Be Careful, Sarah Palin, You're Exploiting Trig

Kathleen Parker offers some "mother to mother" advice to Sarah Palin in her column today: "Be careful" about using Trig as a political weapon. "Each time she sallies forth as Mama Bear to America's special-needs citizenry, invoking Trig's name amid demands for her children's privacy, a tiny bit of uneasiness slithers between text and subtext. At what point do Palin's noble intentions become Trig's exploitation?"

For Parker, Palin crossed that point when she criticized Rahm Emanuel for using "retarded" only to give Rush Limbaugh a pass because he was being "satirical." That's politics, pure and simple. Using another's circumstances to advance policy "requires a studious self-awareness that seems lacking" here, Parker writes in the Washington Post. "Perhaps the erstwhile governor is still thinking in first-person plural, viewing Trig as part of herself. But he is also a separate individual deserving of privacy, if unable to say the words she needs to hear: 'No more, Mama, please.'" (More Sarah Palin stories.)