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Predictably, the smear comes from Daily Kos - a diary that has since been removed due to its controversial nature.

But Ed Morrissey at Hot Air had all the nauseating details:

This popped up on a Daily Kos diary and has unfortunately been repeated by bloggers who should know better. The rumor is a weird reversal of the John Edwards story, only this time, critics refute Palin's maternity. Supposedly, so the story goes, the baby really was their eldest daughter's (currently in high school), and not hers. The proof? At six months, Palin didn't "look pregnant", and supposedly her daughter had mono and took some time off from school. That's it.

This is, simply, despicable. Babies born to teen mothers rarely have Down's Syndrome anyway, whereas the possibility for that with a mother in her 40s is about 1 in 20. Athletic women sometimes do not show until late in the pregnancy. The whole rumor rests on the notion that the state's most visible woman could carry out a fake pregnancy in front of the press while simultaneously hiding her daughter, and then pull a switcheroo - and for what possible purpose? To cover up a teen pregnancy, in this day and age? Give me a break.

Note how without any proof whatsoever, the diarist at Kos simply pulls random events out of thin air and connects them.

My friend Jazz Shaw has more, quoting from the actual Kos diary:

;...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.

Palin does not appear pregnant in any recent photographs. The announcement came as quite a shock to people who had worked closely with her, and have been quoted as saying that she did not appear pregnant whatsoever during the prior 7 months. While this is debatable, you can judge for yourself here: http://gov.state.ak.us/photos.php

Palin "doesn't appear" pregnant. "Students report" her daughter has been out of class. Palin aides "have been quoted as saying..."

How does a pregnant woman "appear" at six months? Which students "report" that her daughter was out of school? Where were the quotes? Why no link? Ditto Palin "aides have been quoted..."

This is the very definition of a smear - wild charges made with absolutely no verifiable proof.

Do you think that is going to stop the left? Not MSNBC's Rachel Maddow:

Reader johnkelley e-mails to remind me of a segment which I saw on MSNBC earlier. Rachel Maddow (yes, I know... I know) told what sounded like a completely obscure, irrelevant story about Palin giving birth to her last child. Apparently, as she noted, Palin's "water broke" while on an extended trip to Texas, but she hopped a plane back home immediately to give birth in Alaska, "so desperate was she not to have her child born in Texas." Is Maddow on to something related to the first story in this piece but not ready to take it to the airwaves?

This is one of those blog stories that will percolate a few days and then explode on to the screens and pages of the MSM. Before you know it, the left will be demanding Palin take a paternity test to "prove" the child is her own.

This, coupled with "Troopergate" - where Palin fired the Commissioner for Public Safety because he wouldn't fire a state trooper - her sister's ex-husband - for gross violations including tasering her stepson and drinking on the job - will no doubt be played to the hilt by lefty blogs and their allies on MSNBC. It remains to be seen if they get any traction out of it.

Palin Smear of the Year: Baby not hers