Was Sarah Palin ever at the Mat-Su hospital on April 18, 2008? Maybe not–at least not officially

Well, I feel like an idiot. After writing most of a column on what must have happened before and after Sarah Palin arrived at the Mat-Su Regional Medical Center the day she claimed to give birth there, the likely truth hit me in the face like a wet mackerel. 

I’m surely not the first person to hypothesize this – it’s too obvious – but what if Sarah Palin never stepped foot in the Mat-Su hospital on April 18? What do we know for certain? We (seemingly) know that Palin's parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, were there on April 18, because they appeared in a KTUU-TV newscast that day holding Trig. We can dissect that shortly.

But first, something that has always bothered me is the lack of photographic evidence that Sarah Palin was at the hospital. If she in fact had a room, why wouldn’t she get into bed, muss up her hair, and get her picture taken holding Trig?

Correct me if I am wrong, but there are no reliable eyewitness accounts of Sarah Palin being in the hospital at all – right? Nor, as far as I recall, is there any other kind of evidence, documentary or otherwise, that she ever stepped foot in the hospital that weekend.

        Another possibility is that Palin was at the hospital, but never actually got a room. In that case, the point would be that she was never officially at the hospital. More on that possibility later.

Now, back to that KTUU-TV newscast. Where was Bill McAllister working on April 18? – KTUU, of course! My last post is about how McAllister was probably a central figure in the hoax. And I pointed out how he, with the help of KTUU cameraman Dan Carpenter, probably took the Gusty-interview photos of Palin looking more pregnant than ever before, which were later used to quash rumors of the faked pregnancy.

Is it just a coincidence that (1) McAllister, who likely signed a contract in early April to become Palin's PR secretary, worked at KTUU, and that (2) KTUU was the only news organization in town tipped off that baby Trig was at the hospital just waiting to be videotaped? I don't think so. In fact, the odds seem excellent that McAllister, fully aware of the unfolding hoax, directed the activities of the KTUU news crew. And who was in that news crew? Lori Tipton was the reporter, and I would not be surprised if Carpenter was the cameraman, since he already must have known some of the details about the hoax. 

What do we know about Lori Tipton? Andrew Sullivan wrote a few years back that he spoke to a journalist anonymously who said she walked into Palin’s room at the hospital that day and saw Palin in bed; I always assumed that was Tipton, since no other journalist seems to have been there that day. And I always wondered about the truthfulness of that comment, since no one outside Palin's family and Levi (a compromised source), has claimed to have seen Palin in bed  at Mat-Su (or at least that is my memory – correct me if I am wrong).

Still, in fairness to Tipton, let me stress that this is just a hypothesis. But let’s assume that Sarah Palin never got a maternity suite at Mat-Su. Let’s also assume that Bill McAllister directed the KTUU news team to go to the Mat-Su facility, and further that he either let them know about the hoax or at least placed strict limits on the questions they could ask the Heaths.

So, for example, maybe he told Tipton not to ask why, if Trig was four weeks premature, he wasn't in an incubator or at a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit. There would have been no good answers to such questions.

Since there is no compelling evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to think Sarah Palin was never there that weekend – or if she was, she had not officially checked into a room. If I am right about that, then a key question becomes: How is it that the Heaths came to be in a maternity suite holding Trig that day? Well, they could have just walked in and found an empty suite, and invited the news crew in. After all, Sally Heath, like Sarah, was a former member of the hospital's board, and maybe she had the clout to do something like that. 

But that seems like it would have been too risky – what if an employee who did not know Sally asked what they were doing? What seems more likely, if Sarah Palin did not actually get a room, is that an insider at Mat-Su made arrangements for the Heaths to temporarily be given access to an empty maternity suite, and later to have the news crew taken to that suite. If that is what happened, it would explain why Sarah Palin absolutely had to get back to her hometown the night of April 17 – no other hospital would let itself be used that way.

Again, the key point isn't whether Sarah Palin was there or not there – rather, whether she truly checked into a room or not. If she got a room, there would have been bills, plus records of various sorts, etc. Thus, not getting a room would have been very attractive both because it would be cheaper and would eliminate paperwork that could prove troublesome.

A commenter below writes that Frank Bailey said in his book that he saw Palin at the hospital. Was she in bed? If so, that would imply she had checked in. Or was she just sitting or standing somewhere? In that case, maybe she was "trespassing" in a room, but with the knowledge and tacit permission of a Mat-Su insider. Of course, Bailey could have lied. He strikes me as less than trustworthy insofar as Babygate is concerned.