Thirty-one days after the election . . .

. . . and Andrew Sullivan is still obsessed by Trig trutherism. To a conspiracy theorist, no fact is an obstacle. The most obvious obstacle to Sully's theory -- i.e., that Trig was actually Bristol's first child and Sarah faked a pregnancy to hide that scandal -- is that Down's syndrome is (a) rare among births to women under 25, and (b) relatively common among women over 40. At age 39, a woman has 10 times the risk of having a Down's pregnancy, compared to a woman under 25 (where the risk is 1 in 1,400 births). The very fact that Trig is a Down's baby means that Sarah being the mother is at least 10 times as likely as Bristol being the mother.

Beyond that, it is utterly irrelevant, its news value at zero and still falling. Obama's already won the election and, while there is maybe a 50-50 chance Palin will be the 2012 GOP nominee, nobody except Sully has ever put any stock in this bizarro theory, so why the hell would they care about it four years from now?

Will the Republican Party be playing the Bill Ayers/Jeremiah Wright card in four years? No, of course not. An issue that doesn't gain traction in one election cycle is not going to suddenly metamorphose into Kryptonite before the next cycle. This was what was so stupid about Dan Rather trying to chase down the Texas Air National Guard "scandal" in 2004 -- who gave a crap about that old stuff from 30 years ago, when Bush had already been president for four years?

Because Sully has cornered the market on Trig trutherism -- a toxic commodity that no serious journalist is interested in -- he keeps pushing it, 'cause it's the only thing he's got. Pathetic. Just pathetic.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse gives Sully a brisk fisking, and commenter Kirk Parker adds:

"Maybe I am crazy..."
Wow, I see a glimmer of self-awareness beginning to assert itself.

Cruel, horribly cruel. True. But cruel.