Jack Nicholson and Bobby Darin's little brother

Sometimes I really wonder why I don't read many novels anymore. Then I get another example of how much real life unfolds in all its compellingly glorious messiness and why I don't miss fiction.

I won't even begin to tackle the how could those Republican's be so careless as to their vetting of family-values Veep they shoved down McCain's throat. Not that he had any problem with that, the op-ed pages are all over how this sort of impulsiveness is in character.

When over the weekend when I first ran across dailykos.com's stories on the rumors surrounding Sarah Palin and her infant son, I was flabbergasted, intrigued, and while not wholly convinced, thought the arguments that Sarah did not give birth to Trig had at least some merit. (the particular posts have been deleted from that site.) There are questions about the official story. But how on earth would mainstream media handle this? Seemed way too tabloid so probably wouldn't go anywhere. But you never know.

Monday I woke and, I admit, ready to get right back to the page turner that is real life. In novels, too many things that happen are either way too predictable or way too deux ex machina to be satisfying. Not so on Monday when the word was that in order to squash rumors surrounding Trig's birth, the Palins and the Family Values Party announced Bristol's conveniently timed pregnancy. Without any more evidence than their word, we are to believe that 17 year old Bristol is about five months pregnant and therefore is not 4.5 month old Trig's mom.

Knock me over with a feather.

First. Sarah said that they had hoped to keep Bristol's pregnancy private throughout the campaign. Was she really that clueless? That much lacking in common sense or the ways of the world?

Second. Not days after accepting the nomination, and thus making the decision that Bristol will be OK because they can keep her illegitimate teen pregancy a secret, who actually let's the story out? She does. Why? To squash a rumor about herself.

She, who had thought her daughter deserved privacy, instead threw her daughter out in front of the train. Wasn't there any other evidence, any evidence, Sarah could have used to prove she was Trig's mom without sacrificing her daughter?

And most ironical, I had seen nothing in mainstream press about the Trig rumors. But the GOP announcement of Bristol's current condition opened the floodgates. They were the ones who spoke of and therefore made the rumors legitimate to be reported in the mainstream media. Now we have Maureen Dowd calls it "broken-water gate" without explanation, because of course, by now, she doesn't need to.