It's tough to know where to begin with something like this, it's so outrageous.

But in light of my earlier post about the vicious attacks on Governor Palin's daughter ("Trutherism is becoming a contagious disease"), I'm thinking that I need to revisit the question of what constitutes "trutherism."

At the core of the Truther belief system is not necessarily the assertion that a rumor or a conspiracy theory is true. Rather, it is the idea that such unfounded rumors require an "explanation" and have to be addressed, in the interest of "The Truth."

Politically, this is a great loophole for mischief-making and vicious slander-mongering, for it allows the accusers to hide behind the meme that they are actually engaged in a Search For Truth.

Thus, the people who attack Sarah Palin and her daughter can say that they really aren't attacking them. That this could all be cleared up! If only they'd offer proof!

Here's how Andrew Sullivan put it yesterday:

There must be plenty of medical records and obstetricians and medical eye-witnesses prepared to testify to Sarah Palin's giving birth to Trig. There must be a record of Bristol's high school attendance for the past year. And surely, surely, the McCain camp did due diligence on this. But the noise around this story is now deafening, and the weirdness of the chronology sufficient to rise to the level of good faith questions. So please give us these answers - and provide medical records for Sarah Palin's pregnancy - and put this to rest.

Here's a photo that looks like it confirms Palin's pregnancy, uploaded today, on what was the last day of the Alaska Legislature's Session, on April 13, 2008, five days before Trig Palin was born. More here. This seems to put the kibbosh on this, although it would still be good to have official confirmation from the McCain campaign, which should be easy enough to do. Just a simple confirmation from the doctor who was present at the birth. Here's a Times of London story on the affair. As for all the hyper-ventilation about how despicable and vile and evil it is to ask some easily verifiable questions about a central argument of the McCain-Palin campaign, read my original post a few hours ago.

Meanwhile, DailyKos is now having an Emily Litella moment:

Unless someone has counter evidence, we can drop this crap now. Yes, there are still some interesting questions, such as why she flew to Dallas and back when she was this pregnant, and why the Alaska Airlines crewmembers insisted that she was not visibly pregnant on the flight. Nevertheless, until this photo is debunked, we look stupid pushing this rumor.

They might drop the crap now, but the damage was done. To a young girl, who was -- and still is -- cruelly mocked in what may be the most outrageous (and sexist) displays of political viciousness in recent American history.

Bear in mind that this started with no evidence at all, other than someone repeating third-hand unsubstantiated information that Governor Palin never looked pregnant, and her daughter missed school because of mono:

;...the oldest girl is rumored to have actually been the one who had the last baby, the one with Down's Syndrome. She was taken out of school the last 4 or 5 months of her mother's pregnancy.

On March 5th, 2008 Alaska's Republican Governor, Sarah Palin, announced to the media that she was 7 months pregnant with her 5th child. She is currently 44.

Palin's daughter Bristol is 16 and attends an Anchorage high school. Students who have attended class with her report that she has been out of school for months, claiming a prolonged case of mono.

Ah, but that's part of the magic of Trutherism. There is no need for anyone to verify anything, any more than a troll commenter has to verify anything.

Under Trutherism, the onus is placed on the person accused to disprove -- in the name of The Truth!

How do we know, for example, that Todd Palin is in fact the father of any of "his" alleged biological children? And how do we know that John McCain, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden are the biological fathers of the children they claim to be theirs?

Americans need to know these things, because after all, the candidates claim to be in favor of family values, and by the Andrew Sullivan standard it shouldn't be asking too much for them to clear up these questions by performing easily available DNA testing, and "put this to rest."

The above may sound ridiculous, but it's an example of how Trutherism works. Once a rumor gets started and larger web sites with "credibility" get in on the action, even a baseless and otherwise ridiculous rumor can begin to take on the appearance of something that has to be denied. WorldNetDaily spread rumors that McCain was a Communist turncoat who lived in a Hanoi apartment with prostitutes during his phony captivity, and WND also helped spread an equally ridiculous rumor that Barack Obama was a sort of tour guide who had sex with his male client and plied him with drugs -- while in the state legislature! I took the claim seriously enough to carefully listen to the pack of made-up lies, which only reminded me how easy it is to promulgate them:

OK, I'm trying to be funny, and I'd like to laugh this all off, but it isn't the first time. That this is being treated as news by WorldNetDaily left me no choice but to painstakingly hear out the entire claim, word by word.

I'm feeling a bit too tired and a bit too depressed to illustrate the logical error involved. Otherwise, I might put my camera on a tripod, start the video recording, and then relate the story of lesbian S&M orgies in which Hillary Clinton forced me to participate, and the drugs she sold me.

(I'm still suffering from post traumatic stress, because her riding crop hurt me. And she never even let me wear a condom even though I asked for one. She kept saying "NO YOU CAN'T!"

I'm telling you, it's all seared, seared into my brain! Oh the horror!)

Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, had had an "illegitimate" son who became a U.S. Senator. Furthermore, according to Skolnick, highly respected by those who knew him, the son of that U.S. Senator is Christopher J. Dodd, now running for U.S. president!

Glancing at photos of Stalin and Dodd, one is struck by the resemblance. How far did Soviet Comintern (Cominform) penetration of the West get during the 1930s and 1940s? This question has been raised previously by Conspiracy Nation. ("Recent Exposes Of Reds," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/RedExposes.html). The superficially informed will not be aware of the "sleeper agent" concept. The patience of the Russian Bear is infinite, compared with our own "hurry-up" society.

I know my opinion doesn't count for much, but for what it's worth, I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that more proof is needed before we declare Lincoln was shot by his wife in a Rothschild conspiracy, or that Senator Dodd is Stalin's grandson.

I demanded no DNA testing, no medical records, even though they are all easily available and Senator Dodd could put this all to rest.

While the groundless Stalin/Dodd paternity rumor hasn't been taken seriously enough to have become a major industry, it's still floating around. Here's the original claim (by a well-known conspiracy theorist named Sherman Skolnick):

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin reportedly had an illegitimate son. The offspring, Stalin's illegitimate grandson reportedly is U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. His father was also a U.S. Senator who was censured by the U.S. Senate as a result of a scandal. A close associate of Chris Dodd in the past often visited Moscow and Siberia reportedly as part of the "U.S. State Department". More Great Secrets of the 20th Century to follow.

Anyone can say anything about anyone. I'm not seeing much difference between the Palin Truther standard and the Stalin Truther standard. Both "cases" involve ungrounded assertions of parentage (bolstered by asserted photographic similarities) affecting important public figures. Yet there's no chorus of rumor-mongers hiding behind the claim that "the truth" about Senator Dodd matters, and that he could easily "put this to rest."

But even if the rumor ever were to morph and grow until it reached the "Truther" stage of development, the Stalin analogy is very different in its dynamics. Senator Dodd is a grown man, a United States Senator, a seasoned political hardball veteran fully capable of defending himself against silly allegations.

Contrast that with the cruel attacks on a 16 year old girl and there really is no comparison.

I'm hoping this Palin Trutherism will backfire big time.

MORE: It turns out that a key photograph cited as "proof" (and used in the disgraceful smear campaign against Bristol Palin) was not even taken within the period in question:

Not only is the DailyKos disgustingly inspecting Bristol's midriff with all the fervor of LA paparazzi examining J-Lo's or Jennifer Aniston's washboard stomachs for evidence of a "bump," the DailyKos is wrong on when the photo was taken. It was taken, and published, by the Anchorage Daily News in 2006. Baby Trig, a child with Down's Syndrome, was born on April 18, 2008. That's a long time for a teen girl to be carrying a "bump" which looks nothing more than the curve of a tight sweater.

Being a Truther means never having to check the details of what you're citing.

MORE: The Palin family released a statement saying that Bristol Palin is five months pregnant now, and that she plans to marry the father.

While this pregnancy is utterly irrelevant to the malicious claim that she gave birth to her brother in April (or that her mother was not pregnant), I'd be willing to bet that some of the Truthers will claim they were "vindicated." (Probably under the theory that iIf she wasn't pregnant with her brother, she might as well have been. And pregnancy is hypocrisy. Or something....)

I'm sorry this was forced on them.

The family shouldn't have had to say a damned thing about what should be a private family matter.

MORE: Michele Catalano looks at the smear-Palin machine:

The fact is, the left is all about privacy in the matters of the womb. Were they to stay true to their colors, this mantra of theirs would seem to preclude them from judging Bristol's pregnancy and her choice to keep her child, right? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Kos kids and their blog followers have already made one attempt to ruin this girl's life. Now that they have a story with actual truth behind it, we'll have to sit back and see how far they run with a teenager's identity.

Let me make it clear: there are many things I don't like about Sarah Palin. We are ideologically opposed on numerous issues. Her stance on creationism and her pro-life zealousness are just two examples. Two big ones. There's the fact that McCain chose Palin for VP after meeting her only once; I'd like to think that more thought goes into the process than the need to find a conservative woman for your ticket. I'm naive like that. But the last two days of mudslinging against Palin have been so extreme, they have transformed her into an almost sympathetic figure in my eyes. More important, the barbs thrown at her have made me look upon liberals with a level of contempt I have not felt since, well, 2004.