Sarah Palin, Trig and the dog
She’s hit that height now, the cruelty height, along with repeating the others, in a photo she happily, blithely posted on Facebook Friday. It shows her six-year-old son, Trig, standing on the family dog, using the animal as a step stool so he can reach up to a counter. She is proud of it, as her comments, which we’ll get to, show her to be.
But here’s this: it’s thoughtless and it is cruel. It doesn’t reach the heights of, for example, the torture her GOP cronies inflicted on innocent persons during their last reign, not that bad, but it is cruel nonetheless. Needlessly cruel, too, I mean I’m thinking they can afford a step stool.
While some media seem to think the dog doesn’t mind it – the Globe and Mail in Canada wrote the “dog appears unruffled” (how could they know that?) – that’s not how I read it. The dog doesn’t have a choice and it’s looking away and appears resigned to its fate. I’m not a medical man but stepping upon a dog like that, well, it seems it could cause damage.
And hurt.
Further, it’s not a great thing to teach a kid. Animals as step stool? Trig is only six and has down syndrome, it ain’t his fault. But a simple ‘let’s not step on the dog, Trig, you might hurt the dog. We don’t step on living things’ would have been appropriate.
Instead we get this posting on her Facebook page, a small blurb that, typically, is poorly worded and trite in the extreme:
Happy New Year! May 2015 see every stumbling block turned into a stepping stone on the path forward. Trig just reminded me. He, determined to help wash dishes with an oblivious mama not acknowledging his signs for “up!”, found me and a lazy dog blocking his way. He made his stepping stone.
So we overcome our obstacles by cruelly using others? Is that the point? If it is, it’s a really arrogant and stupid point, and cruel. But we’ve been over that.
Conservative finds dog photo cruel
Naturally the photo and her silly comments are drawing condemnation on social media, and not just from liberals. Here’s a post about the incident that sums it up nicely:
“I’m a Conservative Republican and I will say this is absolutely abusive. Animals are people pleasers and will do anything their people want them to do, this is sad that Sarah can’t teach her children to respect animals personal space..this type of thing is something that can turn into a tragedy for the dog AND the child. Setting both up for failure. UGH.”
One final thing: imagine if President Barack Obama, who brought America back from the disaster that was George Bush and his economic and foreign policies, yet faced more criticism than any President in history, imagine if he posted a photo of one of his daughters standing on their pet dog. The outrage from Palin and the rest of the GOP, and their supporters, might never end.
Look, the dog didn’t die, I get that, but it is a lousy thing to do. It’s not surprising Sarah Palin would do something like this and that she would feel proud of a child for doing something like this, and turn it into a cheesy parable. It’s not surprising at all. But it is, unquestionably, disturbing.
Equally disturbing is the fact the photo got 50,000 likes from Ms. Palin’s seemingly mindless followers.
