Palin's Latest Weird Tangent

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Does Sarah Palin want American kids to be fat? It might seem like it, considering her reaction to First Lady Michelle Obama's recent campaign against childhood obesity.

Obama, among others, supported legislation for healthier food choices in schools and praised parents for thinking about what kinds of foods their kids stuff down their greedy little pie-holes (I'm paraphrasing, of course). In a speech advocating good nutrition, she noted that she tells her children "dessert is not a right" and makes them eat balanced meals.

This, to the half-term governor of Alaska, is apparently some sort of harbinger of commie-socialist-Islamo-fascism. Or something. Whatever she thinks it is, she's served it up as her resentment du jour.

On a recent episode of her reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," the Resigning Woman made a big ol' helping of s'mores. And since Palin is incapable of missing a chance to turn even a sweet gesture into an opportunity for sneering, she told the recipients the s'mores were "in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert."

Obama, it should be noted, never said any such thing. But Palin is, after all, the woman who railed against nonexistent "death panels" during the health care debate, so we already know she has, let's just say, a flexible approach to the truth.

Palin continued her media snit when she went on Laura Ingraham's radio program: "What [Obama] is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat."

Again, this is exactly the opposite of what Obama has actually said, which is: "We know that ensuring that kids eat right and stay active is ultimately the responsibility of parents more than anyone else," and further, that "parents have a right to expect that their efforts at home won't be undone each day in the school cafeteria or in the vending machine in the hallway."

To Sarah Palin, however, anything any Obama is in favor of, even healthy food, is something EEEvil, to be opposed with all her might and main, and one doesn't quibble over little details like the truth when one is fighting EEEvil.

Remember first lady Laura Bush's ongoing campaigns for literacy? Good thing she wasn't a Democrat, I guess, or Mama Grizzly'd be going on Sean Hannity, lying that Mrs. Bush was trying to "tell us what we had to read" and burning books.

It seems, though, that Mama Grizzly may have just gone a little too far for even some members of her own party, such as Mike Huckabee, another former governor and potential presidential candidate. He told a radio talk show host, "Michelle Obama's not trying to tell people what to eat or not trying to force the government's desires on people. She's stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country."

Huck should know; he himself dropped an astounding 110 pounds after his doctors told him he was going to die if he didn't. Nevertheless, wingnut blogger Ann Althouse, showing the class for which the far right is so well known, sniped at Huckabee for daring to criticize St. Sarah of the Snows by playing the Fat Card: "He's running [for president] against Sarah Palin. ... Ironically, Sarah Palin is the one who's thin."

Well, Ms. Althouse, Huckabee's the one who actually finished a full term as governor without quitting, so what's your point?

Mississippi's Haley Barbour, (another Republican governor who, unlike Palin, managed to finish his job) also praised Obama's efforts, as did former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who called those efforts "a proper role for the first lady."

Meanwhile, Ben Smith at the website Politico.com has pointed out that, in her 2009 State of the State address, Palin seemed to be extolling the same things that Michelle Obama did, like nutrition and exercise.

So the answer to the question at the top of the column is: No, Sarah Palin does not want American kids to be fat. She's just a small and petty person, an unprincipled demagogue, a political hack who's willing to lie and even to contradict herself to avoid admitting that any Democrat, especially an Obama, might have a valid point about anything.