Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:43 pm
Cover of New York Daily News, January 20, 2016
Sarah Palin has laid the blame for her son’s violent behavior – getting drunk, beating up his girlfriend, and threatening to shoot himself – on President Obama.
Trump now says he agrees. He told CNN host Don Lemon on Wednesday:
“There was tremendous press and I think it’s something that’s very important to discuss not even for her son, but for so many other sons and daughters that are coming back from the Middle East where they have, you know, traumatic problems, they have tremendous problems and I told her. I actually suggested. I think I said I think it would be a great forum. And I know, she started the dialogue.
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“I think it’s a very important dialogue. Because she told me that they’re coming back, so many are coming back and they are, you know, they’re under tremendous pressure and tremendous strain. There’s no question about it.”
Watch courtesy of CNN (Track Palin comes up at the 19:30 mark):
Then Lemon obligingly gave Trump the opening he was looking for: “Do you think it’s fair to link the president with her son’s issues?
“Oh, I think so. Look, you know, everything starts at the top and he’s the president. And I think you can certainly do that. From what I understand, they just — and all you have to do is look at the Veteran’s Administration, look at the bad, the horrible care our vets get.”
Of course, Trump says he will fix all this – maybe between one of his divorces/remarriages and/or bankruptcies:
“One of the many things I’m going to do is I’m going to straighten that mess out. You take a look at the Phoenix Veterans Administration in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s a disgrace. It’s a cesspool. It’s dishonest. It’s corrupt in every way, it’s incompetent.
“But more I think frankly, I think it’s more dishonest than incompetent. But you look at this is true all over the country. And I think it’s a good thing and you have to say ultimately, it’s the president’s charge, it’s the president’s responsibility. He has to make sure that Veterans Administration works, but it doesn’t. Our vets are being treated horribly.”
However, as CNN’s Donna Brazile has observed, it is Republicans in the House of Representatives who have cut more than $1.4 billion in funding Obama had wanted for veterans’ services. Leave it to Trump to support stupid with more stupid. If he is not the most ill-informed man in America, it is only because he is standing with Sarah Palin.
Trump is the ultimate opportunist, adapting to the long-standing Republican position of attacking Obama for everything and blaming Obama for everything while thanking him for nothing. To suggest that the president is to blame for Palin’s son’s poor behavior and apparently appallingly defective upbringing, that he is to blame while Palin is not, defies all logic.
Whatever happened to the Republican focus on personal responsibility? Is Track Palin in no way responsible for his own actions? It’s not like the kid was an angel before he joined the army, any more than Palin herself has ever been the biblical Esther.
Sarah Palin opened her mouth and stupid came out. Trump, apparently, felt obliged to keep up with the Palins, and that’s a losing proposition every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
