(AlterNet) — The year is a week old and already we have a contender for the dumbest culture war moment of 2015: Sarah Palin having one of her many paranoid meltdowns, this time over a stupid photo of her son standing on a dog, which she posted on her Facebook page with a suggestion that the moment was cute and admirable. When the inevitable criticism came, she freaked out and tried to turn the whole thing into a morality play about the supposed oppression of conservative Americans that has been the theme of her entire career. In fact, it’s the central claim of the entire right-wing movement, and the engine that keeps the money flowing both to politicians and to right-wing con artists like Palin, who make a living by lying to conservatives about how they’re under attack.
Many people were understandably put off by the photograph, which confirmed a lot of suspicions that Palin can’t be bothered to teach her children the basics, like respect for animals. But she zeroed in on PETA, because it was another opportunity for her to peddle a paranoid rant about how conservatives are under attack. “Did you go as crazy when your heroic Man-of-Your-Lifetime, Barack Obama, revealed he actually enjoyed eating dead dog meat?” she whined.
