'Babygate' is the brouhaha that followed in the wake of
Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin being tabbed by John McCain as his GOP vice
presidential running mate. 'Babygate' alleged that Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome baby Trig was actually the out-of-wedlock offspring of Sarah's teen-aged daughter Bristol, and that Sarah had 'appropriated' Bristol's baby as her own to avoid the scandal of unwed motherhood within a staunchly
Fundamentalist home. Adding fuel to the Babygate rumors, during the last five months of Governor Palin's unannounced and unobserved pregnancy with Trig, Bristol Palin had been absent from school owing to 'mononucleosis.'