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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

Palin, Emanuel. Pot, Kettle

By The Daily Dish
Feb 3 2010, 12:33 PM ET

SARAHTRIGBillPugliano:Getty

Did she really just call for Rahm Emanuel to be fired because he allegedly used the term "fucking retarded" to refer to fellow Democrats in a private meeting? Last summer? Did she really?

I don't like the term myself. I think it is offensive. I think Rahm Emanuel is offensive. But at least he's real.  And he has now apologized. And at least he used the term metaphorically.

Palin, in contrast, called her own campaign prop "her retarded baby" in private, according to an eye-witness account from the father of her own grandson who lived in her house for months and knew her intimately. "I was just in shock the first time I heard it," Levi Johnston told CBS. Unlike Sarah Palin, Johnston has not been caught in multiple indisputable lies. I believe him over her. In fact, in any factual dispute, I believe anyone over her.

While I'm at it, does anyone actually believe that Palin's name for the child of miraculous provenance was found by her deep knowledge of ancient Norse as she claims in her magical-realism novel, "Going Rogue"? I mean, seriously. She knows about as much ancient Norse as she does English grammar. It's as credible as the idea that she gave a speech while having contractions, several hours after going into labor, as she claims in her novel. It's as credible as her amazing journey in labor with a special needs child on a plane where the flight attendants, according to the Anchorage Daily News, did not even notice she was pregnant. It's as credible as any number of indisputable self-serving, unbalanced lies that she has told in the public record for years.



The medical term for Down Syndrome is Trisomy-21 or Trisomy-g. It is often shortened in medical slang to Tri-g.

Is it not perfectly possible that the very name given to this poor child, being reared by Bristol, is another form of mockery of his condition, along with the "retarded baby" tag? And does the way in which this poor child was hauled around the country on a book tour, being dragged out in front of flash photographs in the middle of the night, barely clothed, suggest someone who actually cares for children with special needs, or rather sees them as a way to keep the spotlight on her?

C'mon, Levi. Write that book. Expose this fraud.

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