On New Year’s Day, a group of photos showed up in my Facebook news feed. It turned out to be a
holiday greeting from Sarah Palin. “Happy New Year!” she said. “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.”

No, I’m not Facebook friends with Sarah Palin– I don’t even follow her. The post showed up in my feed because one of my friends had commented on it. I clicked over without any real expectation of finding their comment, but rather to skim the comments the other several thousand people, already by that point, had made. Because if there’s one thing the internet hates, it’s cruelty to animals. I wanted to see if that hatred could be counterbalanced by political and/or religious affiliation, and my answer was…yes, apparently. At least, for some.

Didn’t bother commenting, and didn’t think any more about it until I saw this article this morning by Sarah Palin, TODAY contributor (hey, it’s what the byline says):

PETA needs to chill. At least Trig didn’t eat the dog. Where have they been all these years? Maybe enjoying a good steak when their Woman of the Year, Ellen DeGeneres, posted the exact same sweet image of a child with her dog. Or maybe they were off moose hunting when their Man of the Year, Mayor Bill de Blasio, dropped and killed a critter at a political photo op? Who knows what they were doing when their Man of All Time, Barack Obama, admitted to actually EATING dog, and enjoying it! C’mon PETA — where’s the beef? . . . Again, I’m thankful these double standard bearers proved my entire point in that post: do they think their threats and efforts to shut me down are a stumbling block? Nah, this is a stepping stone for any American with common sense and love for kids and dogs — we just proved the haters’ double standard nonsense, and, thus, their irrelevance. — Sarah Palin P.S. Should Jill Hadassah [Palin’s dog] have not enjoyed Trig’s playing with her, guess it would have reminded us another important lesson – sometimes life jumps up and bites you in the okole, but you don’t stop moving and baby you just Shake It Off.

“Okole” apparently is a Hawaiian word for “ass” or “butt.” I had a moment of wondering why on earth Palin would use a Hawaiian word before realizing– oh, of course. It’s a way for someone who
thinks even “butt” is a bad word to avoid saying it, but be able to express exactly the same sentiments generally expressed using the word, by borrowing it from another language. I guess God doesn’t understand Hawaiian.

So I looked up what Ellen Degeneres did, and found myself looking at a site called Conservatives 4 Palin, which was kind enough to host a photo which supposedly appeared on the Facebook account for The Ellen DeGeneres Show six months ago. It shows what appears to be a three (?) year old girl brushing her teeth while standing on top of a large adult labrador, accompanied by the caption “Well, that’s one way to reach the sink.” That little girl wasn’t Ellen’s daughter, btw, and the online appears to also have been largely negative.
response to the picture

Whitney Pitcher, author of this article entitled “PETA Woman of the Year Posts Photo of a Child Standing on a Dog,” has the grace to note, “My post is neither a condemnation or an approval of the photos shared by Governor Palin or Ellen Degeneres.” Which is good, I suppose, because presumably it would be bad form for a web site called Conservatives 4 Palin to say anything that would amount to a “condemnation” of her, even for something so obviously stupid and abusive as allowing a child to stand on the back of the family dog– a special needs dog, who is “lazy” according to Palin (what, for not getting up when a toddler tries to use her as a stepstool?) — and then share the photos with the world as part of an exhortation to enjoy their new year.

If Jill Hadassah the dog had in fact objected to a boy (who is now seven years old, according to Wikipedia) standing on her back, stood up, and bitten him in the “okole,” what do you think the response would’ve been? Do you think everyone involved would have learned a lesson that sometimes “life” jumps up and bites you, but you don’t stop moving and just Shake It Off? You know, “life.” (Hey, they say life’s a bitch…) Yeah, me neither.

So I have a few conclusions on this subject:

• Sarah Palin, and the parents of that little anonymous blonde girl, need step stools. Many of them. In the kitchen, the bathroom, and any other place there’s a counter that a small child might need to reach. Maybe a charitable organization can supply them with a couple.
• PETA needs to stop being the banner organization for giving a damn about animal suffering. They do not speak for everyone with concerns on the subject. They’re not even good at representing the cause, themselves. I seriously doubt most of the people expressing concern about the welfare of Jill Hadassah the dog on Facebook had or have any affiliation whatsoever with PETA. The internet, perhaps, is guilty of caring way, way, way too much about animal cruelty, but PETA doesn’t speak for the internet in that regard. 
• Tu quoque, also known as an “appeal to hypocrisy,” is a logical fallacy. It refers to an attempt to legitimize, or at least distract from, a critique aimed at yourself by pointing out a similar crime (or endorsement of such) made by the person or group making the criticism.

  Not one word of Palin’s essay on Today: Pets amounted to anything like an apology or an acknowledgment of wrong-doing. On the contrary, her standpoint is made abundantly clear: “we just proved the haters’ double standard nonsense, and, thus, their irrelevance.” She honestly thinks that the arguments of critics (excuse me, “haters”) are proven irrelevant by her pointing out the presumed acceptance of said critics haters of a similar crime perpetrated by someone they approve of.

  Of course, we don’t even know whether PETA even saw, much less approves of, the photo posted on The Ellen DeGeneres Show’s Facebook wall. We don’t know whether the people who criticized Palin’s New Years wishes post on Facebook ever saw it, much less approve of it. Or de Blasio supposedly shooting a dog. Or Obama supposedly eating one. We certainly don’t know whether everybody who thinks it’s wrong to allow a seven year old boy to stand on a dog’s bag and post “cute” photos of it on Facebook has seen and approve of those things. 

  And if we did, that still wouldn’t make it okay. That’s what tu quoque means.