Most of you may have heard that Sarah Palin’s 26-year-old son Track Palin was arrested in Wasilla, Alaska on Monday for domestic violence. He apparently slugged his girlfriend, pulled out a gun, and threatened her. Here’s an excerpt from the police report (name of victim redacted):
As Gawker reported, Track was arrested for “assault in the fourth degree (domestic violence), interfering with a report of domestic violence, and possession of a weapon while intoxicated.”
Now I’m not going to tar Palin with her son’s misdeeds. Suffice it to say that this “model American family” has its problems. But where I do fault Palin is for blaming the actions of Track, an Iraq war veteran, on the Obama administration. As PuffHo reports:
Palin decided to address what she called “the elephant in the room” during a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before she introduced Donald Trump, whom she endorsed Tuesday.
“My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different. They come back hardened, they come back wondering if there’s that respect for what it is their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military have so sacrificially given to this country,” Palin said, adding that she can “relate with other families who can feel these ramifications of PTSD and some of the woundedness our soldiers do return with.”
Palin went on to criticize the Obama administration’s treatment of veterans, implying that the president had something to do with her son’s situation.
The Washington Post gives more detail about what Palin said:
“It’s a shame that our military personnel even have to wonder if they have to question if they’re respected anymore. It starts from the top,” said Palin. “The question, though, it comes from our own president where they have to look at him and wonder, ‘Do you know what we go through? Do you know what we’re trying to do to secure America and to secure the freedoms that have been bequeathed us?’”
Now I’ve learned that Palin’s son was in a combat unit in Iraq for a year in 2008, but I can’t find evidence that he was actually involved in any fighting. Nevertheless, I suppose just being in a combat zone itself could cause mental problems that later trigger violent behavior.
But that doesn’t matter, because Sarah Palin not only overlooked Obama’s extensive efforts to help veterans (and Republicans’ opposition to bills providing veterans benefits; see also here), but uttered not a single word of sympathy for the victim of her son’s attack. She is making political capital out of a deplorable physical attack on a woman.
At least one veteran’s organization has decried Sarah Palin’s attempt to tar the President for what her son did (it’s not clear, by the way, whether Track Palin even has post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD):
“It’s not President Obama’s fault that Sarah Palin’s son has PTSD,” said Paul Rieckhoff, who heads Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “PTSD is a very serious problem, a complicated mental health injury and I would be extremely reluctant to blame any one person in particular.”
A few Europeans I talked to are amazed that Palin is even taken seriously as an American political figure. But one added, correctly, that when she endorsed Donald Trump for President in a speech we liberals find hilarious, she was hitting exactly the right notes that resonated with Iowa Republicans.
We are bemused in the UK that Palin is taken seriously. It scares the ships out of us that Trump is
She is taken seriously only by those who lament the demise of the Keystone Kops.
– But the disastrous foreign policy adventures of Clinton and Obama do not scare you. They are directly responsible for the disasters in Libya and Syria.
– How many in the UK is “We”? All, many, some? You surely don’t speak for all.
– Trump is endlessly caricatured in the Progressive press. I don’t particularly trust him but relying on the media to honestly report what he says is a mistake.
– You have your own jokers such as Corbyn. The far-Left has been responsible for far greater crimes than the Right. Yet they never learn. What is more dangerous is that they become academics.
“directly responsible for the disasters in Libya and Syria.”
Uh, no, they’re not. And even if they were, that’s not the same thing as campaigning with the promises of engaging in foreign policy disasters. Palin and Trump are proud of their stupidity.
“relying on the media to honestly report what he says is a mistake.”
Not really. Videos show him quite clearly spouting idiocy. Pretending that he’s misquoted a lot is a bit delusional.
“far-Left has been responsible for far greater crimes than the Right”
The far left is ostracized in the liberal community, but the far right is dominant in conservative circles at the present time, so it doesn’t really matter if you’re correct or not.
Even so, we’re not discussing whether far left or far right is better, we’re comparing non-crazy people vs crazy people.
please do tell us how wonderful Donald Trump is and how he isn’t the twit that that we have seen every time he is in front of a camera, in the campaign and out?
and possession of a weapon while intoxicated.”
Well, I don’t know Paul personally, but I’ve not met anyone in Britain who considers Palin to be anything other than an insane joke. Fun, like putting broken glass in the playground sand pit.
His words speak for themselves, marking him as a dangerous, misogynistic lunatic.
I voted for Corbyn. I actually re-joined the Labour party to be able to vote for him. He might actually turn the party back in the right direction after the treasonable betrayal of B.Liar.
somehow I doubt that there’s any benefit to discussing politics with you. You’re a right-winger and on the dangerous wing.
(accidental VR boudlerisation; I didn’t mean “ships”. Sorry)
This is possibly the first time ever that anyone has apologised for *not* saying ‘shit’. 😉
cr
When I write “Giant Trevally” (a magnificent and fierce sport fish), spellcheck insists on changing it to “Giant Trivially”.
This throws new light on Glasgow’s shipbuilding heritage.
Palin suggests her son’s troubles somehow have something to do with Obama’s lack of support for veterans, which is absurd on its face. Let us remember, too, that the reason Track Palin volunteered to serve in the first place was that, in 2005, he was accused, along with three other teenagers, of cutting the brake line of a school bus. The Frontiersman newspaper reported that the four had stolen a bottle of vodka from a liquor store and gone on a vandalism spree. He joined up only to duck the consequences of his arrest. He’s a reckless and belligerent bully.
Further, Obama has significantly increased the funding specifically for the treatment of PTSD. He has done more to recognize the problem than any other president ever.
Yeesh.
You know, I didn’t fall off the sofa in astonishment when you gave me that news.
Imagine what we’d be hearing if Obama’s daughters acted like Palin’s kids.
Indeed.
How much more data do we need to collect before right-wingers will notice that being a gun-totin’, tax-hatin’, fag-bashin’, border-closin’, war-lovin’ Patriot™ doesn’t have the salubrious effect on morality they claim it does.
Great googlymoogly. How could I have left out something like “church-goin'”?
Yes, can you just imagine what the GOP would have said in 2008 if Malia Obama (she was very young; but grant the hypothesis) had been pregnant instead of Bristol Palin?!
But the GOP jester gets a pass. (Afterall, she didn’t get an abortion!)
And then suppose Malia got into a drunken brawl, and then got knocked up again, all the while sanctimoniously preaching abstinence.
As far as I know, Palin has never explicitly said that her son has PTSD, and as I understand it, his discharge record does not indicate that he ever actually saw combat (I have heard that he served largely as a base chauffeur).
This is what should concern S. Palin (and now Trump, but association). If it comes out that her son never saw service in the form that might cause PTSD, and has not been diagnosed with PTSD, there will be a slow build backlash against her for using this problem as a cheap political tool. Veterans alone will get mighty pissed.
I would conjecture that the son of a high profile politician would NOT be anywhere near combat.
Having the VP candidate’s son killed or injured would be a great win for the enemy and detract from the morale of our own troops.
I imagine the military is attuned to such things.
I don’t doubt he has PTSD, from his Mom.
He does have PTSD: Palin Total Stupidity Disease.
aces! +1
That raucous voice which spouts “ships” ( pace Paul above:-) is enough to give any sane person nightmares. Trevor Noah made hilarious hay with her announcement last night. This possible Trump/Palin ticket made me wonder if that conspiracy theory might actually have some truth to it: that Trump is running to ruin the Repugs’ chsnces and give the election to Hilary. Americans can’t really be THAT stoopid, can we?
The real stupid ones are the ones that won’t bestir themselves to vote. College kids especially.
True. I dislike people who feel too intelligent and posh to vote, and then rant that the government sucks.
If Trump asks Palin to be his running mate I would consider it proof that Trump is running a fake candidacy to elect a Democrat.
As I said yesterday, though, I don’t think Trump is stupid and I don’t (quite) think he’s running a fake candidacy. I think once he gets the primary milage out of Palin as a firewall for potential Cruz voters Trump will do the smart thing and act like he doesn’t know who she is in the general election. “I have a lot of supporters… I can’t remember them all.”
Yes. And I’m happy to say now that if he wins the Republican nomination, he will NOT select Palin as VP.
He respects her only for her ability to rally crowds and attract votes.
Especially of the evangelical and Tea Party variety. She is useful to him right now. Then comes the hangover…
Exactly!
I think it was Rumsfield who said, when asked why the troops did not have any body armor – We go with what we have.
If her son has PTSD which is not likely – Why does he also have an AR-15? Palin is as always, a moron. More than likely that any daughter in law of Palin would have PTSD.
Maybe all children of Palin have PTSD because of growing up under her influence.
Certainly but then we call it PPTSD
This is what happens when people find you out and you can’t live with the consequences.
Republican Family Values™.
Nauseating. Are there no depths to which she will not sink?
“My son abused and threatened to murder his girlfriend. Thanks Obama!” – Sarah Palin.
Maybe he can get some of the awful Obama Care.
Which actually cuts out one of the GOP’s anti-Clinton points too.
Palin expressed no sympathy for the victim of her son’s violence, just like Clinton expressed none for her husband’s mistresses. At least his attentions were consensual.
Notice the incremental increase in unhinged desperation, stentorian screeching, puerile rhyming, and paranoid anxiety throughout her speeches since 2008. It’s time for the family to seek mandatory outpatient care.
Make it be “inpatient care”
Ehrm, it’s my understanding that even if PTSD could be blamed on a POTUS, you’d have to pick the right one. Reports I’ve seen indicate he served under Bush 43 not Obama. So there’s that.
W was indeed responsible for the Iraq war in which Track served. But the current issue is care for veterans who have returned. Republicans do not have a strong hand on that issue either. They are responsible for the “sequester” which limited federal spending after the recession.
Oh dear, did I wander off topic in my dotage? I forget others aren’t as used to my befuddlement as I am.
I wonder why conservatives aren’t claiming credit for reducing the deficit via the sequester? I’d think they’d want to rob Obama of taking credit for that during his 3rd term as President.
Why would they take credit for reducing the deficit when they are doing a great job of convincing people that the deficit is increasing? They’d have to admit that it’s gone down first, and that they will NEVER do.
If only we could identify the person who sent him into war on false pretenses. I guess we’ll never know.
He sent himself. He volunteered. Frankly, I thought that his mom emotionally blackmailed him to volunteer so that to boost her rating.
Mercinaries send themselves. Everyone else is sent, including volunteers. Volunteers sign up to “do their duty”. It’s up to the people who send them to ensure that it’s not a crock.
Using Saddam’s alleged WMDs as a pretext for war and then failing to find them was of course a PR disaster, but I don’t think the Iraq war was so wrong from ethical point of view as to make a soldier remorseful. The toppled government was not a nice, democratic one based on rule of law. The USA took no land from Iraq and did not try to Christianize it. Actually – and unfortunately – the war and its aftermath diminished the number of Christians in Iraq.
To me, the take-home lesson from the 2003 Iraq war is, “Do not go to war without clear knowledge of the situation, and never under a false pretext.” For most people, however, it seems to be, “Stay aside from any and every war!” Which would be a good idea if everyone adhered to it, but this is not the case.
To be honest, the tanks shouldn’t have stopped rolling in 1991. But that’s “what-if” territory.
That’s exactly why we went back in 2003, though, because Cheney, et. al. came to regret stopping when they did in 1991. All the rest is just spin for what they had made up their mind to do many years earlier.
If they had presented it as a “we fucked up, we need to fix this”, they might have got a lot more support, of not very … enthusiastic.
But I think it would have been better to have gone to Baghdad in 1991. If you lance a boil, digging deeper is normally at-worst a little more painful. Compared to the future pain.
But that’s the dead past. The one thing we learn from history is that damned-few people learn damned-all from history.
Plain sounds like a liberal here. Ducking individual responsible is supposed to be our MO isn’t it? Guess it’s OK to excuse individual behavior when it is your kid.
Sarah,
That would be “relate TO” not “relate with” (use the latter for a tool of relating like “relate with passion”).
Also, the “it is” is quite unnecessary in “respect for what it is their fellow soldiers” and the “it” is utterly out of place in “The question, though, it comes from our own president” (only one subject per sentence)
And less seriously, “if they have to question” should probably be “if they need to question”
Regards,
JLH
Correcting Sarah Palin’s use of language is like trying to empty the sea with a teaspoon. There’s really no point in even trying.
You would have a lifetime’s work teaching Sarah Pee to speak remotely grammatically😝
It’s confusing. My understanding was that high-profile types like Palin had people writing their public pronouncements for them.
I think a hidden assumption about reading skills is tripping you up.
😉
Beat me to it…
cr
If her son does not have PTSD then maybe he has a severe case of affluenza.
+ 1
Indeed.
+1
considering that it seems that Mommy was calling the brass constantly at Track’s base, of course he never saw combat. She’s making excuses for her son who is just as much of a wannabee patriot as his mother and just as prone to violence.
and another +1 for the affluenza comment.
I am one of hundreds of government scientists devoted to the care, treatment, and rehabilitation for TBI, PTSD, chronic pain and other neurological and behavioral issues. It incredibly depressing to have Palin announce to a credulous public that nothing is being done. If she is ignorant of all the people who are dedicated to helping active duty and veterans, it is because she chooses to be ignorant. But that is no surprise is it. What a horrific woman.
I too was a government scientist, and it physically pains me when I see statements from people like SP and her ilk regarding what we do…I despise her (though she’s a tool really) and consider her trash…but that feeling in itself is corrosive and demoralizing (to us). Now I work for a large corporation (in the life science world) that would not exist without NCBI, but I bite my tongue and just carry on ’cause few want to hear the truth.
Well, she is not poor, so EVEN if government doesn’t do enough for veterans with PTSD, she could help her son seek private care. This way, her son will have more comfort in choosing where and when to have the appointments, and the scarce government options, IF they are scarce indeed, will remain for those who really need them.
“My PTSD was causing me to have delusions- I thought my girlfriend WAS Obama!
I erroneously dropped this into a comment above.
That implies that Alaska has a law banning possession of a weapon while intoxicated. Which is one small step towards sanity.
I assume that the weapon has been confiscated – permanently, since it has been used in an assault.
Of course, if the weapon actually belongs to someone else in the house (e.g. Palin herself), then that owner is guilty of not securing the weapon against it being taken by an intoxicated person. So the weapon should be confiscated, and that throws serious doubt over the fitness of the owner to hold any weapons.
This is America. If you breathe, you are fit to have a weapon.
Nostril-breathing. or mouth-breathing?
… and she named him “Track”.
I expect he got PTSD at school. From the other kids.
cr