Sarah Palin wants PETA to “chill.”
“Dear PETA,” the former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential nominee wrote in a Saturday Facebook post. “Chill. At least Trig didn’t eat the dog.”
Her post was a reference to a photo she’d posted of her 6-year-old son, Trig, who has Down syndrome, stepping on a family dog to reach the kitchen sink — and PETA’s response after that New Year’s Day post.
PETA criticized Palin in a statement on Friday, calling her “bizarrely callous” and pointing to a 2008 press conference when — after pardoning a turkey as Alaska governor — Palin talked with reporters as other turkeys were being slaughtered.
“It’s odd that anyone — let alone a mother — would find it appropriate to post such a thing, with no apparent sympathy for the dog in the photo,” the organization said. “Then again, PETA, along with everyone else, is used to the hard-hearted, seeming obliviousness of this bizarrely callous woman, who actually thought it appropriate to be filmed while turkeys were being slaughtered right behind her in full view of the camera.”
Palin hit back, accusing the organization of being hypocritical for failing to denounce talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who posted a similar picture in July.
She also said PETA should have criticized President Barack Obama, who wrote in a book that he was introduced to eating dog meat while living in Indonesia.
And she complained that PETA has opposed commercial fishing and Alaska’s famous Iditarod dogsled race.
“Yeah, you’re real credible on this, PETA. A shame, because I’ll bet we agree on what I hope is the true meaning of your mission — respecting God’s creation and critters,” Palin wrote.
“Our pets, including Trig’s best buddy, Jill Hadassah, are loved, spoiled and cared for more than some people care for their fellow man whose politics may not mesh with nonsensical liberally failed ways or don’t fit your flighty standards,” she wrote. “Jill is a precious part of our world. So is Trig.”
But the part of Palin’s post that seemed to particularly irritate PETA was her accusation that the company’s employees wear leather to imitate “celebrity idols.”
“Aren’t you the same anti-beef screamers blogging hate from your comfy leather office chairs, wrapped in your fashionable leather belts above your kickin’ new leather pumps you bought because your celebrity idols (who sport fur and crocodile purses) grinned in a tabloid wearing the exact same Louboutins exiting sleek cowhide-covered limo seats on their way to some liberal fundraiser shindig at some sushi bar?” she wrote.
PETA responded with another statement Saturday night, saying that “we’re a vegan organization, so we sit on pleather couches, wear stylish vegan kicks, and consider fish friends, not food. (Also, by the way, we just sent a case of vegan caviar to Vladimir Putin — and no, you can’t see his house from yours, Ms. Palin.)
“We have no reason to believe that the Palin companion animals aren’t ordinarily pampered, and we wish the entire family a peaceful and humane 2015,” PETA said.
