RIGHT-WING COMIC THINKS TRIG PALIN'S DOWN SYNDROME IS A BARREL OF LAUGHS

A few years ago, a stand-up comic name Julia Gorin began moonlighting as an attack-dog columnist -- mostly for Web sites and publications read only by wingnuts, and occasionally for the New York Post. Yesterday, for Jewish World Review (which is far more wingnut than it is Jewish), she published a column about Sarah and Todd Palin's youngest child.

I'm trying to imagine the outrage on the right if a left-winger had written something similar:

I want to have Sarah Palin's baby

I don't mean that in a romantic way. I'm talking about Trig. How cute is he! No doubt even the most avid pro-abortionist was thinking as much when little Trig was on the convention stage with the rest of the Palin family. I wouldn't be surprised if Palin's choice started a new fad: Everyone is going to want to get themselves a Down Syndrome baby....

... now that the country has had a taste of Trig, people are going to be aborting if the baby doesn't have Down Syndrome. The Special Olympics will be more watched than the unspecial Olympics....

Yup, Gorin is riffing on the subject of a five-month-old developmentally disabled baby. Her point (read the whole column) is that, unlike the Palins, evil nasty liberals choose to terminate pregnancies in which pre-natal tests reveal Down Syndrome. Trig isn't a baby, he's a useful political tool.

And Gorin thinks his disability is comedy gold. She fantasizes about being an over-40 mother with a little Trig of her own:

... The way I see it, any kid is going to be a pain in the behind and is physically exhausting, what with the chasing around a parent has to do as a constant spotter for the child, whose primary directive is to get himself or herself killed in the first six years of life. So if I get one that's a little slow, that's less chasing around I'll have to do. It'll be perfect: I'll be retired and the kid'll be retarded.

Yeah, she actually wrote that.

Between the time I throw the Frisbee and the time the kid retrieves it, I can get all my napping in. And I can still become a stage mom and force the kid to live out my dreams for me. Just look at Corky from "Life Goes On." That's right -- we've been killing off Corky, that lovable, tenacious TV character. At least that kid had an acting career, which is more than I can say for myself. I've never passed an audition, but the Down kid did.

No, wait, she's got one more Down syndrome riff:

I'll tell you what they should have a prenatal test for -- to see if a baby is allergic to nuts. That's some defective stuff right there. At least a Down Syndrome kid isn't going to die from a peanut. Who ever heard of dropping dead from a Planters? Every dessert has traces of nuts. Not being able to eat dessert?! Now there's a handicap for life. Is that a life worth living? ...

Yuk it up, folks, these are the jokes.

So what have we learned? That it's OK to use Trig Palin as a political football -- but only if you're a right-winger. Oh, and I'd add that Trig's Down syndrome makes him a sort of holy innocent in the eyes of the right -- which is pretty much the way fetuses are regarded by anti-choicers. People -- or at least non-right-wing people -- are sinful and depraved, but fetuses and Trig (and their advocates) are innocent and victimized. So Trig's not a person -- he's a living, breathing rebuke.

Fortunately for him, I don't think he'll ever understand that he's being used this way.