just a few steps) while forgetting my own coat, hat and gloves. I’m not a great mom, but I could see to that much before I saw to my own needs.
Oz- That’s precisely what makes a person a great parent though – that basic instinct to shoulder your kids from harm, from the cold, from unpleasant experiences even though it might mean you get wet or cold or tired or scared instead. This was a book signing engagement? Why was Trig even there? He didn’t write anything.
#4 Myrtilla: “The way it looks, one could form the opinion that she did not think the child had nerve endings. I would think that someone did intervene. Notice he is wearing shoes & pants, at least.”
#13 KarenJ: “… At least they put Trig’s shoes on…”
Oz- I’m Godsmacked. It takes ‘someone else’ to remember to put shoes on the fifth child of two parents who’ve previously raised four?
#6 Nick Smith:”Have you sad losers really got nothing better to do with your lives than write this crap?”
Oz- Hey Nick – Thanks for reading! And to answer your question: As long as the Palins keep pulling this crap we’ll all be out here writing about it 🙂
Speaking for myself – I did not take denaliorbust’s comment in the previous post as a pass on Sarah’s not being responsible for her actions – but more as a clinical explanation of events which shaped her political personality. A disecting, forensic approach, if you will, to the question we all want answered – how did Sarah get to be Sarah?
We’ve all of us been left to head-shaking and guesswork regarding Sarah’s qualifications because no one in her world will talk to us, and the people in a position to garner information for us – just don’t. We’re flatout.
But our questions are honest ones, appropriately asked of a person positioning herself to be a major political figure in our lives. (Anyone proferring foreign policy advice via newspaper Op-Ed and Facebook edicts to a seated president surely considers themselves a contender, right?)
Early in the 2008 McCain campaign, when Katie Couric was (by Sarah and her staff) summarily dismissed as an out-of-line reporter who asked invasive, ridiculous questions, it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop… but it never did. Where were Katie’s backers? Where were the stationheads and television crews? Why weren’t a hundred other journalists jumping up and down screaming WAIT! STOP SIDESTEPPING AND ANSWER THE DAMNED QUESTIONS LADY!
Nothing. We got nothing. At the time a handful of Alaskans were bravely and quietly stepping out of the shadows and into the blogs, ready to take up the banner our public officials and paid journalists so carelessly dropped, only to be met with serious obstacles. Alaska bloggers like Gryphen at The Immoral Minority and AKM at The Mudflats were both outted and threatened. Wasillans like Andree Mccleod and Linda Kellen Biegel vigilantly trekked the legal roads demanding disclosure of Sarah’s actions as governor while under constant verbal attack from an army of Palinbot soldiers. There’s Phillip Munger who began pecking at the conscience of the Alaska newspapers to give in and do their jobs and Shannyn Moore, who used her blog, radio and television to question the authority of Sarah Palin, smalltown mayor and accidentally-elected-governor only to be fired, threatened and persecuted by Palins followers.
Each of them has suffered public confrontation, personal and monetary hardship as a result of their efforts and yet they each still persist on getting at the truth and getting that truth to us. But it’s slow because those who know won’t talk. Those who talk, won’t give their permission to release.
So here we sit, out in the blogosphere, watching Sarah Palin take root in our future while we beg crumbs from anyone, anyone at all who can give us the tiniest insight into this woman who keeps pushing herself into power whether the majority of the public want her there or not. A woman with such hubris she publicly instructs your president, my president, a Nobel Prize winning, educated, eloquent man – how do to his job.
anurse: I don’t know if Sarah is just a person with such a low IQ she was susceptible to those who suggested a political career was her destined future, if she was the mean-spirited high school bully who has gathered a cult-like following and is using them to manipulate her way into the White House, or if she actually believes she is the new messiah, here to save us all from eternal damnation.
But I can tell you I want to know the truth. If Tiger Woods, who does nothing more than play a good game of golf for a living is held up to the standard of full international disclosure of his personal life, than certainly we can expect nothing less of Sarah Palin, smalltime pollie from the bush.
And while we’re at it… can anyone please tell me why a woman who holds a four-year degree in Journalism needed a ghost writer to produce a fluff-piece about herself?
I mean it was just a big essay. Not rocket science.
I’m in awe of the energy and enthusiasm generated in the comments on yesterday’s post – and I want to thank absolutely all of you for your strong responses. I highly recommend all comments be read and I’ve plucked bits from comment #20 to post here because the writer is from Alaska, familiar with Wasilla and it’s citizenry – and has added a flavour that’s been lacking in other descriptions of Sarah – a physical description of Sarah as mayor.
You can read the entire post in yesterday’s comments (just below this post) along with all the other insights and perspectives provided by the other commenters .
The following are the highlights of denaliorbust’s post which stood out for me. Three red dots … indicate where I’ve snipped:
Those of us who live in Alaska and who know Sarah and those who know Kristan have been boggled how the relating of their “best friendship” has been sold to the country.
Neither of them has any real close friends. …
What so many people don’t get is that Sarah went for nine years as the prima donna of Wasilla. She rarely went anywhere without looking like a million dollars. It was funny because most women who live in Wasilla – and about 99% of all guys – simply wear jeans, Carharts, parkas, and hiking or hunting boots. There is no dress code out there. That was the primary way Sarah stood out is that she always looked dressed to the nines – with her hair up, her pedicures and her flawless make-up.
This allowed her to live in her little “special Sarah bubble” for almost a decade before running for governor. Think about this for a moment – you live in a small town. You are the mayor – big whoop – it took less than 1,000 votes to win you the post – but to you and your family it is a huge deal and you make it a huge deal. You fancy yourself a major political force, and almost everyone around you feeds into this perception you have of yourself. Constant fawning. When you are at your church people keep “having words for you” that include you will one day end up in the White House – because they are as in awe of you being the mayor as you are in awe of you being the mayor.
Sarah is acting no differently today while she shakes hands with whichever poor blokes sat out all night in sub-zero weather in whichever duped American town she’s currently visiting then she’s acted since 1996 when little strip town Wasilla elected her mayor.
And really, she’s acted like this in some part since her glory days of trotting herself across a stage in a bathing suit and trying to eke out a tune on a flute without going cross-eyed.
SHE LOVES THE ATTENTION. But unlike let’s say a comedian who is used to the stage and loves the attention too; Sarah believes she deserves the attention.
That’s the main difference. She believes she deserves it. And her family – which are really her only close friends – believe it too. They are incensed with any questioning – let alone negative coverage – of her. It’s so bizarre and surreal. It’s like they somehow don’t get that this is a nation we’re talking about. It’s a republic. There is something called the first amendment and it’s to be expected when people ask questions of Sarah’s policies or processes. People aren’t being inherently mean when they question Sarah; they’re being responsible citizens.
But her family doesn’t get this and because it’s only her family she surrounds herself with – and a couple other “fawning over their position and paycheck” aides – there is no one to help her process that “it’s okay. Calm down. People have a right -hello – to ask questions of you. You can’t expect that they won’t”
But virtually no one in Wasilla did for all those years. Why can’t everyone in America get how special, how unique, how beyond-the-common she is, like the good folks in Wasilla got it? What’s wrong with this dang nation full of people who keep asking questions about her and her motives and her tales? People hate her, that’s it! People are jealous of her! That’s it! She has become the world’s most well know serial martyr. Everyone – except Rupert and Rush are out to get her!…
This very act of questioning is what annoys – well, it’s more than annoyance – it’s what infuriates her family members and her too. They have this attitude like it’s her right – she has ascended to a position that is her right and how dare anyone question how she got here, if she’s fit, what’s she’s doing, why she’s doing it.
You see, Sarah lived virtually the whole of her life not being questioned. … She was never treated like a mayor – she was always treated much more like a queen who would, out of the majesty of her own heart, deign to speak with her subjects – and they should be so grateful for her attention.
Those of us who lived in other parts of the State used to laugh over this farcical little charade because it was so hilarious. But see, it takes not just Sarah living in a delusional zone, it takes others who will join her in her delusion – who will feed it in her, if you will. That’s why it would be funny if I couldn’t get past how sad it is to see the hundreds of hungry-for-meaning-in-their-lives people who sit for hours in lawn chairs in sleet and snow so they can shake the hand of someone they desperately long to believe it.
When the truth comes out – watch out. There are going to be truckloads of folks needing a therapist’s couch to sort out their shock, anger, grief and sense of betrayal.
There were always plenty of …(people) who were just so in awe of the lovely Mayor Palin. They willingly fed her delusional state that she was somebody to behold and treat with reverence and a special kind of awe.
She wasn’t like them. They wore boots and she wore darling little sandals with flowers painted on her perfect toes. Their teeth were rotten or missing, or at the very least slightly off – hers were perfect and straight and white as the wind driven snow. They were size 12 or 14 or 20 or — she was a tiny, delicate little size 6. Their hair was unkept. Her’s was glossy and kept in place with gallons of hair spray. They’d never worn any make-up. She wore it by the layers.
You get the idea. She had nothing in common with them because she wasn’t common. She was the mayor. She had been Miss Wasilla. She had been the star basketball player. She was going to “end up in the White House” – how did she know this? Because they would say so when they would speak to her, that’s how she knew.
The rest of us throughout Alaska who were paying attention – those who saw immediately through the ruse – kept at bay and chuckled amongst ourselves at the delusion of Sarah and her faithful few – unfortunately the few turned out to be enough to land her in the gov’s seat – thanks to the two qualified candidates in the primary vying for the same voters, and one of them being the least liked governor in the nation.
This is the problem – and it’s why it’s right that Andrew Sullivan doesn’t move beyond the Palin issue – because it takes people a while to wake up.…
Thank you denaliorbust – I wish more Alaskans would share their memories of and personal experiences with Sister Mayor Sarah with the rest of the nation – people have a right to know what lies beneath the public image of whoever they are backing – OzMud
This is literally off the top of my head. In the middle of performing some incredibly tedious, mind-numbingly unchallenging computer work this afternoon, a thought bounced from one side of my brain to the other and flopped in a corner – much like when one of my kids would leap across the sofa and land in a heap causing the floor to shake in retaliation – then look at me with that What! What did I do? face that I actually miss now that they’re all grown…
And bear with me as I’ve no intention of proofreading or editting. Well maybe a once-over proofing…
But it struck me as odd today that Sarah Palin, with all her smalltown upbringing, and her outgong personality, doesn’t seem to have (and I know this sounds silly) a best friend. Think about that for a moment and see if it doesn’t strike your hmm that is weird grey matter. (Oh God – is it grey or gray? I can never remember.)
Where is Sarah’s best friend? You know, the one female she confides in and has been with her through thick and thin and can verify all her life experiences because she was there…
Someone who’s been with her from the beginning. Someone who was ready to step in and hold her hand through her first labour in case Todd couldn’t get to the hospital on time?
That friend who always goes with you to see your kids perform in school pageants and dance recitals. That lady you have on speed dial just so you can call her fast to say Omigod you’ll never believe what just happened!
It has occurred to me, sifting through past news articles and book excerpts, that there’s this inescapable missing thing in her stories and photos, speeches and interviews – a thing as simple and common and everydayish as – a friend.
And I don’t mean the people she pays to babysit her kids or wipe her email accounts for her. I don’t mean her loyal or devoted fans or employees. I mean someone who’s honestly been there with her and for her. Someone she talks to all the time. Takes to a movie or a trip to the gym. Someone to go shopping with and swap bags so their husbands won’t know what they bought. (What?You never took bags home telling your husband they were Suzie’s and you brought them home with you because she didn’t want Hal to see how much she’d spent?)
Where are the cute, funny stories of Sarah and her best friend _______?
And why hasn’t this friend come forward to back up her Sarah’s version of Trig’s birth and her house being built by Todd and Bristol leaving school to be home-tutored?
And if she – in fact – lived in the same town for thirty-plus years without ever making a best friend… well that’s just disturbing. On a lot of levels.
I hear the clickety-clack of the grammar police coming down the road. I don’t care.
I worked at regaining my non-combative posture and continued.
Sarah delivered her speech to the Texas audience, ending it with a comment about having to leave because she evidently had gone into labour. (I’m thinking Sarah and Todd went from the hall to a restaurant as there was some time to kill before the flight departed, but I could be wrong on this point.) Regardless, they took cabs and shuttles between Texas destinations and the airport, Todd jostling all the bags, Sarah looking after herself. She claims to not have been in any discomfort, which is why no one noticed she was in early labour. She says the leaking amniotic fluid was so minimal it presented her with no problems and she had no contractions. Once on the airplane, she apparently stayed in her seat. She’s quite proud of the fact that no flight attendant or passenger knew what she was experiencing. This was strictly between her and Todd and God.
Now back in Alaska, Sarah and Todd…
“WAIT WAIT WAIT!” my Oz friend bellowed. “Nobody on the plane NOTICED???”
“Apparently not. The flight crew was later identified and interviewed by reporters and they (the crew) were a bit confused to learn there had been a passenger on board who’d been pregnant at all, much less in the last moments before birth. No one seemed to recall any pregnant woman or any woman in any sort of distress on the flight.”
“Surely someone noticed a full-on pregnant belly bumping into them on her many trips to the loo? Was there never a line to get into a loo? How big was this airplane anyway? Did she have a private compartment like they have on trains?”
I shrugged my shoulders. My friend slumped back into her chair, rolled her eyes and motioned me to go on.
Ok… back in Alaska, Sarah and Todd got into the family car and drove home to Wasilla. Through a snowstorm. Or a blizzard. One accounting said it took five hours. Another quote had it at ‘two or three’. Still another occasion has Sarah saying the car ride home was nothing, so I’m not at all sure which version to give you. Suffice it to say it was Alaska cold, there was at the very least, Alaska snow on Alaska ground and it was after midnight. So reasonably, if the roads weren’t piled deep in drifts, they were at least icy and slick, and sure to provide a bumpy ride. The pair reached the Mat`Su Hospital in (or near) Wasilla, Alaska just after 5am and she had her first contraction as she entered the hospital building. Baby Trig was born a couple of hours later, a full month early but full term weight of 6+ pounds..
And there you have it. The media coined it Sarah’s Wild Ride and I think I’ve given you as close to her version of the story as possible.
I waited quietly for her reaction and finally, in a surprisingly calm voice she flatly stated:
“That’s the biggest pile of porkies I think I’ve ever heard in my entire life! Really! People believe that rubbish? That’s like an episode straight out of Desperate Housewives! Does she know the writers?”
“Well it’s odd to me that with Sarah’s overnight fame, not one person from either her Washington D.C. or Texas trip ever came forward to claim braggers rights on having helped her in or out of a taxi, a table at a restaurant, an elevator or even a flight of steps. How on earth did anyone nine months pregnant descend the portable stairs from an airplane to the tarmac, in the dead of night on icy ground with not one person coming forward to share a cute story about having helped her? That just goes against human nature. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame. Sarah became a national figure only four months after this event. Surely people who’d helped or seen a very pregnant woman waddling in and out of cars, up and down stairs and on and off airplanes only four months earlier would have remembered their experience and spoken up? But no – nothing.”
We chatted about other things for a while, mutual friends, her new home and how she was (for the first time ever) wrapping her head around gardening. I gave her some clippings from a few of my more forgiving plants, and then we were standing at the door of her car.
“You know, I lived closer to my sister when she was carrying her two boys. I’m thinking it was by her sixth or maybe seventh month mum and I were driving her everywhere because even though she was in really great shape, physically, the bulk made her too uncomfortable to get behind the wheel. Even young and thin, she waddled that unmistakable pregnant waddle. You know, the one that makes it look like a woman’s balancing a watermelon between her knees whilst walking? I was actually looking forward to experiencing that firsthand.”
She put the plant cuttings in the backseat and shut the door. She gave me a hug and said calmly “I don’t think it’s right that someone gets to make up a story like this and pass it off as the truth. Not while there’s people like me who tried so hard to have a child and failed every time. I’m 37 years old and I’m running out of time and I don’t think there’s many options left for me to have a baby. So no, I don’t think this is funny at all. I think this is a very serious lie she’s telling and I hope someone in her world who knows the truth pulls their finger out and exposes this nonsense for exactly what it is. Nonsense. Hurtful nonsense.”
The End
People who have no investment in Sarah Palin see through her veil of absurdities without hesitation. The problem is, those people who are invested in Sarah Palin don’t seem to see her at all. – OzMud
====== OzMud’s note ======
The first time I heard about Sarah’s ‘Wild Ride’ was over a year ago. I’ve read other people’s versions and heard her ever-evolving version in bits of speeches and now in her book, throughout the year. Please remember that while I was relating this tale to my friend, we were sitting on my porch with sun shining and birds singing and I was attempting to be fair to Sarah and not embellish.
All of the details offered in these past three posts came off the top of my head – as good as memory allowed – and not from sitting in front of a computer where each detail could have been checked and verified. I acknowledge that in the telling, I’ve got more than one detail wrong 🙂
To those contributing comments on the road trip from the airport to Mat’Su Hospital – kudos on the energetic discussion and thanks so much for all your input. (I do appreciate everything you add.) The first version I heard had this taking place during a blizzard. I know this because I lived in the high desert of snow country for several years and immediately associated the tale with a night I’d been caught in an unexpected storm nd the visibility was so bad I got behind a snowplow on the freeway and followed it all the way home (going aprox 10 mph) for fear of going off the road and over a cliff . I was terrified and it took for-bloody-ever.
Under the best of conditions, in my humble experience, in snow country, during snow season, with or without an active storm happening, after 10pm on the best of roads there is always black ice, there are always slick spots, there is always that unexpected chunk of brownish snow that’s fallen off a car ahead that needs to be avoided at all costs because you can’t tell if the center is soft or hard and hitting it might damage your front end – and there is always the possibility of an unpredictable storm or blanket of fog that renders you suddenly and completely blind until it passes. Driving at night in snow country should always, always be approached with caution.
I’m sure it’s done, but I cannot wrap my head around anyone ‘safely’ travelling 45 miles, after midnight, in snow country, in under two hours. Especially with a passenger who’s leaking amniotic fluid and could go into hard labour at any second.
And that’s the key. Labour is not predictable. What would Todd have done if, on an isolated road in the dead of night, his wife had gone into hard labour? How would he have delivered his son? Protected his wife? What provisions did they have on hand? Hot water? Clean blankets? Could Todd have at least washed his hands? Was there light? What would he have used to clamp or cut the umbilical cord? What if the infant, born a month early, had trouble breathing? How would he have kept his son alive long enough for help to arrive? What if Sarah began to hemorrhage?
One would think Todd would have at least arranged for an ambulance to meet them at the airport in Anchorage, providing his wife and unborn child with immediate medical assistance and the safest possible passage on the last leg of what must have been an incredibly tense, gruelling trip for him.
Sarah Palin won the Alaska gubernatorial election in 2006 on a ticket of promised transparency in government, ousting the seated governor whom no one liked and most suspected of corruption. Sarah had done business with the big boys in oil and had put them in their places, promising to do more of the same as governor.
Just after a year in office, Sarah, aged 42 or 43, discovered she was pregnant with her fifth child. She had a son serving in Iraq, two teenage daughters and a daughter in grade school. At the time, her husband was working on the North Slope – a large oil field owned by BP I think. The site was not one the workers could commute to and from so they worked in blocks of weeks, and during this particular ‘block’, Todd was not at home. Anyway, Sarah tells how because Todd was gone she had to handle all the initial decisions and emotions by herself, and she hadn’t wanted to tell anyone else until after she’d spoken with her husband. So nobody was told the good news.
For reasons which escape me at the moment, she underwent amniocentesis. Again Todd was not available, and again she had to wait for him to come home before telling him. She said she hadn’t wanted any criticism from the press or the legislators on being pregnant at her age so kept the whole pregnancy quiet. When Todd finally did come home, she told him the amnio results concluded the bub had Downs Syndrome. They decided together to not say anything until it was necessary. It was their little secret and nobody else’s business.
She was able to cover her pregnancy bump with loose clothing and cleverly-draped scarves enough that not even the people with whom she worked closely everyday suspected. She didn’t gain any excessive weight (she runs a lot) and was in general good health. A month before the bub was due, Sarah had two work-related trips planned. One toWashington D.C., the other to Texas to give a speech for something or other – I forget. Any way, the trips were about a week apart, the second one falling in her 36th week, and her Ob-Gyn gave her the okay to make the trips. Both are like going from Alice Springs to Sydney. It’s a few hours of driving to get from home to the airport, (more than two hours in good weather), then a long flight across the country, (12-15 hours), then taxi rides to get to hotels.
So – long story short – on the second trip, in Texas, her water broke. Just leaking, not huge puddles, but any leak is considered a break so – her water broke. She calls her doctor in Alaska. She wants badly for her son to be born on Alaska soil, but she also wants badly to deliver her 30 minute speech to the board of – something (why can’t I remember this part? I must be getting old) in Texas. Remember, she doesn’t want to catch flack for being a woman and the governor and having a baby all at the same time, and she claims the press was not normally kind to her.
So the doctor asks her a few questions and then tells her it should be ok to give the speech and then come home as planned.
My friend leans forward and belly laughs. Belly laughs! I had to wait for her to stop!
“Sarah is how old?” she finally asks
“By this time she’s 43 or 44”
“And she’s got four already?”
“Yuh.”
“They got this guy’s license, right? The doctor. I mean he’s not practicing medicine anywhere anymore is he?”
“Well, it’s she, and no, she’s still practicing medicine in Alaska.”
“What quack doctor would tell a woman in her 36th week to get on a plane and fly anywhere much less a 10 hour”
“12 hour”
“…a 12 hour trip, a woman past 35 and they already know the bub has Downs? That’s mad! Were there no hospitals in Texas?”
“Practically across the street from her hotel.”
“And her husband didn’t throw her in a hotel laundry cart and push her there himself? Or call an ambo? Geez my husband would have just taken over and my feet wouldn’t have hit the ground between the time I told him my water broke and they opened the doors to the maternity ward.”
“Well, Sarah and Todd agreed it would be best for them to go home.”
“They at least took an earlier flight?”
“Well, no, she gave her speech and then…”
More laughter. No kidding, she was holding her stomach she was laughing so hard. Spouse came out from under his headphones to see what the noise was about. We stood side by side in the doorway watching her laugh. “I’m only up to the water breaking at the hotel” I told him. He chuckled something about silly Americans, and went back to WoW. I refilled the plate of bikkies. Finally, she settled down.
“You’ve made all this up just to make me feel better haven’t you!”
“Nup.” I said, whilst a big grin grew across my face. “Want to hear about the flight home?”
Had lunch Saturday with a friend I’ve not seen in over a year. She’d been married only 15 months and had suffered a miscarriage during the 2008 US Presidential election so her interests in November last had nothing to do with US politics.
Bit of background: My friend survived two ectopic pregnancies in her late twenties. As a newlywed (and now in her mid-thirties) she and her spouse talked about starting a family. They’d researched Invitro Fertilization and were putting together the money not only for that procedure, but also for a costly pre-operation her doctors insisted she undergo first because of her history. While she was performing all the pre-op daily testing (blood counts and temperature monitoring) she fell pregnant naturally. She was over the moon. For several weeks she got encouraging reports from her doctors and gingerly started buying baby things. But before the end of the first trimester she miscarried. To say she was emotionally gutted would be kind. Needless to say, her friends and family have tiptoed around any baby news we may have had to share this past year.
She had, however, visited my blog when the (carbuncle story) link was sent to friends and rellies in a ‘this is what we’re up to lately’ email and this past week, for the first time, scrolled back to look at other posts in the blog. So here, relaxed on my patio, in beautiful Queensland weather, after a lovely meal and sipping water with chunks of frozen lime she asked the question which makes my husband throw his hands up in the air and run off to play WoW:
“What can you tell me about Sarah Palin” she asked while spouse groaned. I chuckled. “Which part? How much time do you have?” As the giggling subsided and we watched my other-half make his exit, she thought for a moment and then continued. “Well, I know she had something to do with the last Presidential election in the US – and that a lot of people here just shake their heads and mutter ‘kook’ when her name is brought up – but when I was skimming through your recent posts I noticed a phrase I think I’ve seen in the papers here – her ‘wild ride’? Something to do with having a baby on an airplane?”
We chatted in somber tones about how none of us (her friends) had wanted to tell her any baby stories this past year, not even about people to whom she couldn’t possibly relate. She shared with me the story of her older sister (mother of two boys) and how just after she’d miscarried, her sister became pregnant – with a much-wanted girl. My friend described to me her recent trip to sister’s house, her feelings of unease (why did big sister get to have three healthy bubs when she couldn’t manage even one) and her mother just plopping the infant in her arms saying ‘here – feed your niece’ and how she’d had to finally put her sense of loss to rest.
Assured the tale wouldn’t reopen a wound and realizing the opportunity in front of me – a chance to garner an unbiased, non-American opinion, I decided to relateSarah’s story to her, and without the taint of sarcasm. “Well, if you’ve read any of my posts about the woman at all”(She interrupted to say she’d not actually read the political posts but skimmed over them getting to the more personal ones.)I rethought my sentence.“Let’s just say I’m not exactly a fan of hers.
But here, let me try to put my views aside and tell you her story according to how she tells it, in speeches, interviews and passages in her book, and you tell me what you think.”
“Fair enough.”
We brought out the dish of homemade almond meringues, poured more water, got fresh ice and I began the story of Sarah…
Oz Mudflats 
