Note: Lost comments have now been restored. I hope everyone enjoys the new comment system.
Blade
UPDATE: Identification of some of the people pictured at the shower.
Most readers probably know who Kristan Cole is and how she fits into Sarah’s world. For those unfamiliar, this article has a good overview.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-s-levine/who-is-kristan-cole-sarah_b_227681.html
Judy Patrick is a photographer and a good friend of Sarah’s.
http://judypatrickphotography.com/
Is it a coincidence that she uses crosshairs on the homepage of her website? As a photographer, surely she knows how to use photoshop. I think it’s likely that she was the one who edited the photo with Todd holding the cake.
Kris Perry is another name most readers probably recognize. Here is an article to read for those who want to know more about her.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/6083591.html
Dawn Noble, the fourth person in this quartet, is evidently 40 something and lives in Wasilla. I was unable to determine how or if she has a connection to Sarah. Her Facebook reveals Sarah Palin as an interest but little else.
For those wondering about the girl pictured feeding Trig. She is Kristan Cole’s daughter. She was around 16 when the photo was taken.
If anyone has information to share about these people or other Palin related matters, you can email me from the link at the bottom of this post.
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I hadn’t really given the baby shower much thought until one of my recent posts elicited several responses about the photo with Todd Palin holding a cake on his lap. The majority seem to agree that something is very wrong with that picture and that most likely it was photoshopped.
Even though I had seen that picture many times, I had never really noticed how odd it is. Why would Todd have the cake on his lap in the first place? That is a huge cake! Then it’s plain to see that Todd isn’t even holding the cake. Wouldn’t the weight of that cake make it slide right off of his lap?
Thanks to a donation from a generous reader, I was able to have photo analysis done on several pictures from my Palin collection. The analysis confirms that the photograph with the cake was indeed altered using photoshop. Unfortunately, the analysis can only confirm that edits were made to the picture but not exactly what those edits were.
However, knowing that picture was indeed altered brings up questions. What do we really know about the event pictured above?
Supposedly on Sunday, May 4, 2008 Sarah Palin was honored with a baby shower. This article makes it sound quite the homey affair.
Sarah Palin's baby shower included a surprise guest: her own baby. He had arrived in the world a month early, so on a sunny May day, Palin, the governor of Alaska, rocked her newborn as her closest friends, sisters, even her obstetrician presented her with a potluck meal, presents and blue-and-white cake.
No mention of Sarah’s daughters. It seems a little odd that neither Bristol, Willow nor Piper are in any of the shower pictures. One of the pictures shows a girl holding the baby being presented as Trig so it obviously wasn’t adults only. I would think that Sarah’s girls would attend but there’s no evidence that they did or didn’t.
Todd’s being there seems strange since most men avoid baby showers. His attire looks too casual for the occasion since the rest of the guests are dressed rather nicely. Could it be that Todd wasn’t really there? Was he photoshopped into the picture along with the cake and if so, why?
Where was the shower held? Was it at Kristan Cole’s home?
Where are the typical baby shower decorations? The streamers and balloons?
Where are the pictures of Sarah opening gifts? Or the gifts piled on a table?
Where are the pictures of the guests eating since there was supposedly a meal served? Or the pictures of the cake and other food on a table? Where are the shower favors?
Where are the pictures of the guests playing shower games and oohing and ahhing over the baby?
Where are the pictures of the guests fawning over Sarah?
Where are the pictures of Sarah and baby with her and Todd’s moms?
Here are some images from real baby showers. They depict warm, inviting gatherings.
At the top of this post are the pictures of Sarah’s baby shower from Kristan Cole’s blog that were supposedly posted on May 5, 2008. Look at them again and compare them to the pictures from real baby showers.
Doesn’t Sarah’s seem fake? Cold and sterile with pictures that could have been taken at any type of event. Perhaps an open house since Kristan Cole is a real estate agent. Staged for the purpose of convincing people that Sarah and Todd Palin just had a baby with the only thing hinting at an actual baby shower being the photoshopped image with Todd holding a cake.
If anyone has more information about Sarah Palin’s baby shower or anything else related to babygate, please email me.
Blade
24 comments:
In the past, I have posted on several sites that I thought there was something fishy about that baby shower, and other posters would always reply that there were pics from the shower, so it had to be legit. Just because Sarah says it's so doesn't make it true. I thought everyone understood that by now.
There may have been a shower or some kind of get-together for Bristol's baby earlier that year. Some of the pics could have come from that event. But I don't believe the shower was held on May 4th. By the time Sarah announced Trig's birth, he had grown and didn't look like a newborn anymore, so some of the pics taken at the earlier event were shown with the smaller baby. Other pics were altered.
HMMMMM.....You definitely make sense! maybe someone can identify the people in the pics on the otherwise empty book shelves?
A couple of those are new to me, but it is interesting that we see 'Ruffles' as having BOTH ears deformed.
It would be interesting to find out where her girls were on the day of the shower. Piper seems to go with her often. It would probably be a joy for Piper to attend her baby brothers shower. From what I saw in the pictures, it didn't look like any baby shower that I have attended. T
With today's sophisticated technology in altering photographs, we need to be very careful in assuming that a photograph tells the truth. Several good points are made re: baby showers. I attended one where there were 5 of us, plus the mother-to-be's 3 children, decorations, real food, and lots of photos! No comparison. And these are the pictures they released! Strange. RE: Todd and the cake. Their relative sizes don't match. It appears that Todd is closer to the camera, but in fact, he is shown with his shoulder behind her's. The other points you make are visible as well. I'll be more observant re: photos in the future.
It might be interesting to get a side by side shot of the baby that SP is holding in the above "shower" photo (5/4/08?) next to the baby that the Healths were holding on 4/18/08 in the hospital.
Yes, both ears are definitely deformed on that baby.
The wall in the S/T pic looks like gray granite or marble and the wood is blond,looks like an office . The other pics are whitish w/blond and looks like an office too, but not like it's the same office.
The lighting bugs me,too. I'm gonna go look again.
I also get the impression that the setting is an office. However, I was able to get a couple of pics that haven't been seen as much - the ones with the photographs on the shelves - and that has me debating office vs. vacant house that Kristan Cole was selling. I'm hoping that someone might have more info.
Blade
As I look at all of the "shower" photos, I realize that the cake is the only indication that this is a "shower." Also, the labels or captions for the photos by Kristan Cole do not call this gathering a shower. Very interesting.
Ooooh I do love a new mystery! How I miss the old Audrey days!
My thoughts: I don't think this is a model home. Real estate stagers would never use personal photos, so the potential buyers can picture their own family living there. Nor is it a client's open house - who would allow their real estate agent to throw a party in their home? Hmmm. I almost think this is a family business/office, because it doesn't look like a lived-in home. (Well, MY lived-in home.)
I had a full-blown shower for my first child with the decorations, cake, games, etc. on a Saturday at a co-worker's home. For my second child, (a different) office threw me a party at the office. This was her fifth child, so a quick party at an office seems reasonable.
THAT SAID, who orders a FULL SIZE SHEET CAKE for a handful of people (mostly women) in business suits? Waaay too much cake.
As for timeline, this appears to be during the week, during the day. There are several short-sleeved, summery tops on several women, so it could be later, since it stays lighter longer in summer.
The younger woman holding the baby wears what appears to be an engagement or wedding ring. Could she be a young bride in her '20s? Maybe her mother is one of the hostesses.
Good stuff!
Thanks, Blade, for this fascinating post! I had seen these pictures before but had no idea Dr. CBJ was there.
How could she attend a shower with Sarah using Ruffles...a much smaller child...when she had just delivered a seven-pound-plus baby Trig from Bristol?
I'll go out on a limb here and say Dr. CBJ knows who Ruffles is and that he was the baby at that shower.
In one of the episodes on Palin's TLC show, didn't she say it gets liberals all wee-weed up when she tells them she had her baby shower at the shooting range? Or was that something else? I can't remember exactly, but it rings a bell with me.
This is extremely interesting! It does look like an office. Beyond the lady in the plaid jacket, I think there's an office-type microwave and coffeemaker setup. the kind you see in convenience stores. It's so blurry that I mistook it first for an ATM.
There seems to be no furniture other than a few hard chairs. It really looks as if Sarah just dropped by for a few minutes to show off the baby in the middle of a normal workday, yet it's described as a shower, with presents and a potluck dinner.
I wouldn't choose to entertain a mother with a newborn in a bare office instead of in a comfortable home, unless it was a really short and simple party. Coffee and cake, maybe, but not a whole potluck dinner.
The blurb says the shower included Sarah's closest friends, sisters, and obstetrician. I don't recognize any of these faces. I suppose one of them must be Kristin. Dr. CBJ is not an obstetrician, but I'd give that a pass if I could see her there.
When Gryphen at IM posted these pictures on his blog, he blacked out the face of the brunette, thinking she was underage. I guessed she was about 12, but she does look like a young adult here.
I don't know if Todd and the cake are real, but they might have ordered the large cake just to take a picture of it so it would look like a big party. You're right, it's the only clue that it's a baby shower.
This does at least raise the possibility that this "shower" was just a photo op. The question would be why? For publicity, I suppose, to help authenticate the birth and at the same time make it look as if she has a host of warm hearted old friends.
Kristin Cole might have thought it good PR for her real estate firm, hosting a party for the governor, so she went along with it and put the pictures online, but why not do a real party? Whoever his mother might be, Ruffles was a real baby and could use presents.
I can't imagine the conversation Sarah and Kristin must have had if they decided to do a pretend shower. I wonder what Kristin told her staff? That's who I think these people are. They're smiling gamely but what are they thinking? Maybe they just see it as a good photo op for the business, and if it isn't a real party, well, they're all busy people. Or was it just a drop in visit and a nice chance to cuddle the baby and get pictures taken with the governor, and they had no idea it was supposed to be a shower? Todd and the cake could have been photoshopped in later.
Anyway, all of them had a good chance to see those ruffled ears.
The date of May 4 might be accurate. Ruffles looks much the same size that he was in the kitchen pictures, and they were supposedly taken on May 3, Levi's 18th birthday, if that's to be believed.
I vaguely recall something about Sarah being angry that Kristin put the shower pictures online. She hadn't known that would be done. If that's true, then it wasn't Sarah's idea to use it as a publicity stunt. Is it possible that it really was a drop in visit, and Kristin was looking at the pictures afterwards and was inspired to photoshop in Todd and a cake, without telling anybody? People can get crazy ideas in the middle of the night when fooling around online.
Excellent!
Sarah & Todd are looking in different directions in the photo in question. If effort was made to place the cake in Todd's lap, then Todd would have been aware it was "photo time" and would have been looking at the camera. Still, the photo is peculiar mostly in regard to the proud parents having their photo taken with the baby and cake. It's not as if the cake just happened to be in the background of the photo. The significance of having the cake in the photo indicates they were proud of the cake also. Proud Sarah is holding the baby of which she is proud, and proud Todd is holding the cake of which he is proud. However, most of us have had contact with dysfunctional families and are aware that very little makes sense when at family gatherings.
I had a wedding shower photo-op because I married a friend from England for his green card. He moved back and never got the green card, but we had a great shower! Fake presents, cake cutting, the works! Fooled INS for the first interview.
So, people do this, is my point, and I am not a nutter like Palin!
Making the cake a big deal in his lap screams fake shower to me. And I am the one who has had a fake shower!
How many women wear a black "office suit" to a baby shower? In my experience, none.
How many women who are really-truly two or three weeks postpartum and caring for a newborn 24/7 can fit into their office wear, and appear with perfect hair and makeup? In my experience, none.
Keep up the good work!
Didn't she drop by the office with the baby on the Monday or something after she gave birth? This could've been it. But what gets me is her suit that actually fits -- top, bottom, everywhere. She must be wearing pantyhose, not to get personal, but I certainly couldn't wear any fitted clothes for months after having my babies.
not to worry - SP couldn't wear fitted clothes after having her babies either. Check out her previous post-pregnancy photos when she actually gave birth.
She was still quite large 6-8 weeks after Piper was born.
Did anyone notice the dark-haired girl in the background of the picture when the younger girl is holding the baby...it looks like Bristol or Willow? Also, why would these women be posing together for pictures, like it's some kind of reunion, and why isn't Sarah in the group pictures with them if she's the "honoree" as long as she wasn't the photographer? Wouldn't she be in the center of the group of women in the pictures, with her friends and family around her? Sarah is not pictured with others except the photoshopped picture of Todd, and aren't these pictures of Sarah the same ones that were in the OK or People cover & article about her? Maybe Sarah wasn't even at the same event as these women, and they are having a get together with whoever's baby that really is, but they made it appear to be her shower. I smell a rat.
I see the dark-haired female in the background, but it doesn't look like Willow or Bristol to me. She looks as if she's related to the young girl. Is her her name Reagen? There are captions under the pictures but my eyes aren't good enough to read them clearly. I also see a gray-haired person with her back turned. Maybe there were more people there than it appears at first.
The groups of ladies are sarah's friends: kristan, Kris and someone I can't think of right now.
Sarah doesn't like when personal pictures end up online. See: hacked emails and those pictures. and there was some comment that she was a little mad at her dad putting personal pics out for the public to see. I dont know how accurate that last one is, but she made a stink in an interview about the hacked emails and those pics. Sarah is a private person. Every politician deserves their privacy. The girl in the background does look like Willow a bit.
The baby shower Sarah referenced on her show was Piper's and thats been mentioned before by others
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