A couple of weeks ago when Sarah Palin decided to prove to all of us that while she couldn’t be bought she could be rented, she made this comment while endorsing Donald Trump:

Let me get a little personal on this. I’m talking about not leaving our wounded warriors behind also. our wounded warriors who come home from the battlefield, bringing new battles with them; our wounded warriors, sometimes in body and in mind, coming back different than when they left for the war zone. I can talk personally about this — I guess it’s kind of an elephant in the room — because my own family going through what we’re going through today with my son — a combat vet, having served in the Striker Brigade, fighting for you all America in the war zone.

But my son, like so many others—they come back a bit different. They come back hardened. They come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country. And that starts from the top. It’s a shame that our military personnel even have to wonder, if they have to question if they are respected anymore.
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So when my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate with other families who kind of feel these ramifications of some PTSD and some of the woundedness that our soldiers do return with.

The reason that Palin brought this up was that her son, Track, had been arrested for domestic battery.

This morning, on the Today Show, host Savannah Guthrie asked her if it was unfair to blame Obama for her son’s PTSD:

“I want to ask you about something you mentioned on the campaign trail, which is the arrest of your son Track. You talked about it, and then you mentioned PTSD and you said that President Obama may be to blame for some of the PTSD that’s out there.”

And just like Trump denied he ever wanted to kick Megyn Kelly off the FoxNews debate, Palin denied she made such a statement.

Via Washington Post:

“I don’t regret any comment that I made, because I didn’t lay PTSD on the foot of the president,” said Palin, who is campaigning with Trump again on caucus day in Iowa. “You guys brought me here to talk about Iowa politics and the caucus tonight, not to talk about my kids — and that was a promise. But as things go in the world of media, you don’t keep your promises.”

Palin seems to labor under the illusion that she can bring up her kids in a political context and keep them off limits. For instance, she obviously used her daughter to take a shot at Ted Cruz. She used her son’s experience while in the Army to both excuse his behavior — beating his girlfriend — and to blame Obama. This despite the fact that Track Palin did see any measurable amount of combat while deployed. His DD-214, that is his discharge, indicates he was not awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge or the Combat Action Badge. And he served in Iraq when George Bush was president. So if he does have PTSD, it is not Obama’s fault, and let me say it pains me to say that because I am first in line to blame Obama for most anything.

(As a side note, let me state that I have no knowledge of Track Palin’s PTSD, one way or another. Rear echelon people, and it is without doubt that Palin was one, often acquire PTSD. What we can say without fear of contradiction is that Palin really overstated “combat vet” and “fighting for you” part of her description.)

She has also descended into a caricature of her former self. She no longer has the self-awareness to do much beyond claim permanent victim status.