Stop Bashing Sarah Palin Over Canada Health Trips

Sarah Palin caused a ruckus when she told an audience that her parents took her to Canada for health care when she was growing up. "Hypocrite!" her critics yelled. The resulting fuss has prompted Luke Dittrich to do something he's never done before: "Defend Sarah Palin." Ease off people, he writes in Esquire. This is about geography, not politics.

The Palins lived in Skagway, Alaska. When something serious came up, they'd go by train to Whitehorse, Canada—for the simple reason that it has the closest major hospital. "There are many things one could criticize about Sarah Palin's views of health care in the United States," writes Dittrich, who lives in Whitehorse himself. "That she once participated in cross-border medical tourism to Canada is not one of them."