The FOX ani­mated sit­com “Family Guy” knows how to push the but­tons of pub­lic figures.

During the Feb. 14 episode, the char­ac­ter Chris had a crush on a girl named Ellen with Down syn­drome and went out on a date with her. When he asked her about her par­ents’ jobs, she said, “My dad’s an accoun­tant and my mom’s the for­mer gov­er­nor of Alaska.”

That state­ment was meant to be a jab at 2008 vice pres­i­den­tial can­di­date and, yes, for­mer gov­er­nor of Alaska Sarah Palin. Palin did not take the “joke” very well. Palin’s one-year-old son Trig has Down syndrome.

Yes, I under­stand the com­ment was hurt­ful for Palin and her fam­ily. However, a pat­tern I have noticed with Palin is she seems to use every “neg­a­tive” remark made about her to gain atten­tion in the pub­lic eye.

Palin’s old­est daugh­ter Bristol wrote on her mom’s Facebook page, call­ing the cre­ators of fam­ily guy “heart­less jerks.” Well, it is “Family Guy” after all. It’s not the sweet­est show.

While I enjoy watch­ing an episode or two of “Family Guy” once in awhile, I do not always agree with some of the dia­logue or mate­r­ial dis­played on the show.

At one point in the episode, the char­ac­ter Stewie, the show’s masochis­tic one-year-old, broke out in song and dance to a num­ber called “Down Syndrome Girl.” I can hon­estly say I did not find the song to be humor­ous, but more along the lines of grotesque.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the voice of Ellen, actu­ally has Down syn­drome. Friedman said that Palin “does not have a sense of humor.”

I find it a bit impres­sive that Friedman was will­ing to take on that role and is able to laugh about the situation.

In an inter­view with ArtsBeat blog­ger Dave Itzkoff on NYTimes​.com, Friedman said that Palin’s son Trig was not being made fun of, but it was Palin who was the tar­get of mockery.

Seth Macfarlane, cre­ator of the show, was aware of the inevitable con­tro­versy. Macfarlane cre­ates a mock­ery of a num­ber of polit­i­cal fig­ures on his sit­com, includ­ing for­mer pres­i­dents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

This Palin-Family Guy feud is not dis­sim­i­lar from the Palin-Letterman feud. Last sum­mer, Letterman joked that Palin’s 14-year-old daugh­ter, Willow, was “knocked up” by New York Yankee’s base­ball player Alex Rodriguez.

Palin and her hus­band Todd lashed out at Letterman through a state­ment issued on Palin’s Facebook page:

“…That accep­tance of inap­pro­pri­ate sex­ual com­ments about an under­age girl, who could be anyone’s daugh­ter, con­tributes to the atro­ciously high rate of sex­ual exploita­tion of minors by older men who use and abuse others.”

Well, when one is in the pub­lic eye, they should expect an occa­sional inap­pro­pri­ate or deroga­tory com­ment to be made about them. With the way Palin car­ries her­self, she is not exempt from becom­ing the butt of jokes on screw­ball sit­coms and late night talk shows.

She should be used to it by now, right? I think so. n