During a stump speech for Donald Trump today, Sarah Palin blamed son Track's arrest on domestic violence charges on President Obama and PTSD. Even Fox News host Gretchen Carlson seemed to think it was crazy.
On Monday, one day before Palin made her splashy endorsement of Trump, son Track was arrested after allegedly punching his girlfriend in the face and threatening to kill himself with an assault rifle.
In a bizarre rant that was supposedly a campaign speech for Trump, Palin served the following word salad in which she suggested it's President Obama's fault her son has not been treated for PTSD:
Our wounded warriors who come home from the battlefield bringing new battles with them. Our wounded warriors, sometimes in body and in mind coming back different than when they left for the war zone. I can talk personally about this. I guess it’s kind of an elephant in the room because my own family going through what we’re going through today with my son, a combat vet having served in a Stryker brigade, fighting for you all, America, in the war zone.
But my son, like so many others, they come back a bit different. They come back hardened, they come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country. And that starts from the top. 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. The question, though, that 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?”
So when my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate with other families who kinda feel these ramifications of some PTSD and some of the woundedness that our soldiers do return with. And it makes me realize, more than ever, it is now or never. For the sake of America’s finest that we have that Commander-in-Chief who will respect them and honor them.
But chances are, Track Palin was in trouble before he ever went to Iraq. In 2008, the Enquirer reported about Track Palin, as Gawker put it, “A serious drug problem, vandalism, theft, and partying are his main pastimes, allegedly.” In 2014, Palin broke his ribs after taking part in a drunken brawl. I don’t recall Sarah Palin demanding better treatment for his PTSD then, do you?
What’s almost as odd as Palin’s ramble was Fox News’ reaction. I kept expecting to see Palin as a guest on Fox to extol Donald Trump’s presidential virtues last night and today. But, as far as I can tell, she has not been. Today, when The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson covered Palin’s speech, the “fair and balanced” network clearly set the stage for disapproval. In a brief discussion afterward, Carlson’s only question, which was also similar to the subtitle given to the segment by FoxNews.com, was about the appropriateness of Palin’s remarks. Carlson even questioned whether Track Palin suffers from PTSD at all. Carlson asked her guests, “Was this the right time for Sarah Palin to talk about (this when) we don’t know if he is suffering from any of the above?”
Conservative guest Chris Plante said, “It’s the Mama Grizzly thing… building a legal defense right here on television… She’s a mother.”
So Carlson pressed even more pointedly, this time to liberal Leslie Marshall, a Fox News contributor. “From a PR point of view, Leslie, I mean is it smart for her to get out in front of it? I mean, here she is once again on the national stage and she’s having to face issues about her family, which she has done before?”
Plante said, “Yeah,” offscreen.
Marshall was critical, saying that Palin could have hurt her son’s defense by “saying too much.” Marshall added, “So I don’t think it was a smart thing to do and I don’t think it was the right venue.”
But nobody commented on Palin’s bizarre attempt to blame President Obama.
Watch Palin’s remarks below, via Crooks and Liars. Fox News’ criticisms are below that, starting at about 8:40, from today’s The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.
I take from that that she had either a squamous cell or basal cell skin cancer, it was removed, and that was the end of it because neither of those metastasize quickly. (Melanoma metastasizes usually before you even notice the skin lesion.) Neither of those very minor surgeries would require a painkiller for more than a day or two afterwards. She certainly wouldn’t be on them months later.
It’s barely possible she did have a melanoma, though I have a hard time believing she’d keep it secret if she had something so dramatic. If she did, removing that would mean a deeper surgery, but still not something you’d need painkillers for months. She’d then be on a newly developed chemotherapy, one that apparently has had great success but as I understand it, doesn’t have your hair fall out or make you sick as a dog.
So obviously, we don’t know what the real story is and how she was treated for whatever it was, but from what she did say, odds are extremely high she’s not on painkillers now for any skin cancer. (I’ve had friends who’ve been through all three, FYI.)
It’s not common to get one of the two minor sun-exposure skin cancers on the top of the head unless you’re a bald person who goes around outside without a hat a lot, but I suppose it’s possible. If she’d had a skin cancer removed from her head, she’d have had to have a lot of hair shaved off to do it, which might have had her take to wearing a wig for a while, depending on where it was.
But she has very thick and luxurious hair (I’d kill for hair like that) which she often takes to wearing piled up on her head in rather odd ways that look wiggish.
I’m not very familiar with the way people behave on opioid painkillers long-term, but my impression is that they’re more blissed out and giddy than overexcited and aggressive, but who knows. I tend to think she manufactures her own brain chemicals.
But whatever is causing her bizarre behavior, Jane S, I agree that she has been on a long decline. She strikes me as someone who became a victim of her own celebrity. She got a lot of attention and money but she really doesn’t have the skills to handle it. She’s got nowhere to go now. Even if Donald Trump gets elected, I think we can count on the fact that she’ll never have a role in his administration. She’s burned a lot of bridges and is not equipped to do anything except hate monger.
I suspect she’s blown through much if not all of her money, too.
It’s sad, really, because she was something unusual and special (even if you hated a lot of her politics, as I always have), and that’s almost totally gone now. She’s just become shrewish with bitterness.
Jane S, I agree Palin has become more shrewish. I actually think she’s stoned on oxycontin or something like that.
tip of the hat to DU.
And no, all bets are not off. There’s a certain level of decency at stake here, and making political hay over the troubled child (or children) of a public figure who isn’t even running for office is way over the line, even if that public figure did so first.
Bristol Palin has made herself a public figure since the campaign, and she’s fair game. Track has not, and he isn’t.
It’s not surprising a chuckle-head like Sarah says stupid, ridiculous things. It’s her trademark. It’s that so many drooling Tea Party lemmings applaud her responsibility dodging vomit on cue.
No worries. When The Donald appoints Sarah Secretary of Defense she can really take care of our vets. You betcha! 😜
But either way, we don’t know that. The Palin family is under no obligation whatsoever to tell the public how they’re dealing with their troubled son.
Palin is a very different creature than she was in ‘08, when there was a lot of good nature even in her jibes against Obama. She’s become much more bitter and angry in the years since. SHe’s now become actually shrewish.
She’s actually the one in her family who needs psychiatric intervention, actually, IMO, and I say that with a bit of sympathy.
He was forced to join the army by his parents, in order to avoid jail, because he had been arrested, was drinking and using drugs, and was prone to violence. He had PTSD from being raised by his mother and father in that nuthouse in Wasilla.
Well, of course. This is no surprise.
Caribou Barbie, you recall, was persona non grata after she called out Fox in general, and BillO in particular, as “quasi-conservatives” (“Quasi” likely being on her “word-of-the-day” calendar for that day) following the Duggar fiasco:
http://www.newshounds.us/was_sarah_palin_fired_from_fox_because_she_called_out_megyn_kelly_s_duggar_interviews_120415
Rupie and Ailes took that as Palin biting the hand that fed her; thus, Fox hosts are, since then, no longer under any obligation, contractually or otherwise, to treat her as a serious political figure or take seriously anything that emerges from her word salad-hole.
Just wait: if The Combover starts tanking in the polls, or even if he becomes the nominee and gets royally stomped by Hillary and/or Bernie in the general, watch the Fox hosts meme become, “Did Palin’s Endorsement Sink The Donald?”
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