More phony accusations against Palin

The anti-Palin pack hounds in the press continue to find the wrong trees to bark up. In addition to false charges that she was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a blunder which the New York Times reporter who committed it refuses to fess up to even though the Times itself has issued a retraction, there are now other charges repeated by a media enthusiastically searching for Palin dirt which it turns out are questionable.

It started, of course, with the allegation that Palin's 4 month old down syndrome child was not hers, but her daughter's. "Well, Sarah, I’m calling you a liar," said the anonymous poster. "And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson." But the post disappeared when it was revealed that her daughter was now 5 months pregnant, making it impossible that her daughter bore what, it is now more than clear, even to the Einsteins at Kos, is her brother. Kos, after cavalierly trashing the Palin family, finally backed off. The blog has covered its tracks now and taken down the posts.

The unsubstantiated and somewhat strange charges were repeated by Alan Colmes. Andrew Sullivan, whose blog is published by Atlantic.com, an otherwise reputable publication, demanded answers to a whole host of questions he had no business even asking so he could put the rumors, which he was helping to spread, to rest:

Why would a 43 year old woman, on her fifth pregnancy, with a Down Syndrome child, after her amniotic fluid has started to leak, not go to the nearest hospital immediately, even if she was in Texas for a speech?

Why would she not only not go to the hospital in Texas, but take an eight-hour plane flight to Seattle and then Anchorage?

Why would she choose to deliver the baby not in the nearest major facility in Anchorage but at a much smaller hospital near her home-town?

There is something comic about Sullivan (who, granted, doesn't exercise complete allegiance to his own gender) giving a mother of five a lecture on how to properly conduct a pregnancy. But even though Sullivan finally had to admit his charges were bogus, instead of apologizing, still is demanding answers about Palin's pregnancy.

Oh, and did we forget to mention the subtitle to Sullivan's blog is "To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle"? Indeed.

Now it turns out the story about her support for Pat Buchanan may be false as well.

And then there's the accusation that Palin, who, some have charged, "used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live." Turns out she didn't slash funding at all, but simply decreased the amount of the funding increase to a program benefiting teen mothers.

Despite all this, the pack hounds are still baying.