In my last post, I carefully noted that criticism of Track Palin, though tempting at first, was totally off the table. The reasons: first, he threatened suicide, which suggests a serious psychological issue that should never be trifled with; and second, he had served in Iraq, presumably in combat, and could be suffering from PTSD. In such a situation, I would find it unconscionable to mention Track’s behavior in a political context. One does not dick around with such serious issues.

However, I should note that I was doing something wrong: I was taking Sarah Palin’s statements at face value. While I do not regret erring on the side of caution, I should have known that every single statement she makes is likely to be laced with exaggerations, false insinuations, and lies. So it was here.

As it turns out, Track Palin’s records seem to suggest that he saw no combat while in Iraq, meaning that PTSD is highly improbable at best.

Second, the AR-15 he was threatening suicide with? It was not loaded. Which suggests that the “threat” was probably for show and effect, and not from actual anguish.

In short, it now appears that Track Palin was, in fact, just being an outrageously asinine prick. He got drunk, beat up his girlfriend, and terrorized her.

He gets no sympathy card, and is entitled to no break. Even if he did have PTSD and was suicidal, it still does not excuse his behavior, but it would have made the incident out of bounds politically.

As a fellow veteran said of Palin, the only break he gets is that it was his mother, and not him, that said he was a combat vet and insinuated he suffered from PTSD.

For Sarah Palin to lie about that, for her to use PTSD as a shield to protect her family’s image politically, that’s just as despicable, pathetic, and tawdry a lie as the one used throughout the Bush administration, where any attack on the administration was twisted into an attack on the troops—using their courage and sacrifice as a shield to protect the unspeakably, breathtakingly chickenshit cowards who sent those same young people into battle.