Heading North Of The Border?

The easy story is: Sarah Palin is a hypocrite.

She may be, but perhaps not in the context of her recent remarks about health care. The woman who couldn't handle being governor of Alaska but may be running for President of the United States told a paid audience on March 6 in Calgary, Alberta

My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse (180km away. see map). Believe it or not – this was in the ‘60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.

It's easy to accuse of hypocrisy someone who would nostalgically recount road trips to what Republicans claim is the Land of Socialized Medicine, especially when the opportunist has fantasized about government "death panels"- and ignored health insurance death panels. It's especially easy when that opportunist is against abortion rights except when offered payment (invitation later rescinded) to support providers of abortion (anti-abortion but pro-abortionist, apparently).

But maybe not in this case. Recounting a trip the Governor had taken to Skagway, Alaska in May, 2007, Jeff Brady wrote

Palin drew from her Skagway past to illustrate her point. Her brother burned his foot badly jumping through a fire, and her mother had to take him down to Juneau on the ferry to the hospital. “All these years later, that’s still what people have to rely on here in some instances,” she said.

Perhaps, then, Palin merely found it opportunistic to tell a Canadian audience that her family contentedly sought health care in Canada. Perhaps the family members really stayed inside the U.S.A. for all their treatment. If true, that would save her from the charge of hypocrisy. She merely would be a liar. (Given that the 2012 GOP national ticket may be Palin-Somebody, perhaps someone should ask her about this discrepancy.)

Now there, who ever said I couldn't say something nice about Sarah Palin?