Tattle: No election would be complete without a pregnancy cover-up

In Tattle's universe of Godless entertainment-industry heathens, unmarried teens get pregnant all the time.

So Bristol Palin is allegedly pregnant. Who cares? We don't.

But the timing of the announcement sure was convenient.

Appropriately, the baby news came out on Labor Day, when the big national news story was whether water would break through the levees of New Orleans and the big left-wing blogosphere story was whether Sarah Palin's water ever broke, and whether John McCain's VP choice had covered up that Trig was really Bristol's baby boy.

It seems so crazy, so out in far left field, as to be unbelievable, but that's the way some people viewed the National Enquirer's John Edwards story a few weeks ago. When we wrote about the Edwards rumors, the evidence was little more than he was hiding from National Enquirer reporters at his alleged mistress' hotel. It blew up from there, ending (for now) with a "Nightline" mea culpa on ABC.

(Although folks have drawn their own conclusions, there's still no proof as to whether he is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. After he asked for a DNA test, she conveniently refused to allow a DNA test.)

The "evidence" in the Sarah Palin pregnancy cover-up is far more detailed and at least as compelling. It may not turn out to be true, but Sarah lookalike Tina Fey should be getting ready to star in the Lifetime movie "Welcome to National Politics."

Here are the bullet points no one seems to be disputing (questioned points in parenthesis):

* Bristol, Palin's 17-year-old daughter, left high school for months (possibly as many as five), reportedly after contracting mononucleosis.

(Her friends were not allowed to visit her, which skeptics could view as suspicious. But it's also explainable as mono is very contagious. But her presence home would also be equally dangerous for her allegedly pregnant mother.)

Five months? Mono?

Worst. Case. Of. Mono. Ever.

* Sarah Palin was videoed hustling through snowy streets in high heels in February and photographed for an interview in March when she was allegedly between six and seven months pregnant. (Nicole Kidman looked more pregnant.) Tattle has a friend and a cousin who are both seven months pregnant now, and both are younger than Palin. Neither one is dashing around in heels.

* When Sarah announced her pregnancy at seven months, even her closest staff was surprised. (By this time, daughter Bristol had been safely sequestered, recovering from mono.)

* In April, reportedly 36 weeks pregnant, Palin flew to Dallas to give a speech. Before the speech, she began to leak amniotic fluid. Tough Alaska moose-hunter that she is, she gave the speech anyway. She called her family doctor, who is not an OB-GYN, who allegedly told her it would be OK to fly back to Alaska. For the record, there are hospitals in Dallas.

Having given up the governor's private plane, Palin flew commercial, not telling Alaska Airlines that she was in labor and that her water had broken. No airline personnel seemed to note her as a woman about to give birth.

Her looooong Dallas to Alaska flight had a stopover in Seattle. There are also hospitals there.

So Palin finally arrived in Anchorage, where the airport (ironically named after Alaska Sen. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens) is six miles from possibly the best medical facility in the state, Providence Hospital. Providence is one of two hospitals in Anchorage that has a NICU unit, which could come in handy for a 40-plus woman, just off a long flight, about to give birth to a premature baby with Down syndrome.

Palin, however, drove (or was driven) approximately an hour to the much smaller Mat-Su Regional Hospital in Palmer, Alaska, which does not seem to have a NICU unit.

* Palin reportedly gave birth to the baby on April 18. There was no record of the birth on the hospital Web site, although two other babies born that day got photos.

* Palin returned to work three days later. (The Alaska state government may want to improve its maternity leave plan.)

Admittedly, Palin may be nothing more than a tough, loyal Alaskan who wanted to have her Down syndrome baby in her hometown hospital with her hometown doctor so badly, she was willing to fly eight hours and pass up a dozen hospitals better equipped to handle any delivery problems.

As for allegations made by "cover-up" conspiracy theorists:

* The MySpace page of a Palmer High School basketball player named Chris Ray was altered/edited over the past 48 hours. It no longer has the sentence, "I LOVE BRISTOL PALIN MORE THEN ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!" on it. (As Bristol's brand new fiance seems to be named Levi, we have no idea what this means, but Chris may be odd man out.)

* While Bristol was out of school with "mono," she does seem to have been well enough to drive, as she was in a minor car accident and issued a ticket. (Maybe she was on her way to her mono doctor or the pharmacy.)

* Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, who allegedly delivered the Palin baby, is allegedly no longer on staff at Mat-Su Regional.

* In virtually every photo on the campaign trail, Bristol is the one holding baby Trig, never a sister or her father.

Those were the high/low points of the story that was just beginning to pick up steam yesterday when the newer bombshell broke - Sarah Palin and the McCain camp announced that Bristol is pregnant now, and, of course, would be marrying (Levi) the father (you know, just like Jamie Lynn Spears was at one point going to marry her baby's father).

Not only that, but Bristol was five months pregnant, they announced clearly, so (do the math) she couldn't be Trig's mother. The campaign didn't say that last part because, of course, she wasn't Trig's mother. But that could explain why she was always holding Trig - to cover up the pregnancy.

Either that or she's two months pregnant (for a second time) and is as fertile as Jamie Lynn's sister, Britney.

Knowing that he was involved in, or had just completed, an affair when he was running for president was the height of ego and irresponsibility for John Edwards. With a special-needs infant and an allegedly pregnant teenage daughter, is Sarah Palin's upcoming two-month cross-country tour that much better?

In a world of family values, whose family does she value?

The Palins' pregnancy cover-up soap opera may turn out to be nothing but nonsense trumped up by left-wing bloggers. But if National Enquirer reporters start trooping around Alaska, we'd be very concerned. *

Daily News wire services, John Nail's blog on politicalbase.com and dozens of other Web sites contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com