Pregnant Pause

This time, Palin emerged as McCain's vice-presidential pick Friday, the pregnancy tale hit the Internet on Saturday, was trumpeted by the Drudge Report on Sunday and reached mainstream outlets just after noon Monday. Edwards had a former mistress in seclusion who insisted someone else was the father; the soon-to-be-obvious Palin story was within her own family.

Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstein press center at Harvard University, says that, as in the Edwards case, the Palin pregnancy story "was untouched until the person involved made a statement. That legitimized it for the traditional media."

It is hardly unusual for a teenage girl to become pregnant, and unless she is Jamie Lynn Spears, who sold her baby pictures to OK! magazine, the news value is minimal. But some media commentators say Palin is fair game, not just because she is running for national office but because she is a self-described "hockey mom" who told the nation that her eldest son is headed to Iraq.

"Once she's brought her children in as selling points, unfortunately the bad comes in with the good," says Lisa Bloom, a Court TV anchor. "She's integrating her mom quality as a key part of her résumé. We didn't do that in the press; she did that."

Some conservative bloggers were dismissive of the way the rumors spread. On Townhall.com, Amanda Carpenter wrote that the Daily Kos contributor was "disgustingly inspecting Bristol's midriff with all the fervor of L.A. paparazzi examining J-Lo's or Jennifer Aniston's washboard stomachs for evidence of a 'bump.' "

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who writes the conservative blog Instapundit, refused to link to the Kos posting. "I certainly wouldn't have gone with this," Reynolds says. "It just seemed so ridiculous. I don't see how this story adds up to a vindication of the Kos diarist."

But blogger Andrew Sullivan, a right-leaning former New Republic editor who supports Barack Obama, pushed the story about the baby, who was born with Down syndrome. Citing unresolved questions and the campaign's refusal to release the medical records involved, he writes: "The circumstantial evidence for weirdness around this pregnancy is so great that legitimate questions arise -- questions anyone with common sense would ask. . . . After all, this baby was a centerpiece of the public case for Palin made by the Republicans."

Karl Rove, the former Bush White House adviser, says the McCain camp had planned to publicize Bristol Palin's pregnancy all along. "They have to. . . By election day she'll be seven months pregnant," Rove says. With Hurricane Gustav dominating the news, he adds, Monday "was a reasonably good day to do it."

The controversy erupted as a debate was taking shape over whether some media criticism of Palin's limited government experience has been sexist. Liberal radio host Ed Schultz was telling listeners Monday that Palin was an "empty pantsuit" who had set off a "bimbo alert." Shortly afterward, the pregnancy statement was released and, without missing a beat, Schultz said her daughter's situation was relevant because the governor is a champion of moral values.

But a liberal reader posting on Salon under the name Redstocking Grandma denounced the pregnancy allegations: "This is just creepy; it feels stalkerish." What some Democratic supporters were doing, she said, is "revolting."

While the Web can serve as an incubator for unsubstantiated charges, it also tends to be self-correcting. Another Daily Kos contributor late Sunday unearthed a photo

from earlier this year in which the governor looks quite pregnant.