Was that promise last week another lie? Again, I challenge Mark Salter personally. He called me crazy for asking questions about Sarah Palin's alleged fifth pregnancy. If you think questions are not worth asking, or based on nothing but partisanship and hate, please read this account of what is in the public records about it and make up your own mind. I think the bizarre circumstantial evidence easily rises to the level of material that should be addressed - as presumably could be done definitively - by the campaign. McCain chief aide, Mark Salter, said this about me to my colleague, Jeffrey Goldberg:

"This whole story about how the baby isn't hers? Jesus Christ. Just crazy shit."

Those are fighting words. Is Salter man enough to back them up? Or is he a coward? If it's such "crazy shit", why has the McCain campaign not released the readily available documents that can prove it's "crazy shit"? Here's what I wrote more than two months ago about the issue when the questions first emerged:

There must be plenty of medical records and obstetricians and medical eye-witnesses prepared to testify to Sarah Palin's giving birth to Trig... So please give us these answers - and provide medical records for Sarah Palin's pregnancy - and put this to rest.

Again, that was in August. It is not an answer to call bloggers "insane" because they are asking factual questions to which there must be evidentiary answers. (Yes, as Ed Morrissey notes, Biden, McCain and Obama have been bad on this as well, and this blog has criticized them for it, especially Biden where I've been relentless, given his aneurysm history. But only Palin has offered nothing at all. And only Palin has a core question of basic credibility at stake. Only Palin has used her medical history - her fifth child - as a campaign plank.)

We were told last week - finally - that Palin's medical records proving her fifth pregnancy and birth would be forthcoming "early this week." I congratulated the campaign for some minimal transparency at long last, and looked forward to getting this whole sorry story blown out of the water before election day. But Tracy Schmitt lied to us. The question you have to ask is: why?