Has Palin had breast implants?

It sure looks like it:

Palin last year on cover of Runner’s World, and Palin last Sunday at Belmont Stakes

Conservatives at Big Journalism are critical of the leftists at Wonkette for noticing it, just as there are always some commenters who are upset at me whenever I remark on something remarkable in the physical appearance of a public figure. However, the Wonkette comments about Palin are indeed loathsome and depraved, so the conservatives have a point. The left’s attitude toward Palin is deeply disturbed. I must say that with so many thousands of people freely expressing psychotic hatred of her, she should have security with her at all times.

As a less excited commenter at Wonkette points out, photos 1 and 2 of 60 in this series would tend to suggest that Palin has not had implants. At the same time, the evidence in the above photo strongly indicates to my mind that she has.

— end of initial entry —

Leonard D. writes:

You may not be aware of this, but female athletes, especially those with larger breasts, wear sports bras that strap down the breasts. For many large-breasted women, running without such a bra can be an unpleasant business. The wiki page does not mention it, but among the effects of wearing such a bra is that women look considerably smaller-breasted than they do in any other sort of bra. Thus, without knowing what she is wearing, any picture of a female athlete is fairly uninformative for the purposes of breast-size assessment. So showing a picture of Ms. Palin in her running gear is pretty meaningless.

Here is video of Palin in a swimsuit in her beauty-queen years. You can see that her breasts are adequate to the task of winning such contests then. I don’t see any reason to think Palin got breast implants.

LA replies:

Prior to this, I have never seen Palin, in any photo or TV appearance, in which she looks large breasted. She has always looked like a fairly small breasted woman, or average size at most. In the beauty context video, taken when she was 18, she looks average size, and was also probably enhanced for the purpose of the contest. There are no prior pictures of her in which she looks remotely as big busted as she does last Sunday at the Belmont, with these melons that have the typical look of silicone implants.

Also, even if Palin wears a running bra for running, she would have had no need of one to pose for the Runner’s World cover photo.

Was she also wearing a sports bra when she went out to her back yard to pose for the cover photograph of Going Rogue?

By the way, for anyone in the New York area who’s never done it, going to the horse races at the Belmont race track, in Queens, is a lot of fun.

Leonard replies:

Clothing can make a huge difference in how people look, including women’s breasts. You can hide a lot in a large shapeless jacket, as on the cover of Going Rogue. In fact Palin is usually photographed wearing a jacket of some sort, which is appropriate for a politician.

Also, it is possible for a still photo to make any aspect of a person look larger or smaller. The camera does not “see” exactly the way the eye does. Your brain autocorrects perspective distortion. This is true to some extent even looking at photos, but not nearly as much as when you look at video (or use the naked eye). You must look at many still photos (or a video stream) to get a fair assessment.

In the photo you’ve got, Palin is sticking her chest out (look where her arms are), and also looking to one side. Sticking out the chest emphasizes the breasts and makes them look large even to the human eye. And the camera will emphasize this further: closer things look larger in still shots. Similarly, looking to the side makes the head more distant from the camera and will make it appear smaller in a photo. (Contrast to the Going Rogue shot, where she is leaning slightly inward and has the Che Guevera look including a big head. Message: “I’m an intellectual like Che!”) Just look at the photos 1 and 2 you mention in that set, which feature Ms Palin on the same day in the same t-shirt.

Paul K. writes:

Seeing Palin on Fox News the other night, I thought she has put on weight—her face looks fuller—and that would account for some extra size in the bust. In the series of photos you linked, she doesn’t look as busty in any of them as she does in the pictures taken at Belmont. She may have been wearing a type of slightly padded Victoria’s Secret bra which makes the breasts look larger but which is also more comfortable. (I learned about this from my wife.) Another possibility: she’s pregnant again? [LA replies: No. Remember how no one noticed her last preganancy until something like the seventh month?]

If Palin has in fact had implants it would contribute to her image as a superficial beauty-queen, which will only further marginalize her. Personally, I hope she stays out of the 2012 race. If she gets the Republican nomination, it would be a great boon to Obama.

Jim C. writes:

With respect to the image of Palin wearing a jogging outfit: I’d surmise that her lovelies are being constrained by a tight sports bra. In the other image Palin appears to be wearing a supportive push-up bra, which has the opposite function from the sports bra

LA replies:

A push-up bra can make the breasts seem larger. They can’t make small to average size breasts turn into what we see in this photo.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 11, 2010 05:10 AM | Send