A White House spokesman said that despite former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s reputation as a policy lightweight, she broached some serious issues with her explanation of how her son, a veteran, ended up charged with domestic violence.
“The reaction of some people, I think, is to make light of some of the rhetoric that we see on the campaign trail, particularly from Governor Palin,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday when asked for President Obama’s reaction to her claim that he is to blame for her 26-year-old son’s arrest.
“But, you know, the fact is, domestic violence is not a joke,” Earnest continued. “Gun violence is not a joke. Problems with addiction are not a joke and the consequences, or I should say the sacrifices that many of our men and women in uniform make for our safety and security, are not a joke.”
Earnest said he was not implying that Palin was taking the arrest lightly, but rather that many people have difficulty taking the one-time GOP vice presidential nominee seriously.
“I’m just saying that the instinct that some people have when hearing her rhetoric is to make light of it and that’s — sometimes those jokes come pretty easy,” he said, an apparent reference to how Palin became the butt of late-night talk show hosts’ and comedians’ jokes during the 2008 presidential campaign. “But in this case, the issues that she’s talking about are quite serious and they’re certainly issues that we take quite seriously here.”
