Sometimes, every once in a while, Sarah Palin will do something that I agree with. Usually it has to do with defending her family. I thought she was right to defend her daughter after Letterman’s failed joke. I also thought she was right to criticize Rahm Emmanuel for calling liberal “retarded.” It isn’t a nice thing to say, and as we’ve discussed before on the blog it is very hurtful to families and advocates of people with Down’s Syndrome.
So why is she giving Rush Limbaugh a pass for using the same word, in the same context, repeatedly?
Palin also used her platform to continue a call for the president to rid himself of his closest advisers. On Attorney General Eric Holder, she labeled his handling of captured terrorists — “allowing them our U.S. constitutional protections when they do not deserve them” — a firing offense. On Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, she said his comments calling liberal groups “f-ing retards” was “indecent and insensitive” and cause for his dismissal.
But the former governor went to great and sometimes awkward lengths to insist that when conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh used the same exact term to describe the same exact group, it was simply in the role of political humorist.
“They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh,” she said, when read a quote of Limbaugh calling liberal groups “retards.” “Rush Limbaugh was using satire … . I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards,’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there.”
Let’s get this straight – when Rahm Emmanuel uses the word in private conversation it’s a firing offense. When Limbaugh uses the word repeatedly on his national radio show, it’s funny. Shorter Sarah: IOKIYAR
Thank you Sarah, for reminding us that you actually have no redeeming qualities and that, yes, you do use your family as political props.