Update: Palin ‘Baby Scandal’ Quashed

Update: Turns out that the theory below was a fantasy concocted by liberal bloggers, and was quashed yesterday morning when Sarah Palin issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant.

After John McCain announced Alaskan governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate in a surprise move, we posted 21 facts about the little-known politician. One of them: Palin drew praise from religious conservatives for deciding not to abort her youngest child, Trig, who was born on April 18, after learning during her pregnancy that he had Down syndrome.

But could this all be a big lie? The political blog Daily Kos believes so. In a post titled Sarah Palin Is NOT The Mother [Photos+Video], a blogger at Kos argues that the baby belongs to Palin’s 16-year-old daughter. It’s important to point out that the post contains not a shred of hard evidence to support its claim, but digs up enough oddities and curiosities surrounding the birth of baby Trig to make you wonder, including:

- When Palin announced she was expecting, she was seven months pregnant. No one had noticed that she was pregnant from her appearance, not even close members of her staff.

- Eight months into her pregnancy, at a governors’ convention in Texas, Palin began feeling contractions and “leaking amniotic fluid” (i.e., her water broke), but decided to give her keynote speech on energy policy rather than go to a hospital. After her speech, according to the Wall Street Journal: “She rushed so quickly from the podium afterwards that Texas Gov. Rick Perry nervously asked if she was about to deliver the baby then.” (Note: We don’t know where Kos got its information that Palin’s water broke. It doesn’t appear to be substantiated in the article.)

- Instead of going to a hospital in Texas, Palin took a risk by flying back to Alaska, then driving 45 minutes to a remote medical facility outside of Wasilla, where she was once mayor. According to Kos, an Alaska Airlines representative said: “Governor Palin was extremely pleasant to flight attendants and her stage of pregnancy was not apparent by observation as she didn’t show any signs of distress.”

- Also according to Kos, Bristol Palin, Sarah’s 17-year-old daughter, was taken out of her high school starting in 2007 for five to eight months due to contracting mono. Her belly seems to be bulging a bit during this time. (Again, the claim that Sarah’s daughter was taken out of school doesn’t seem to be substantiated).

This is either The Scandal of the Decade or the fanciful imagination of liberal bloggers. Read the Daily Kos piece and decide for yourself. [Photo: Getty Images]