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.
