a public service announcement

As I write these words, Andrew Sullivan has produced nineteen posts about Sarah Palin’s pregnancy — or lack thereof. (Many more about other aspects of the Palin candidacy, of course.) By the time you read this that total is likely to have risen. Sullivan’s claim is that “the circumstantial evidence for weirdness around this pregnancy is so great that legitimate questions arise – questions anyone with common sense would ask.”

So what is this circumstantial evidence? Sullivan raises three major points. First, he questions why Palin flew home to Alaska as her time of delivery neared rather than having the baby in Texas. Second, he wonders why, upon arrival in Alaska, she failed to go to the largest nearby hospital, in Anchorage. Third, he notes that a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines said that, on that flight from Texas, Palin didn’t look as though she were very pregnant.

So, let’s sum up.

In Sullivan’s view, anyone with common sense would find it weird that a woman would prefer to have a baby at home, surrounded by her family, rather than several thousand miles away, or that she would want her child to be born in the family’s home state.

Also, anyone with common sense would find it weird that a woman would choose anything other than the largest possible hospital in which to have her baby — since, presumably, there couldn’t be any relevant factors in choosing a place to give birth other than the size of the facility.

Third, anyone with common sense would find it weird that flight attendants on a flight would fail to discern accurately the precise stage of a female passenger’s pregnancy — since, as we know, all pregnant women “show” to exactly the same degree, and there’s nothing any woman could do to disguise her state of pregnancy.

It’s perhaps worthwhile to add that a person of common sense will not think the matter resolved just because there exist photographs of an evidently pregnant Sarah Palin taken several days before the child’s birth. Nor will the current pregnancy of the same daughter who is suspected of having given birth to Trig Palin just four months ago resolve the suspicions of the said p. of c. s. Rather, the p. of c. s. will demand the production of medical records and will not stop posting on the subject until said records are released. Whether the p. of c. s. would accept that validity of the records, should they be profferred, or would instead suspect forgery, is a question that at this moment I am not prepared to answer.

Now that we know what people with common sense think weird, and what they consider to be great circumstantial evidence, I invite you all to test yourselves and take appropriate remedial action if necessary. This concludes a Public Service Announcement brought to you by Andrew Sullivan and The American Scene.