A Conspiracy By Any Other Name...

 With all due respect to two of my favorite Alaskan bloggers, and I say that sincerely, their discussion with Nicole Sandler made me grit my teeth.  I am speaking of AKM (Jeanne Devon), and Shannyn Moore. AKM is, of course, the brilliant writer behind The Mudflats, and Shannyn's got a widely-read blog, Moore Up North, and a topical daily radio show. I've corresponded with Jeanne by e-mail and called into Shannyn's show at least twice. I met them both in person, right after last year's Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, PA. Their warmth and humor were delightful.  Their disappointment in and disagreements with the former half-term Alaska governor are well-known.

Shannyn (L) and AKM (R) at Pittsburgh Mudstock

Why teeth-gritting, though?  Here's why.  It's one thing to make a personal or political decision about whether or not to cover a particular story, and I'm talking about babygate—the pregnancy that Sarah Palin faked in order to boost her pro-life cred with evangelical Christians and parlay her thin resume into a shot to become the Vice President of these United States.  It's another to disparage, however off-handedly, those who do address, research and endeavor to cover that same story.  If you listen to the Nicole Sandler interview (in the first link of this post), you'll learn that Nicole was able to interview Jeanne and Shannyn just as the two intrepid Alaskans concluded their second Netroots Nation in Las Vegas. Nicole had recently interviewed Patrick, one of the chief authors of the Palin watchdog blog Palingates, twice: see here and here for the details. As a result of her education about the babygate topic, Nicole asked some followup questions of the Alaskan bloggers on her segment.  Their responses were, to my ear, condescending and disparaging.

When you use words like conspiracy theory and tin-foil hats in conjunction with describing why you are not writing or talking about a potential story, you trigger a response in listeners, to wit: "Watch your step here, this is la-la land!"  Both these accomplished ladies seemed to "pooh-pooh" any efforts to get to the bottom of the clearly impossible stories Mrs. Todd Palin has given concerning the birth of the child she calls her son, Trig.

Like I said, I can understand why someone would not want to touch a story that the "mainstream media" decided to let lay fallow.  One only has to read the recently released e-mails from the Journolist group to find some sort of justification for this.  Is the justification valid?  I don't happen to think so, but then, that's me, and I have a day job. My future life plans do not depend on whether or not I blog about the right topics, or the safe topics, or the approved topics.  Running for political office is not in my future.  Cozying up to Marcos Moulitsas or any other notable in the Democratic Party is not one of my goals.

Let's face it. though.  Labels have meaning to people.  Label something a conspiracy theory and red flags shoot up everywhere.  BEWARE, BEWARE!

So fine, don't touch the story, but don't label it in such a way that I, and many of my blogging and commenting friends are made out to be kooks.  It's obvious from some of the details that AKM and Shannyn provided during the interview with Nicole that they are not very well read on the subject of babygate.  There is now a mountain of detailed evidence that makes it clear why not one of us, those who did choose to follow this story, have been threatened with a lawsuit for claiming that Mrs. Todd Palin defrauded the country with her impossible Wild Ride tale and imagined magical birth of Trig.  It is because it is NOT TRUE.

For an excellent overview/summary, I implore you to view these newly released videos:

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Videos are courtesy of lidia17 who published them at Palingates, and summarize the indisputable evidence that disproves the assertion that Mrs. Todd Palin was actually ever pregnant with the child she claims as her own son, Trig.