Retardgate: Sarah Palin May Have To Fire The Entire World

It’s official, Sarah Palin has managed to start another media fire storm with her Facebook page posting on the matter (death panels the politically correct version?) and it doesn’t look like it’s going to simmer down soon. Also, she may want us to turn in France (more on that below). I’m not sure Palin has the clout to get Rahm Emanuel fired from his job, but she’s certainly managed to get him hopping like a puppet on a string these last few days. Yesterday, the vice president for communications at the Special Olympics, Kirsten Seckler, told Ben Smith that Rahm’s apology to Special Olympics head Tim Shriver was not accepted: “Tim didn’t accept his apology…Tim can’t do that. He can’t accept an apology on behalf of all people with disabilities.” Turns out Shriver accepted his on his own behalf, after which Emanuel spent part of his afternoon “sincerely” apologizing.

The problem with all this uproar, it turns out, is that a lot of people use the word “retard” in everyday speech (that is not an endorsement by the way, it is an offensive term), including Sarah Palin…at least according to Levi Johnston, which apparently is a valid enough source for Andrew Sullivan (if not for everyone else). Points out Sullivan:

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.

Emphasis Sullivan’s (who is, admittedly, slightly off the deep-end where Palin is concerned). Then there is the question of how wide Palin is willing to cast the firing net over this. Smith points out that Ted Nugent, who will be opening up for Palin this weekend at the Tea Party convention, has been quoted using the term. And finally there is this. During her interview (infomercial) with Glenn Beck (4:30 mark), Palin bemoaned the fact that people in America were no longer able to use politically incorrect terms anymore.

Look at what’s going on in France, where that psychological abuse, where those words spoken that aren’t politically correct and accepted in that country. Won’t be allowed. Will be deemed illegal. Now some who want us to turn into a country like that scare the heck out of me. And unfortunately some of those people are leading our country today.

Sarah Palin wants to turn us into France! (Or her version of it, anyway.) I don’t know. Does ‘retard’ count as politically incorrect or just plain offensive? I feel like Palin has probably managed, despite everything (and not without reason) to tip the scales towards offensive…let’s see just how many people are required to offer apologies in the interim. Beck video below courtesy of Political Wire.

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