Sarah Palin Calls on Obama to Fire Rahm Emanuel for Offensive Comment

By: Stephanie Condon
Topics: Republicans

(AP)

Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Monday called for President Obama to fire his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, because of an offensive comment he reportedly made.

At an August strategy session of liberal groups and White House aides, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Emanuel told liberals they were "F-ing retarded" for planning to air attack ads against conservative Democrats opposed to health care reform.

Palin, whose youngest child has Down Syndrome, said in a Facebook note that "our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm's recent sick and offensive tactic."

"I would ask the president to show decency... by eliminating one member of [his] inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm's continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts" to debate important issues, she wrote.

The post was titled: "Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel?"

She called out the White House for ignoring the incident while groups like the National Down Syndrome Society have condemned the remark. The White House has said Emanuel has apologized for the remark and has called the head of the Special Olympics to apologize, Politico reports.

"The White House remains committed to addressing the concerns and needs of Americans living with disabilities and recognizes that derogatory remarks demean us all," a White House official told Politico.

Nevertheless, Palin compared the remark to racist language.

"Just as we'd be appalled if any public figure of Rahm's stature ever used the 'N-word' or other such inappropriate language, Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking," Palin wrote.

Liberal activists have not taken kindly to Emanuel's aggression, either. As the Journal reported, Cenk Uygur, a liberal talk radio host, calls Emanuel "Barack Obama's Dick Cheney," while one progressive advocacy group has run ads against him in his hometown of Chicago.

Meanwhile, as Palin takes hold of her own press via social networking tools like Facebook, her public persona still makes her persona susceptible to outside media. In the latest example of that, a new single-issue magazine was released last month, the Washington Post reports, focusing solely on Palin.

Entitled, "Sarah Palin: Faith, Family, Freedom," the 100-page magazine sells for $8.99 and claims to give the "untold story... in her own words!" The publisher told the Post that the magazine was produced without Palin's knowledge or participation.