The first presidential scandal of 2008?
As the first punches are being thrown in the Obama McCain presidential duel, the Democrats will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of an early-arriving all American scandal. Marie Kemplay explains.
A fascinating little rumour regarding Republican Presidential candidate, John McCain’s newly announced running mate Sarah Palin, is currently doing the rounds. If it is to be believed his butter-wouldn’t-melt vice-presidential hopeful isn’t quite as saccharine sweet as they would have you believe.
There is talk that 44 year old, Sarah Palin’s fifth child, Trig, born four months ago with Down’s syndrome, is not actually her son but rather the child of her eldest daughter, 17 year old Bristol Palin. Ironically enough the former beauty queen is regarded by many as a whiter-than-white candidate with no real scandal to her name, but having had her personal life thrown into the public sphere, she might find that that is about to change.
Although, admittedly, this story is very much hearsay there is quite a lot of compelling if not necessarily conclusive evidence to support it. Here goes:
There are a number of photos circulating showing Palin looking decidedly svelte when she would have been 7 months pregnant. Her staff also expressed shock when at 7 months Palin announced the pregnancy; none of them previously had any idea. Palin claimed she had been hiding the bump with ‘scarves’.
Meanwhile pictures of her 17 year old daughter Bristol from a similar time show what some have described as a ‘definite pregnancy bump’ rather than belly fat. Coincidentally Bristol was also absent from school for the final three months of her mother’s pregnancy with mononucleosis (glandular fever), a common excuse for absence among teenage girls at Roman Catholic schools
Even more interesting is Palin’s behaviour the day of the birth. On the morning of April 30th she supposedly began leaking amniotic fluid but rather than attending a medical facility she delivered a keynote speech to the Republican Governor’s Convention in Dallas, Texas. Speech over, Palin then took an eight hour flight back to Alaska and gave birth a few hours later. This is reckless behaviour; for safety reasons women are not supposed to fly after seven months of pregnancy, Palin was about eight months pregnant and she had already started to have contractions.
If she was indeed in labour during the flight she managed to hide it pretty well as an Alaskan airlines representative claims that ‘she didn’t show any signs of distress.’
After landing in Anchorage, despite apparently being hours into labour, she was driven for a further 45 minutes to a remote regional medical centre where she finally gave birth, rather than choosing any of the much better equipped medical centres in Anchorage. Perhaps she was fleeing the prying eye of the public?
It is difficult to gauge how such a scandal would affect the Republican presidential campaign, and so far there has been no official response. In the turbulent world of American politics Palin’s actions could be read in a number of ways: is she merely a selfless mother who is protecting her daughter, or has something a little more sinister occurred?
