Once again, Sarah Palin has made her critics look like idiots. A fake controversy (I like the neologism, fakeroversy) was generated when PETA expressed outrage over a picture of Palin posted of her Down syndrome son Trig standing on his service dog, named Jill Hadassah , a black Labrador.

…liberals went crazy. PETA and several other animal rights groups denounced Palin: “It’s odd that anyone — let alone a mother — would find it appropriate to post such a thing, with no apparent sympathy for the dog in the photo,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement to POLITICO. “Then again, PETA, along with everyone else, is used to the hard-hearted, seeming obliviousness of this bizarrely callous woman,” Newkirk said. She pointed to an interview Palin gave in 2008 at a farm while turkeys were slaughtered in the background as an example of past differences between the animal rights group and the former vice presidential candidate.

The only problem is that this outrage is entirely fake. Labs and some other large dog breeds are entirely fine being stepped on by children – they are big, tough, and love children. Erick Erickson of Redstate quickly dug up and tweeted a picture that Ellen Degeneres, a former PETA “Woman of the year” had tweeted of the very same practice:

Holy crap. Imagine the outrage if @SarahPalinUSA’s kid did *this*. Oh, wait…. pic.twitter.com/KTeZTZNunW — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 2, 2015

BUSTED! (Great work, Erick!)

Sarah didn’t take long to fire back on Facebook:

Dear PETA, Chill. At least Trig didn’t eat the dog. Hey, by the way, remember your “Woman of the Year”, Ellen DeGeneres? Did you get all wee-wee’d up when she posted this sweet picture?http://conservatives4palin.com/…/peta-woman-year-posts-phot…Hypocritical, much? Did you go as crazy when your heroic Man-of-Your-Lifetime, Barack Obama, revealed he actually enjoyed eating dead dog meat? Aren’t you the double-standard radicals always opposing Alaska’s Iditarod – the Last Great Race honoring dogs who are born to run in wide open spaces, while some of your pets “thrive” in a concrete jungle where they’re allowed outdoors to breathe and pee maybe once a day? (http://iditarod.com/ http://www.irondog.org/) Aren’t you the same herd that opposes our commercial fishing jobs, claiming I encourage slaying and consuming wild, organic healthy protein sources called “fish”? (I do.) Aren’t you the same anti-beef screamers blogging hate from your comfy leather office chairs, wrapped in your fashionable leather belts above your kickin’ new leather pumps you bought because your celebrity idols (who sport fur and crocodile purses) grinned in a tabloid wearing the exact same Louboutins exiting sleek cowhide covered limo seats on their way to some liberal fundraiser shindig at some sushi bar that features poor dead smelly roe (that I used to strip from our Bristol Bay-caught fish, and in a Dillingham cannery I packed those castoff fish eggs for you while laughing with co-workers about the suckers paying absurdly high prices to party with the throw away parts of our wild seafood)? I believe you call those discarded funky eggs “caviar”. Yeah, you’re real credible on this, PETA. A shame, because I’ll bet we agree on what I hope is the true meaning of your mission – respecting God’s creation and critters. Our pets, including Trig’s best buddy Jill Hadassah, are loved, spoiled and cared for more than some people care for their fellow man whose politics may not mesh with nonsensical liberally failed ways or don’t fit your flighty standards. Jill is a precious part of our world. So is Trig. - Sarah Palin

It’s a quiet holiday weekend, but Politico and the Washington Post have both taken notice of Palin’s devastating response. I suspect the story will spread in water cooler conversations as the work week resumes Monday.

Sarah Palin was unfairly demonized by the media as a purported idiot when she was a VP nominee, including the entirely fabricated “I can see Russia from my house” line from Tina Fey’s lips. But she has persisted and thrived. Sooner or later, the story in the media will begin to turn, and her wit, her way with words, and her courage and strength will be recognized beyond the conservative media.