The Wild, Pointless World of Bristol Palin Pregnancy Conspiracy Theories 

Right Wing Crooks’ supposed smoking gun is this: they zoomed way in on Palin’s IV tape in the above birth photo, then claimed they lightened it via Photoshop and found that it reads 11/4/15.

With that little tidbit, the theory quickly spread to a bunch of other blogs, including Addicting Info, who presented it as perhaps more of a bombshell than it, uh, is:

How far-fetched is it really? You would simply have to consider what Sarah and the Palins would do to keep Bristol safe from the career (doing whatever it is she does) ending publicity of a one-night stand Vegas baby. Already her position as an abstinence counselor makes absolutely no sense, so that’s kind of a wash, but with the Duggaresque hypocrisy of Bristol being a faith blogger on Patheos and possibly a future “where are they now” Dancing With The Stars special guest, the concept of changing a couple of months for a clean(er) slate may have been just that appealing.

And something either called Idly or Crave Online, who had their own sophisticated theories:

TL;DR Bristol Palin is incapable of passing up a raw dog, and her parents will do anything to make sure she’s seen as a innocent, persecuted Christian who Satan repeatedly makes dicks appear in her vagina.

Bristol responded to the conspiracy theories on Tuesday, telling Entertainment Tonight that baby was born right near the Christ child, you betcha:

Admitted the night of 12/22/15 when they started my IV and then day of 12/23/15 had my baby girl!” Bristol told ET, along with photos of her in the hospital with mom Sarah and one of her sisters.

She included photos of a closeup of her IV, with the date 12/22/15 clearly visible, and a photo of herself, Sarah and one of her sisters, dated December 23, 11:11 a.m.

All of this, then, centers around that IV tape on Bristol’s hand. And so, Jezebel’s crack team of Pregnancy Investigators tried lightening the same photo, and actually found something…really fucking weird. We did not, as Right Wing Crooks did, find a clear date of November. We found what looks like a scribble where the month should be.

The rest of the date is pretty clearly illegible, except, we guess, via Right Wing Crooks’ more sophisticated methods.

“To my very untrained eye,” says comparative Photoshop expert and fellow Jezebel staffer Bobby Finger, “It looks like anyone trying to pull actual numbers from that is reeeeally stretching.” Jezebel deputy editor Jia Tolentino and Gawker Media staff artist Sam Woolley, an actual expert, also tried lightening the image to make it readable, with no success.

In other words, this theory is probably bullshit, and Bristol Palin was hounded about the date of her baby’s birth for no good reason except that she’s Bristol Palin and her hypocrisy as a former abstinence spokeslady can appear, well, unfortunate.

And if by some wild chance the theories are true and Palin really did get pregnant via one-night-stand in Vegas, that would make things a lot simpler for her now: Meyer is reportedly seeking joint custody. Sarah Palin, the reason any of these people are even remotely newsworthy, responded to that one pretty sharply, claiming he’d been MIA for a while:

“For many months we have been trying to reach out to Dakota Myers [sic] and he has wanted nothing to do with either Bristol’s pregnancy or the baby.”