Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Monday she never blamed President Obama for issues tied to post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by many returning U.S. soldiers, but said there’s more Mr. Obama can do to prove he respects U.S. troops and will let them do their jobs.
“I never blamed President Obama,” Mrs. Palin said on NBC’s “Today” program. “What I have blamed President Obama in doing, though, is this level of disrespect for the United States military that has made manifest in getting budgets, in a not trying to beef it up and let our military do the job that they are trained to do.”
“And in specific issues that we’re talking about that are so hot today, specifically, let’s get in there and let’s utterly destroy ISIS, as we know our United States military can do, yet we have a commander-in-chief who seems to kind of want to kowtow and allow the enemy to be poking at us, and that’s unacceptable to most Americans, certainly to me,” she said.
“I don’t regret any comment that I made, because I didn’t lay PTSD at the foot of the president,” Mrs. Palin said. “I did say, though, and suggested very adamantly that there is much more that our commander-in-chief can do to prove that he respects our troops and will let them do their job.”
In her speech endorsing GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump last month Mrs. Palin had alluded to her son, Track, who had recently been arrested on a charge tied to domestic violence.
“My son, like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened,” Mrs. Palin said last month. “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’re respected anymore. It starts from the top,” she had said. “The question, though, 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 and to secure the freedoms that have been bequeathed us?’”
Mrs. Palin also said Monday she was under the impression that the interview would be limited to topics relating to the Iowa caucuses.
“You guys brought me here to talk about Iowa politics and the caucus tonight, not to talk about my kids,” she said. “And that was a promise. But as things go in the world of media, you guys don’t always keep your promises, evidently.”
Anchor Matt Lauer said there were no specific promises made about the content of the interview.
“Well, I was told that this interview is about the caucus tonight in Iowa, and … who will it be to put America back on the right track and restore constitutional government that we are lacking today and that we so need and I said, ’Right on — let me go talk about that, sure,’ ” she said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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