Sarah Palin Response Rebutted


Sarah Palin does it again. That could mean virtually anything, of course, but in this instance, a case of over-reaction and exaggeration.   She placed on her Facebook page

Holy unbelievable. The hypocritical leftist lamestream media should be shamed by every caring, child-loving American. It has once again reached a new low. See the article linked below. One just can't win in their petty little games. Good thing most Americans don't play those little games! It's a beautiful thing the Romney family has done by embracing “the spirit of adoption.” What on earth is more beautiful? Shame on MSNBC for mocking this.

The LSM's pursuit of “shock ratings” is unreal. Governor Mitt Romney ran for higher office with what I believe is a servant's heart. He was saddled with some sup-par campaign tactics. That does not make him a bad person nor does it open his children or grandchildren to attacks over a year after the fact. This latest attack from the Left is despicable.

Leftist media hounds are not expressing an opinion with this attack; they are expressing a prejudice that would never be accepted if it came from anyone else but the lib media.

You really need a conscience, yellow journalists. May your 2014 New Year's Resolution be to find one.

Thank you, Romney family, for giving a child a family full of love.

The former vice-presidential nominee was exorcised by the portion of the December 22, 2013 portion of "Melissa-Harris Perry" (creative title, that) in which

Harris-Perry posted a photo of the extended Romney family, including newly adopted infant Kieran James Romney, who happens to be the only black person in the photo. She asked her panel of guests, including actress Pia Glenn and comedian Dean Obeidallah to come up with captions for the photo.
The panel made a series of jokes, all based around the fact that there was a single black baby in the photo. Harris-Perry speculated about a wedding between Romney's grandson and North West, the daughter of singer Kanye West and reality TV star Kim Kardashian.







While Palin had a conniption over a fairly innocuous discussion  (video below), her comments at least betrayed a slight connection to reality and suggested she saw the video or read excerpts from the offending segment. Not so Republican National Committee chairperson Reince Priebus, who tweeted "Disgusting: Harris-Perry should apologize immediately for mocking Romney's adopted grandchild."

This may be the apex (thus far) expression of the sense of victimization among Republicans, one in which "isn't he just the most gorgeous?" becomes "mocking."

Harris-Perry responded to GOP scorn by issuing on Tuesday, the 24th what (among others) Politico, the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and one of Rupert Murdoch's right-wing rags, the New York Post, misunderstood as an "apology." In a series, MHP tweeted

I am sorry. Without reservation or qualification. I apologize to the Romney family. I work by guiding principle that those who offend do not have the right to tell those they hurt that they r wrong for hurting. Therefore, while I meant no offense, I want to immediately apologize to the Romney family for hurting them. As black child born into large white Mormon family I feel familiarity w/ Romney family pic & never meant to suggest otherwise. I apologize to all families built on loving transracial adoptions who feel I degraded their lives or choices.

Melissa Harris-Perry must have a great attorney... or is extraordinarily smart.  She checked off everything needed for her remarks to be labeled as an apology- "sorry;" "without reservations;" "I apologize."  But she did not state what she is, without reservations, sorry for.  Presumably, it is for "hurting them" rather than for actually doing (or saying) something inappropriate or unjustified.  The burden is subtly placed on the object of the remarks- they were hurt- rather than on Harris-Perry herself, who "meant no offense." It is akin to the standard line from a defense attorney, in which the latter states "We argue (or maintain)  that John Doe did not commit this offense," never contending that Doe did not do it, only that it's their story and they're sticking to it.

If a so-called apology includes an inference that the speaker could not possibly have meant any ill intent because he/or she has experienced a similar situation, all the better.  We've all heard it before, most often in the ludicrous notion that individuals using the "n word" could not possibly be doing anything wrong because they themselves are black.  In this case, the MSNBC host noted she was "a black child born into (a) large white Mormon family"- which, it turns out, is true.   Now a Unitarian-Universalist, Harris-Perry has argued for tolerance toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.   And responding on a website for a Mothers Day Special in (it appears) 2012, she wrote

My mother is the fourth of five children born into a working class family at the end of WWII. She is descended from Mormon pioneers who pushed handcarts across the American west. A white woman in a Mormon family, my mom was raised in the racially homogenous enclave of Spokane, Washington and in 1960 went off to college at Brigham Young University. People are typically incredulous when I share this part of my mother’s biography. After all, if they know me as an outspoken, progressive, feminist, black woman, it might be hard to believe that I am the daughter of someone with these beginnings.

But my mother, Diana Gray, possesses an unmatched commitment to fairness, an unflagging belief in hard work, and more than a casual relationship with profound personal transformations.

Mom left the Mormon Church after a failed first marriage left her a single mother and sole breadwinner. Mom moved to a city, enrolled in graduate school in sociology, and eventually met and fell in love with my dad, a black man who grew up in Jim Crow Virginia. 

None of this should bear on the criticism of opportunists such as Priebus or Palin. The latter, apparently reveling in her role as a gadfly, less than two months ago had remarked

Our free stuff today is being paid for today by taking money from our children and borrowing from China. When that money comes due and, this isn’t racist, so try it, try it anyway, this isn’t racist, but it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due. Right? We are going to be beholden to a foreign master.

Persons who equate the relationship of the United States to mainland China with slavery ought not be terribly critical about mere bad taste and failed attempt at humor.  Something about glass houses, as they used to say.




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