[There was a video here]

Today at a Donald Trump rally in Oklahoma, Sarah Palin addressed what she called “the elephant in the room”: her son Track’s particularly ill-timed arrest on domestic violence and weapons charges, which she blamed on alleged negligence of veterans on the part of Barack Obama:

My son, like so many others—they come back a bit different. They come back hardened. They come back wondering if there is that respect for what it is that their fellow soldiers and airmen and every other member of the military so sacrificially have given to this country. And that starts from the top. It’s a shame that our military personnel even have to wonder, if they have to question if they are respected anymore.

She continued: “That comes from our own president. Where they have to look at him and wonder, ‘Do you know what we go through? Do you know what we’re trying to do to secure America?’”

Is it too soon for Palin to use her son’s ongoing troubles as a talking point in a stump speech? Bear in mind that the ex-governor of Alaska is a leading voice on the subject of veterans and their health. Of Bowe Bergdahl she wrote (emphasis mine):

When President Obama traded one deserter for five evil terrorists hell-bent on destroying America, rational people did not believe the Obama administration’s claims about this traitor’s “health crisis,” or claims that he served “with honor and distinction,” and certainly not President Obama’s claim that this was a good deal for America.

After putting the country in danger, President Obama celebrated Bergdahl in our Rose Garden, arm in arm with his smiling father greeting Americans in Arabic and Pashtu, as our loyal troops cringed. In fact, in the days that followed, the Obama administration actually smeared the vets who came forward to tell the truth about Bergdahl’s traitorous desertion.

Now finally public disclosure tells the truth – that Bergdahl is a deserter. In my book, he is a traitor.

The troops must be respected.

Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.