Jerome, this is honestly kind of disingenuous.

The reason this is such a scandal is because everyone is waiting for the fundie right to eat her alive, asides from the fact that it shows that McCain didn't vet her because he didn't have the sense to get in front of this.

I can't speak for others, but I don't think less of her or Bristol, but I do think it shows that the McCain campaign hasn't got its act together, and I do think it's going to test the fundies' commitment to their so-called values.  I don't think anybody who posts here thinks this is a valid line of attack - I certainly hope not.

Agreed Jerome. "Liberal blogger" is a kind of smear tactic that the institutional media also loves because it fits their narrative that we're all unqualified conspiracy theorists in our mother's basements. The GOP can smear that all over the wall with their PR machines and the CNN's of the world will air it "objectively" by citing sources in the McCain campaign, etc...

I don't know anyone who's pushing the wild version of the story.

If any story kills Palin, it will be membership to the AIP.

I don't understand why any records need to be released. I believed before Barack said anything that this wasn't our business. It's not relevant to the campaign. I don't care about Palin's (grand)children. Children will do their own thing and are not always a reflection of good or bad parenting. Everyone knows this because everyone was a kid who did stupid shit at one point or another.

Let's move on. The more we talk about it, the more the MSM pushes the villainous commie blogs = Obama meme.

I wouldn't call him a liberal blogger at all, and neither would he. During the Democratic convention, he mentioned something that made him remember why he never joined the Democratic party. But he IS one of the biggest voices discussing exactly how unqualified Palin is. He pushed the Cross of Gold tale to the point that we discovered Chuck Colson and Billy Graham made the whole thing up! I think this is at least in part an attempt to shut him up, and I'm not going to blame the guy for asking about the truth. I'm sure he'll be doing the same to Obama at some point, and I'm willing to accept that gambit in exchange for a known non-liberal that will actually follow these stories to their logical conclusion.

Ugh, I vomited a little in my mouth just reading that Sullivan quotation. Unless they are part of the campaign, the candidates' children should be off limits, period. Honestly, Obama would do himself a favor if he or a surrogate would come out promptly and stomp on any of this kind of talk coming out of his camp. I sincerely hope there is none to stomp, at which point he should start stomping any media people who dredge this kind of crap up. This is just the kind of "old politics of personal destruction" I thought he was talking about for lo these many months.

He's a disgrace...end of story.

Ann Soetoro was not Ann Soetoro yet when she had Barack. She married Lolo six years later.

This is all about McCain and even Sully emphasizes that. The whole "story" about which Palin family members may or may not have given or about to give birth to other family members is silly. Palin has other far more serious problems - she is lawyering up for troopergate and now her ties to an Alaskan secessionist group are getting scrutinized. These latter two problems speak to her suitability to be VP: we don't need another power-abusing VP nor do we need one who supports the breakup of the country.

What's appalling is that the McSame camp did little in the way of vetting a virtual unknown. They have no business anywhere near the reigns of power.

For all things Bristol Palin. See Half Sigma.

So are you finally disowning TexasDarling's search for Obama's fake birth certificate?

fully vetted at all.  This is not a strike against her but a strike against JOHN MCCAIN.

It is John McCain who has FAILED his first test as a presidential candidate which is to choose a VP who can start as PRESIDENT on day #1.  Obviously Sarah Palin has no foreign policy experience and IMO wouldn't pass that test.

Also, by FAILING to fully vet Sarah Palin, McCain has FAILED IMO to put Country first.  

Only this time its Sarah Palin who gives Andrew Sullivan "cooties" and not Hillary Clinton.  Mary Matalin was on FOX repeating the "liberal blogger" meme today, and saying how "sexist" the liberals are. Maureen Dowd is writing poisonous columns mocking Palin's credentials as a "feminist."  

All thats missing is Glenn Beck laughing at her. Maybe Randi Rhodes can call Sarah a whore, and David Schuster can can explain how Bristol is being pimped out by her mom.  

Kudos to Barrack Obama this time though.  He issued a forceful rebuke to anyone who uses these kinds of attacks.  At least the Obama campaign has learned something from the primaries.  Its sad that the media has not.

Andrew Sullivan is a libertarian conservative. Or as many out in the wildnerness like him are feeling lately, a 'true' conservative.  There are many many Obama suppporters of this ilk who lament how Rove and Cheney and the Evangelicals have distorted conservatism and see in Obama a redeeming quality that overrides policy positions. It has been amusing and kind of delightful to watch him ruminate and his seminal article on Obama's candidacy is a must read. Yeah, he goes there. So? With his credentials, I wouldn't give a shit what anyone says.

reluctantly, but he did back Kerry in the end.

I can't stand Sullivan as a blogger, but he didn't back Bush strongly the second time.

The entire baby stuff bores me to tears...

The AIP story is the steak, so far as I'm concerned.

How do you stand for Vice President of a country for which you don't want to be a citizen?

His absolute hatred for the Clintons has crippled what little number of brain cells he had to begin with.

I don't understand why he's still being taken seriously.

Sullivan passes for a liber bloggerby the MSM standards probably for the same reason they went to Anna Marie Cox for a liberal perspective in 1994: They look good on TV even though one was fluff and the other is a true conservative. Perhaps they think he is a liberal because he happens to be gay.

On another note, the MSM smells blood and are discussing the "R" word.

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina said that he had heard no discussion about removing Ms. Palin from the ticket. In fact, he said, he thought her daughter's pregnancy would not hurt her with voters.

I don't know if the NYT just brought it up or they hear something.

Say what you will, but the Kos story did move the national news in a major way. It forced the McCain campaign to admit something which, quite frankly, they should have been open about to begin with.

Is there going to be blowback? I don't see it. "Liberal bloggers" are a pretty hard target to hit. I also don't think it hurts the Obama campaign despite McCain's clumsy attempt to tie him to it.

it would suck to be you, Andrew!

Some are comparing Palin to Eagleton.  But what if she's dropped from the ticket?  Jindal would likely replace her, and the GOP base would be even more fired up.

Laying off and letting the story develop and evolve seems best.  In the meantime, remember MaCain's the target.

Look at the timeline here...

Within minutes of Palin being announced I was able to find (I love goggle) two separate rumors: (1) the Palin's baby is her grandson one and (2) the daughter is pregnant one.  Where did I find them? AK blogs and Right wing Blogs, most of those posts from several weeks ago.

Within a couple of hours, rumor #1 began to show up on KOS and a couple of other places.  By Saturday is was gaining steam.  Sullivan posted it the first time Sunday afternoon and then the McCain announcement came out monday afternoon.

So, if you really want to be technical about it:  right wingers started the rumor, liberal bloggers gave it some steam and Sullivan forced the MSM/McCain campaign to address it.

You are wrong about Sullivan supporting Bush in 2004.  He endorsed Kerry in 2004.  I think Andrew Sullivan is one of the few conservatives who really tries to see things from both sides.  While still calling himself a conservative, he criticizes the Bush administration relentlessly on the war in Iraq and especially on torture.  He has been backing Barack Obama since before a lot of liberals were and is critical of McCain.  He has come to especially dislike the Sarah Palin choice, after trying to accept her, commenting that McCain should change his campaign slogan to "Putting.America.Last."  Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.  There are one or two conservatives we can tolerate.  No?  He is the only one I can stand to read these days.

Jerome, your diary confuses me.

Besides, this CNN iReport showed up BEFORE the DailyKos diary and before Andrew reported on it.

This entire disclosure about the two children can do nothing but help Palin. Why? It now discloses publicly the last child has Down's Syndrome, something already known to all the people following it closely, but not to most Americans. It's also known that she was counseled to abort and kept the baby.

Now it's known that the daughter is pregnant and has also decided to keep her baby.

Two big scores for the pro-life right.

These are things the McCain camp could never "release" on their own without looking like they were taking advantage of this for political purposes.

But, if they can get the left to fumble all over it and force them to come out with the truth, several things are accomplished.

1. they make the left look stupid, angry, and petty
   
2. they get the info out that they wanted out in the first place, which solidifies Palin even more with the base.
   
3. they make Palin get a little sympathy from general America for being attacked by these baseless smears from the left.

Congratulations lefties.  You walked right into the trap.

Oh, and I love this quote:
It is not out of the ordinary either: candidates routinely issue medical records.

Except Democratic candidates, that is.  Still no medical records for either Obama or Biden.

Well, some on this blog (DailyKos haters) are pushing the fact that the "liberal blogosphere was responsible for this and other rumors".  It's clear that Sullivan is the only pig pushing this bullshit but when you have "liberals" calling out other liberals for things they didn't do then things become a bit....difficult.

Great post by the way and I agree 100%.

The story is Palin's stand against sex education unless it is abstinence only and her stand against contraception.  We finally have conservatives, in their zeal to defend one of their own, admitting that kids will have sex regardless of how loving their family life is.  We should use this as a springboard for a rational discussion on contraception and sex-education.  The U.S. has the largest percentage of unwanted births of any industrial nation in the world.  It's an issue and it should be dealt with.

Is this even a sentence?

"I know there was a stupid diary that was on DailyKos, but other than that shouted-down diary, its only Sullivan hyping this up for the media to say that Obama supporters are pushing this nonsense."

Wow, okay. Jerome's first sentence is false. If you're going to call out one of the most popular bloggers on the net, at least get your facts straight. It would have taken...what? 3 minutes of research?  He didn't support Bush in 2004. That's big. I can forgive voting for W in 2000, but not 2004. By then it was clear for any clear minded, rational conservative that Bush was a disaster.

I'm a huge Andrew Sullivan fan--and no, not because he raged on HRC. I was no fan of Clinton, but he went WAY overboard. I read him religiously every day and while I won't go into the reasons I read him and enjoy his blog, I will say that he didn't start this rumor. He picked up on it after it was posted at Kos and he made it part of his "McCain didn't fully vet her/McCain is unserious and rash" talking point. I, along with many here and at Kos, thought the whole line of questioning re this story was out-of-bounds and reaked of Republican smear tactics (ala the Birth Certificate stuff). I was actually getting ready to email him and voice my displeasure over his furthering the story.

And that's what I'd suggest all of you do--email him. He's very self critical and will post "dissents" that readers send in and is not above admitting he's wrong. He's no liberal--more of a libertarian conservative in the 'classical conservative' mold. I respect him because he took a step back and saw the republican party for what it had/has become: Sanctimonious, hypocritical, corrupt, gay hating, lying, do-whatever-it-takes-to-win "Christian" party. He's been one of the biggest anti-torture advocates on the center-right along with being against Gitmo, FISA immunity, showing admin's war crimes, gay rights advocates, etc.

Sullivan is insane, but I don't consider him a liberal blogger. I consider him an Obama blogger, not a liberal blogger. The liberal blogosphere hasn't covered itself in glory either. It's taking a fairly major pounding in the media and the television networks.

I think Sullivan's hatred of the Clinton borders on the irrational, but I have to admit I'm a fan of his.  I think he's honest and a good writer and generally does a good job of justifying his opinions.

And on this story, while I totally agree the Obama campaign shouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, I think there was enough strangeness to merit some investigation.  Specifically because Palin's son has become part of the campaign.  Her decision to have him is a huge part of the reason the religious right loves her.  If they didn't want him to be part of the campaign, they could have asked that their family be off-limits, as other candidates have in the past.  But instead they've run with it, and are totally happy to use their son as a demonstration of their convictions.

I'm usually pretty anti-conspiracy-theory (a few guys where I work are big-time 9/11 conspiracy theorists and I think they're utterly insane), but there were enough things that were odd to warrant some investigation.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe all these are true:

• Palin's pregnancy was revealed surprisingly late.
  
• There are photos of her at 7 months not looking particularly pregnant.  She wasn't in a bikini or anything, but she certainly didn't look obviously pregnant.
  
• Her daughter was pulled out of school for an inordinate amount of time, even for mono.  5+ months.
  
• When her water broke, a month early and with a known downs syndrome baby, she took two multi-hour plane flights and a 45-minute car ride to a local hospital.

Of course that doesn't prove a thing.  And one of those, by itself, wouldn't raise too many eyebrows (though the plane thing is pretty overtly negligent).  But all of them together makes me think that something strange was going on.  Maybe not, maybe it's just a coincidence.  But I don't think it's unreasonable to say "hey, all of these things are kind of strange, and we don't want to jump to any conclusions, could you just provide us with some typical documentation to assure us that things are on the up-and-up here?"  

Why would she NOT release enough medical records to put this thing easily to rest?  It's no invasion of privacy to get a doctor's records of a baby being delivered.  She's on the public stage, she should expect that people aren't necessarily going to be taking her at her word on everything, especially when she's such an unknown.

So no, I don't think Sullivan has anything to apologize for, and I think he approached it with a reasonable amount of skepticism from the start.  He never pushed any of the rumors or guesses as fact, and he always asked for confirmation that she was telling the truth so we could put the matter to rest.

And for the record, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to ask for verification that Obama was born when and where he said he was born either.

There are three that have pushed this rumor and many variations/mutations of it:

Daily Kos, Open Salon, and this one:

http://www.barackoblogger.com/ (as reported in Reuters).                                                                                           And I have to say, liberal blogs have pushed this -- almost gleefully. It's despicable; it's wrong; it demeans what liberals are supposed to stand for; and it's Rovian.