Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Today seems to be the day for silly political stories, beginning with the previous post. Next there’s one on Sarah Palin. There’s been a fair bit of excitement in the blogosphere about Sarah Palin talking about crossing the Canadian border for health care as a child:

“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not – this was in the ‘60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”

Yes, it is tempting to joke about Sarah Palin’s family going to Canada for health care considering how she has suggested that the Canadians dismantle their universal health care system. While Palin’s attacks on the Canadian system are based upon the usual false conservative claims, the system was barely coming into existence back when Palin’s family went to Canada. Besides, how much relevance is there in where a child is taken by their family? Even if Sarah Palin’s parents had taken her to the Soviet Union for pure Communist health care, this would be interesting but not particularly meaningful. Attacking Palin for where she had health care as a child is as meaningful as the attacks from the Clinton campaign on Barack Obama for papers he wrote as a child expressing a desire to one day become president.