We were very pleased about the great response to our “first babygate poll”. We asked you “In which of the above pictures does Sarah Palin look 7 months pregnant?” and asked you to examine the following pictures:
(Click on pictures to enlarge)
The final result of the poll was:
Red Top 112 Votes (21%)
Turquoise Jacket 42 Votes (8%)
Neither 321 Votes (61%)
Both 45 Votes (8%)
So what is the solution – and why did we put up this poll in the first place?
The picture with the turquoise jacket was taken on March 11, 2008, when Sarah Palin was supposedly seven months pregnant.
We know this for certain because Daniel Todercan, who is one of the people in this group picture, blogged a detailed report regarding his stay in Alaska. The depicted group are the participants of the Alaska Legislative Internship Program for the year 2008, and Daniel Todercan was one of these interns. His report about his experiences as an intern can be found on his blog and he later confirmed in another blogpost that the picture was taken on March 11, 2008. It should be noted that Daniel in his later blogpost from August 31, 2008 had more to say:
“This morning, I’ve come across some gossip around her latest pregnancy (or lack thereof). Some blogs are even analyzing the idea that she wasn’t in fact pregnant, and that her 16 year old daughter was the one who actually gave birth. Having had direct interactions with Mrs. Palin, this theory got me thinking.
I recall the shock and awe that was going around the Alaskan Legislature when she announced that she was pregnant, especially because of the late term that she was in. Even her closest staff found out that she was expecting at the last moment.
The pictures that I posted on my blog in this post (April 3rd) had been taken on March 11th, so the governess was in her 7th month of pregnancy. I’ll have to admit that she doesn’t look very pregnant in those pictures (here is a large resolution version of one), but that doesn’t mean that she was lying. Simply because a woman (and a public figure) can and wants to keep her pregnancy secret, for different reasons (and there are tons of them that don’t involve her daughter’s sexual life) doesn’t mean that she is an incapable leader. It is her capabilities as a governor and a politician that should be tested.”
We double-checked the information which was given by Daniel in his blog, and were pleased to find out that Sarah Palin’s schedule on March 11, 2008 showed the corresponding entries from 10.45 – 11.15 a.m.
Here is a picture which shows Daniel with Sarah Palin alone:
Daniel Todercan is not the only person who could be identified in this picture. The third person on the right is Associate Professor Patrick Cunningham (University of Alaska Anchorage), who was awarded sabbatical leave in the spring semester 2008 to participate in the Alaska Universities Legislative Internship Program. He made the following account regarding his experiences here.Another interesting “exhibit” is the picture that was taken of Professor Cunningham together with Sarah Palin on March 11, 2008. In this picture, “the Governor” looks even less pregnant – note how straight her scarf falls:
This becomes particularly striking when this picture is being viewed in the negative – no bulge whatsoever is visible:
But appearances can deceive, of course.Having been part of a team in which we examined (and agonised) for many months over pictures of Sarah Palin when she was supposedly highly pregnant, I know what I am talking about. We were almost desperate to spot signs of her pregnancy – surely there would be pictures apart from the last week in April before Trig was supposedly born where Sarah looked pregnant…?
In the end, the consensus was “NO, there aren’t any pictures”, and we also discovered that sometimes Sarah looked “kind-of-pregnant” (given the “standard” that the “Trig-pregnancy” had established…) when she wasn’t really pregnant at all.
So the poll was a little play on our struggle to find a “pregnant Sarah”, because – ta-taaaa- the picture with the red top, which received the remarkable share of 21% of the vote, was in fact taken in 2009 – the picture shows the Legislative Internship Class of 2009!
So there you have it. The pregnant Sarah is a rare species, and can easily be confused with a clearly non-pregnant Sarah…
By the way, we were alerted by our readers in Alaska that the red top that Sarah Palin wears in the picture from 2009 is in fact a “kuspuk”, and these are not really available to purchase. When a white person is wearing one it is usually a gift given as a show of respect from an Alaska Native, and it is worn by politicians to show support for the native community.
There is an interesting addition to the pictures from the March 11, 2008, because later that day Sarah Palin visited a group of the “AK Youth for Environmental Action”. Here is a picture from that event:
In this picture, everybody is wearing a T-shirt or something similar. Everyone that is apart from “the Governor”! She certainly seems to love her turquoise jacket – but what did she have to hide? After all, she had already announced her pregnancy several days earlier?What Sarah Palin really had to hide will rock the world. I cannot wait for the day when the world will finally get to know the truth, and I know that this day will come soon.
.
