The last 24 hours have been the political equivalent of crack cocaine.

First, Daily Kos murmured that Palin's fifth child, Trig (who has Down's Syndrome), wasn't actually hers. This evidenced by the fact that Palin, despite having been pretty goddamn round during previous pregnancies, was imperceptibly pregnant this time around. She didn't announce the pregnancy until her seventh month and even her staff was baffled.

Meanwhile Palin's daughter, Bristol, was sporting what appeared to be a baby bump while taking five months off school for "mono." Hm.

Finally, the official narrative was that Gov. Palin's water broke before she was due to give a keynote speech to an energy summit of governors in Dallas. Not only did she give the keynote speech anyway, she subsequently hopped on an 11-hour flight back to Alaska for no other reason than to insure the child was born in the state in which she holds office.

"You can't have a fish picker from Texas," said her husband. Very nice.

Turns out Palin really is the mom. How do we know this? Because her daughter, now seventeen, is five months pregnant (and therefore could not be the mother of a baby that was born in April).

Was it reasonable to wonder aloud if Palin was actually Trig's mother? I think so. Was it responsible for Kos to declare Palin's assertion of maternity "lies" without something more substantial? No.

Having said that, what can we make of Palin's decision to put off her delivery of a baby known to have Down's Syndrome for 22 hours so she could deliver a keynote speech and, by her own admission, not have the child born in Texas?

Seems a bit reckless, don't you think? Maybe like her priorities are just a little out of whack?

And while I'll grant that Bristol's actions are not her mother's, this is where the story makes me warm and slightly giddy. The wingnuts have been the ones caterwauling "it's a private family matter!" Leaving aside their rather selective application of this standard, guess which demographic this is likely to have lasting resonance with?

Yep. The fundamentalists who wonder how an abstinence-only supporter could wind up as a shotgun wedding doyenne.