Alaska Dispatch

The problem with Sarah Palin is that you never know if she is telling the truth or deceiving herself -- forget about the rest of us. Dozens of conversations over the course of the years since Palin was mayor of Wasilla, not to mention years of observation while she was in state government, lead to the unavoidable conclusion she doesn't think -- let alone care -- about what realities exists outside her own mind.

This is what makes her a maverick or, as she has now officially self-proclaimed, a rogue. This sort of of self-involvement is neither bad nor good. It simply is.

I have friends who adamantly believe Palin is a liar. They like to point to the case of Ketchikan's famous "bridge to nowhere,'' a label I hate to use because of its inaccuracy. The bridge went somewhere. It would have connected the city to the airport with a road, the way most cities are connected to their airports by roads. But let's ignore this for the sake of convenience and call the bridge by the name everyone else is calling it.

Palin was for the bridge to nowhere as a candidate for governor in 2006, against the bridge to nowhere as governor in 2007, and claiming by 2008 that she'd never been for the bridge at all. There are those who insist that you can't put these three things together without being a liar. You are either for the bridge or against the bridge. You can't have it both ways.

These people do not understand the thinking of Sarah Palin. She lives in the moment, not in the past.

If she says today she is against the bridge to nowhere, well then, it doesn't matter what she said yesterday, because what she said then doesn't really matter. Even if she was for the bridge in 2006, she really wasn't "for" it all that much; she was just saying that because she was a candidate, and saying things is what you do to get elected.

Every candidate knows this, right? It's how the system works.

You make promises to everyone. And then you try to keep as many promises as possible. But since you've made so many promises, some of them contradictory in ways big or small, you can't be expected to keep them all. So you juggle them.

This isn't lying. This is making the pieces of your world fit together. This is what might be called rationalizing, and for Sarah Palin it is a struggle, which brings us to her latest bizarre claim.

According to ABC News, Palin tells Barbara Walters in a television interview set to air tomorrow that  Mom and Pop Palin did not know teenage daughter Bristol was sexually active with boyfriend Levi Johnston. Johnston, for his part, has insisted the opposite. He has claimed the Palins were well aware. He has even said Todd was concerned enough that he tried to break up the relationship.

But let's ignore the he-said, they-said of this affair for  a moment and accept at face value what Sarah now claims -- the she did not know her daughter was sexually active.

Is not knowing in this case somehow better than knowing?

Your teenage daughter is seriously dating a hockey player, and you fail to sit her down to have a talk about sex and birth control? Is Palin the only parent in America who fails to understand that hockey players like to "shoot the puck,'' so to speak? Has Palin somehow forgotten how teenagers behave? The strongest willed among them might be able to limit themselves to merely making out. The rest?

Well, can any responsible parent ignore the statistics on teenage sexuality in this country:

-- About 50 percent of teens engage in sex.

-- More than three-quarters of female teens say their first sexual experience is with a steady boyfriend.

-- Sexually active teens who do not use contraceptives have a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year.

If you're a parent of a 17-year-old daughter, and she has a steady boyfriend, shouldn't you be very concerned about the 50-50 odds she will have sex with him? Shouldn't you be even more concerned that if she does start having sex the odds are frighteningly high she is going to get pregnant unless she uses some sort of contraception?

I have a daughter. I was concerned when she was a teenager even though she didn't have a steady boyfriend. Her mother sat down with her and had a long talk. This is what parents do.  This is what Sarah Palin should have done. She should have told Bristol:

"Look, I don't know if you and Levi are having sex. I don't want you and Levi to have sex. But if you can't, for God's sake, control yourself, here is a note to our doctor from your mother telling him to give you contraceptives. I don't even want to know if you and the doctor decide to go down that road or not. I really don't want you sleeping with a loser like Levi. But if you think you're that madly in love with him that you just can't help yourself, I really don't want you getting pregnant unexpectedly like I did.''

Sarah gave birth to her first child eight months after marrying Todd Palin some 20 years ago. Whether son Track was conceived before or after the marriage has been much debated in the blogosphere, but the date of conception is really irrelevant because it is trumped by what the Palins have said publicly about their early years. They eloped, Todd told Men's Journal, because they couldn't afford a wedding. Deciding to get pregnant as quickly as possible when you're that broke is not a decision made by rational newlyweds.

The Palins' first child had to have come as an unexpected, albeit welcome, surprise. It certainly didn't make their life easier, but they struggled through. That Sarah would fail to recount this struggle for Bristol's benefit is hard to imagine. That Sarah would fail to recognize that teens in Wasilla -- the community of which Sarah was once mayor -- were sexually active is even harder to imagine. As  Bristol herself told Fox News' Greta von Susteren, it was hard to abstain from sex there because it was sort of the norm. Here's their exchange from Van Susteren's TV show in February:

VAN SUSTEREN: "I don't want to pry to personally, but I mean, actually, contraception is an issue here. Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have a philosophical or religious opposition to it or..."

BRISTOL: "No. I don't want to get into detail about that. But I think abstinence is, like -- like, the -- I don't know how to put it -- like, the main -- everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all."

VAN SUSTEREN: "Why?"

BRISTOL: "Because -- I don't want to get into details on this."

VAN SUSTEREN: "Well, no, I don't mean personally, just big picture, not -- not necessarily about you, but..."

BRISTOL: "Because it's more and more accepted now."

VAN SUSTEREN: "Among your classmates and kids your age?"

BRISTOL: "Among -- yes, among kids my age."

The big "it" there is, of course, sex. Maybe Sarah really was unaware of this. Maybe she really thought the "it" was something else. Maybe she didn't want to be aware of the "it." Maybe only now has she made herself unaware of the "it."

I really don't know, and I don't think anyone can know because it's hard to tell when Sarah is telling the truth and when she is deceiving herself. The public doesn't matter. I, for one, am convinced her prevarications are not about the public. I firmly believe Sarah doesn't care what people think even if she does care what they think about her.

If you think this makes life in the spotlight easier, well, then you're delusional. Being a rogue is not easy. Trust me. Being a rogue worried about your public image has got to be hell.

If Sarah somehow managed to miss the signals that Bristol might be sexually active, I feel sorry for Sarah. If Sarah saw the signals and failed to respond to them, I feel sorry for Sarah. If Sarah is now merely lying to herself to make the history of Bristol's pregnancy easier to deal with, I feel sorry for Sarah.

In fact, in general, I just feel sorry for Sarah. We all should.

Palin has the same perception of the truth that plagues some of the media she loves to attack, a childish perception wherein the truth it what you belive it to be. This is the sort of perception that can make Santa Claus a reality. It is not the perception of the law or science where truth is based on a preponderance of evidence that can itself shift and change over time as more or better information becomes available. This Santa-Clausesqe vision of things is what enables Palin to believe she is telling the truth when she says to Oprah Winfrey that she resigned as governor because Alaska was over run with "so many opposition researchers" -- even if there were few, or any.

Palin is an Alaskan who has flown to unbelievable national heights. Unfortunately, it now appears she could be getting too close to the sun. She is danger of becoming the Icarus of modern-day Alaska mythology. And that really wouldn't be a good thing for any of us here.

Contact Craig Medred at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .