I'm not getting your point - even if it weren't common knowledge that the child is mentally retarded, it's obvious from the photo.
Is it? It ain't a CAT scan.
But my point is, because you knew who the mother was, your response was filtered through the politics of it, otherwise there would be absolutely no need whatsoever to say the mother "ought to know better," and in fact would have no reason to reference the unseen mother at all. The question was, after all,
"What do these pictures really illustrate?"
And Sarah described herself as clueless, so I wasn't being snarky about that.
Sarah isn't in the pictures at all, so referencing her at all, unnecessarily, is the being snarky part.
Both of my daughters would tell you that they would not have been allowed to use a dog as a convenient stepstool, so it's not as if I created a new rule for the occasion.
The fact that I've never cared for her doesn't make my opinion suspect, when it's the same opinion as it was before I ever heard of Sarah Palin.
Your opinion isn't suspect regardless. I think Palin is a caricature of a buffoon, but I can look at the pictures and see them for what they are, without having to filter them though my opinion of the kid's owner. Like I've said several times already in this thread, those who don't know who the kid (or the mother) is have typically responded in one manner, namely, not seeing anything wrong with what is depicted in the pictures, and those who find something wrong tend to be those who generally fall into two distinct groups, both of whom filter their responses through a political filter. One group is the PETA Crowd (a liberal group, incidentally) who is offended because the dog was slaved into having to sit through a thoroughly abusive photo session, and the other group is liberals who's opinion regardless of politics nevertheless can't be presented without referencing or blaming the mother (who isn't even present in the pictures).
PETA's official response is actually over-the-top hypocrisy hilarious, because when Ellen DeGeneres posted a pic of a girl standing on a dog to get to the sink, PETA had nothing to say. Not one word. Yet they railed on Palin for the same type of photo. When that hypocrisy was pointed out to PETA, they actually defended DeGeneres stating it was not a problem because the child in the DeGeneres photo wasn't Ellen's.
Incidentally, in 2009 PETA named its Person of the Year because the award winner decided to dump all animal products in life and go Vegan, and among other things, created pages on a Website that features insight, info and tips on cruelty-free living. The award winner? Ellen DeGeneres.
Like I said, from a social science standpoint I find the responses fascinating.