Laura Novak and I had an e-mail conversation earlier and the subject was, inevitably, Sarah Palin and her strange stories.
We pondered what would have happened if she had stayed in Alaska, in relative anonymity, minding her own business as the governor of that isolated state.
The rumours about her pregnancy (and Bristol's) were already around in Alaska long before Sarah Palin appeared at the Republican convention, but I tend to believe that Alaskans were not terribly interested in it and the rumours were bound to die down.
As it happens, Sarah didn't blink and decided that she didn't want to be a big fish in small pond anymore. She wanted to swim in the big pond and rub shoulders with the rest of the big political fish. She said "yes" to McCain and dragged her whole family (plus a convenient fiance) into the public arena.
That was a mistake. People started to pay attention, to ask too many questions about this mythical creature from the frozen tundra. People noticed that some of her stories didn't make sense.
Had she stayed safely in Alaska, there would be no conspiracy theories, no dedicated blogs going through her record and her weird stories with a fine tooth comb. There would be no books written about her.
Sarah missed a second chance to go back to safe obscurity when she quit her job to become a multi-millionaire celebrity. She gave more material to bloggers, journalists and the tabloids. Bristol Palin also managed to secure a place in the spotlight and lies about anything with the same ease as her mother. Willow has just made the news on TMZ...
Now everybody is asking pesky questions about the Palins, as Sarah made them such a big part of her narrative.
The scrutiny won't stop, Sarah. You should have blinked!
[This is the original post I had written to link to Laura Novak's interview with a doctor who looked at CBJ's letter. It reappeared as a draft, so with a couple of edits, why waste it?]