Posts Tagged ‘slate’

Refreshing Rationality from New Yorker’s Amy Davidson

Finally, someone who personally believes that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig respects the right of
Andrew Sullivan and others to ask legitimate questions. Amy Davidson, a senior editor at The New Yorker posts on her Close Read blog.

This is like a breath of pure oxygen after choking on the aggressive contempt spewed by Salon, HuffPo, etc. over the past few days.

I can understand skepticism. But what’s fueling the anger of MSM toward those like Andrew Sullivan, who simply keep asking questions because no one is giving answers? You would think journalists would applaud Sullivan for doing his job. Instead, so many try to marginalize and demean him. I would expect this from hack polemicists like Breitbart, but I’d really like to know what’s behind the defensiveness at MSM sites such as Salon, Slate, and HuffPo. They laugh at and scorn Sarah for everything else she says, but on this one issue she’s declared beyond reproach and taken at her word? And the thoughtful and diligent Sullivan is ridiculed for saying it does matter if Sarah’s whole bit of performance art with Trig was only that?

What could matter more? This woman almost became vice president of the United States, and still harbors hopes (because God will open the doors for her) of becoming president.

I suspect, and certainly hope, that we’ve not heard the last from Andrew Sullivan on this question. I know we haven’t heard the last from me.

Cold Water Thrown on Simmering Trig Hoax Allegations?

UK’s Daily Mail posts a photo of Sarah at her Dallas speech that shows her with “not only a pregnant stomach but a visibly fuller face and breasts, all signs of late pregnancy.” Case closed, say they.

Hey, none of the pictures of Sarah pregnant-or-not with Trig is the Zapruder film. None of them proves anything. At most, people can use them to support the opinion they already have. I just learned today, for example, that a couple of Brits spotted about-to-be princess Kate Middleton’s face on a mango jelly bean. Truth is as the eye of the beholder sees it.

But a mainstream backlash is developing against impudent suggestions that questions about Trig’s birth are legitimate. MSM news and opinion site Slate (owned by Washington Post Co.) posts an article headlined “Occam’s Razor Says Sarah Palin Is Trig’s Mother.”

Who doesn’t like Occam’s Razor? This is a philosophical principle posited by a 14th Century Franciscan friar called William of Ockham. It says, bottom line, that when there are varying explanations of an occurrence, the simplest is most likely to be true. In this instance, Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig. Period. End of story. That’s the simplest explanation. Occam says, “No story here, move along now.”

But as I just mentioned in a Twitter post, Occam never got to Wasilla. If he had, he might have thrown away his razor and grown a beard.