This past week, the draft of an academic paper that focuses on the 2008 birth of Sarah Palin's son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, and the various theories that surround his birth, was made public prior to publication through a university newspaper and then exploded, quite predictably, on the Palin-centric blogosphere, where Trig's birth remains a cause célèbre and the source of considerable controversy. It has now spilled over into the mainstream media as well.
"Palin, the Press, and the Fake Pregnancy Rumor: Did a Spiral of Silence Shut Down the Story?" written by Bradford W. Scharlott, Ph.D., an associate professor at Northern Kentucky University, comes to two primary conclusions: 1) that Palin "likely" staged "a hoax" concerning the birth of her son Trig; and 2) that "a spiral of silence" prevented the mainstream U.S. media from adequately investigating the circumstances of Trig's birth.
As both a life-long journalist and an academic--and perhaps most importantly, as the author of the forthcoming book, The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power--I read Scharlott's draft thesis with considerable interest and anticipation.
Scharlott's initial contention that Palin orchestrated an elaborate "hoax" around the birth of Trig does not hold up to close scrutiny. It remains a premise, not a fact. That said, his second assertion about "the spiral of silence" raises several issues about Palin, her birth story and the mainstream media that must be scrutinized fully as Palin continues to position herself for a run in the 2012 Republican primaries.
In the end--as is the case with virtually all things Palin--the most troubling scenario regarding Trig's birth is the one proffered by Palin herself--a scenario that has been largely muted, or disregarded, by the focus on Trig's birth as being a "hoax."
Let me acknowledge that while researching my book I spent a considerable amount of time and resources trying to sort out the facts of Trig's birth. As with many elements of Palin's life story, there are disquieting discrepancies between what actually happened and Palin's version of events. Her capacity for deceit simply knows no bounds, and this duplicity has contributed significantly to the atmosphere of doubt regarding the details of Trig's birth. Contrary to Palin's contention otherwise, the rumors that Trig was not her son originated long before she was named as John McCain's running mate, commencing immediately upon her public acknowledgment, in March of 2008, that she was pregnant.
Palin, by her own account in Going Rogue, did not tell anyone but her husband Todd that she was pregnant with what would be the couple's fifth child. She kept the news from her parents, siblings, children and her closest staff--odd behavior under any circumstances. Moreover, she did not tell members of her family that the child she was carrying had been diagnosed with Down syndrome. So when Palin announced being seven months pregnant--to a handful of reporters in Juneau on March 5, 2008--the rumor mill went into overtime.
Hoping to disprove the conspiracy theory when I initiated work on my book--and to put the story to bed once and for all--I interviewed several close associates of Palin's, including her friends and political allies. I was anticipating, perhaps even hoping, that they would tell me conclusively that Trig was her child.
I was shocked by the response. One close friend of Palin's--a widely respected woman who had given birth to several children as well and who had close contact with Palin in Juneau up until the time of Trig's birth--told me that "Palin did not look like she was pregnant. Ever. Even when she had the bulging belly, I never felt that the rest of her body, her face especially, looked like she was pregnant." When I asked her point-blank if she was certain the baby was Palin's, she said, "No. I don't know what to believe."
The news of Palin's pregnancy came as a complete surprise to Palin's State Trooper security detail Gary Wheeler, a well-liked, 26-year veteran of the Alaska State Troopers who worked under several administrations in Alaska state government, both Republicans and Democrats. Only two weeks earlier, in late February of 2008, Wheeler had accompanied Palin back to Washington, D.C. for a Republican Governors Association Conference, where she had just met John McCain and his campaign manager Rick Davis, who was to be in charge of the vice-presidential nomination selection process. Wheeler remembers that Palin had changed into jeans upon her arrival in Washington, with no apparent revelation of pregnancy.
Wheeler also said that his wife, Corky, actually made fun of him when the news came out because he was supposed to be a "trained observer." Wheeler simply shakes his head: "I had nary an idea she was packin'."
As Wesley Loy of the Anchorage Daily News reported it at the time, Governor Palin "shocked and awed just about everybody around the Capitol" with her announcement.
This is at seven months.
More significantly--and thus begins the troubling nature of even Palin's own account--according to Wheeler, Palin did not tell the Alaska State Troopers who were assigned to protect her that she was pregnant, even though her age and the fact that she was carrying a child with Down syndrome presented potential health complications. All of this both foreshadows and serves as an important prelude to Palin's troubling journey from Texas to Alaska, during which she was experiencing--again by her own account--early signs of childbirth, including the so-called breaking of her waters.
Palin was scheduled to make a speech at an RGA energy conference in Dallas on April 17, slightly less than eight months into her pregnancy. At the last moment before her trip to Texas--which involved a stopover in Seattle--Wheeler says that Palin made an "out-of-the-ordinary" announcement that she wouldn't be needing a Trooper to accompany her on her junket, and that her husband Todd would be traveling with her instead. An email written by Palin--obtained through a Alaska Public Records Act request--confirms Wheeler's recollection. At 9:26 on the morning of April 14, 2008, only a day before her scheduled departure, Palin sent the following email to her administrative assistant, Janice Mason:
J- instead of rga paying for staff, and/or rga (or state) paying for Security on this Texas trip, pis let them know First Spouse is available to travel instead - they can pay for Todd. Pls chk on flt availability for him (on my flts). [sic] Thanks
I cover the ensuing details of Palin's so-called "wild ride" from Texas back to Alaska in considerable detail in my book, but in short--according to information she gave at a news conference immediately following her return--Palin claimed that she called her physician in the middle of the night from her hotel room in Texas to discuss what Palin referred to as "amniotic fluid leaking." Despite the presence of this fluid--a strong indicator of impending birth and which potentially exposed Palin and her child to infection--Palin stayed in Dallas and delivered her speech later that day.
