Sarah Palin Writes About Her Son in Newsweek -- and Heads Explode

COMMENTARY | After tweeting angrily about how Newsweek had run an article about "dumb" critics of Barack Obama by Andrew Sullivan, a "Trig Truther," Sarah Palin has published her own piece in the same magazine about her special-needs son.

It is a juxtaposition that is not quite as ironic as some people think. Sullivan's conspiracy theory, that Palin did not actually give birth to her own son, should have caused him not to be taken seriously about anything by any serious media outlet. Newsweek was making amends by running Palin's article about the joys and challenges of raising a child with Down syndrome. What was Palin supposed to do? Refuse the offer to publish?

In a way I can sympathize with Palin. As most people on the right do, I tend to grouse continuously about left-wing media bias. One of the chief among the perpetrators of that bias is the venerable Washington Post which is rivaled only by the New York Times for the leftward slant of its news coverage.

However, a few years ago, the Post ran a story entitled, "A Final, Commercial Frontier" by someone named Mark Whittington, touting, among other things, a lunar version of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program. Was I supposed to proudly refuse a publication in a newspaper I have before and since criticized? Of course not. I've dined out on the publication credit ever since and I have always tempered my complaining about the Post by mentioning that I'm published in it.

Palin's article would not be considere! d contro versial except for the fact everything she does or says causes the heads of certain people to explode. Her story is touching and sometimes sad. It humanizes a woman who has become, in her own way, the most powerful female politician in the world, beloved by many, reviled by some. It brought to me memory of two cousins who were born with severe physical handicaps and who had to undergo constant care for all their short lives.

The irony is not Palin has published an article in a magazine she had recently condemned. It is that a woman whose merest word can shake the corridors of power and spill gallons of ink and untold bandwidth is, in the end, also a mom who loves her children, just like any other in this world.