Today Sarah Palin announced that her seventeen-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant. But that's really just a personal, or family, matter. The purpose of the announcement was to squelch long-running rumors in Alaska that Sarah Palin's last pregnancy was faked in order to cover up a pregnancy of her daughter. Those rumors are backed up only by a string of curious coincidences involving mother and daughter. Thus although it would have been scandalous for the Governor to have lied in claiming parentage to a baby not her own, that charge is in no way proven.

One thing that is known, however, is pretty scandalous.

Sarah Palin claims that she rushed back to Alaska from a conference in Texas to give birth to her last baby in April 2008. The story is that after her water broke, she stayed to deliver her speech. Only then did she rush not to a hospital, but to the airport for a very long pair of flights (via Seattle) to Anchorage, Alaska. Then she traveled a considerable distance north by car to her hometown of Wasilla, where she gave birth in a small local hospital, the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

After the baby was born, Palin told her staff members that her experiences from four previous pregnancies made her comfortable with the signs of active labor. She felt that neither she nor her baby were in any danger, and so she flew home as scheduled.

Let's stipulate that Sarah Palin's story is true. What does that say about her judgment? Quite apart from the fact that airlines require women to get permission to travel if they're in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Why would Palin endanger her unborn child so recklessly by delaying going to a hospital? There are plenty of those in Texas.

And suppose that Sarah Palin's story is not true. What does that say about her judgment?

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