The Truth About Heath Family Health Care and Trig's Birth

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In an Esquire op-ed, Luke Dittrich, who lives in Whitehorse and has spent time with the Palin family, finds himself defending Sarah Palin, though his political philosophy differs from hers:

First, I've got to confess that I learned about these trips she took to Whitehorse more than a year ago, and never reported them. Evidently, gauging strictly on a page-view scale, that was an oversight on my part. On a scale of newsworthiness, though, I still don't think the facts add up to anything at all.

[...] 

"We lived in Skagway for five years," Chuck said. "And at that time the railroad went from Skagway to Whitehorse, and that was our lifeline. There was no road out of Skagway when we lived there."

"We appreciated it so much," Sally said. "Anytime there was something serious, we'd get on the train and go to the hospital there, and they'd be so kind to take care of us."

And that was it: a simple admission that I didn't think much of then, and still don't think much of now. Whitehorse General Hospital, where my own daughter was born three years ago, remains, to this day, the closest major hospital to Skagway. 

After listening again to the tape of his interview with Sarah's parents, Dittrich  found another unreported detail:

Chuck had just told me that he usually didn't talk with reporters — that, in fact, he'd just hung up on one fifteen minutes before I'd arrived.

"The Anchorage Daily News is doing a story," he said. "Is Trig Really Sarah's Son?"

"I am so disgusted," Sally said.

Chuck shook his head.

"I was in the room when he was born, for Chrissakes!"

Put that in your bong and smoke it, Andrew Sullivan!

- JP