When It Is and Isn't Ok to Use Your Mentally Retarded Child As A Political Prop

All politician's are hypocrites -- it's such a truism that it doesn't even really need to be said. Part of it is the very nature of the job; with 535 senators and representatives, a president, a supreme court, and on and on, it's impossible for one person to deliver on any specific promise they make. And of course, the people masochistic enough to endure months of nationally televised attacks on themselves, their ideas, and their past are obviously a special sub-set of humanity that need attention really bad and are willing to do pretty much anything to get it.

Yet some push hypocrisy to beautiful new heights. Take Sarah Palin, for instance (no, please take her! buh-dum-ching!). We all know she's an incredible idiot and I don't need to pile on more examples of how she's not even fit for managing a Denny's let alone some sort of national office. But beyond her stupefying idiocy, she has truly become a master of hypocrisy, especially concerning her own family.

Leaving aside the whole "abstinence only education and only bad parents have pregnant teenage daughters except for me because this is actually an example of being a good parent" thing, her son Trig takes up most of her hypocritical rantings.

We were all introduced to Trig's Down-Syndrome cuteness during her vice-presidential acceptance speech when he was continually used as a prop to show what an amazing mother she was. Then when the whole drunken-redneck-knocks-up-her-daughter-and-leaves story broke and she started drawing heat it suddenly became out-of-bounds to talk about the family she kept constantly referencing.

And then came her "I'm quitting but I'm not a quitter" resignation speech, when she once again talked about all those big, bad journalists who keep talking about the family she won't stop talking about. So the subject's buried, right? She told us to quit talking about/looking at/being aware of the existence of her family and slunk away from the national spotlight. Certainly we're done with discussions of Mz. Palin and her special needs baby, right?

No! Of course not! For shortly after her "only a monster uses a Downs Syndrome child to further their political causes" speech, she once again used her Down Syndrome baby to further her political agenda, claiming Obama's (unfortunately) not-at-all socialized medicine would murder her baby. (The fact that she did this over Facebook is an entirely different post...)

So what does she follow up her totally level-headed claim of government death panels that murder babies with? A call for "civil discourse" that doesn't get "sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment."

Yeah, because when we're discussing government-controlled baby-murder squads we certainly don't want people to get all hyperbolic and start making wild accusations, do we?