Palin V. Family guy continues...

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(CNN) - The actress who lent her voice to a character with Down syndrome on a recent episode of Fox's "Family Guy" is defending the portrayal against attacks from Sarah Palin.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress who herself has Down syndrome, said the scene was merely meant to be sarcastic.

"I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor," she said in an e-mail to the New York Times. "I thought the line 'I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska' was very funny. I think the word is 'sarcasm.' In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life."

In Sunday's episode, a teenaged female character with Down syndrome told another character that "my mom is the former governor of Alaska." A song and dance routine by another character also used language that ridiculed people with disabilities.

Palin, whose 22-month-old son, Trig, has the genetic disorder, said on her Facebook page Monday that she was too angry to offer a coherent response so she had her daughter, Bristol, release a full statement on the family's behalf.

"People are asking me to comment on yesterday's Fox show that felt like another kick in the gut," Palin, a Fox News contributor, wrote. "Bristol was one who asked what I thought of the show that mocked her baby brother, Trig (and/or others with special needs), in an episode yesterday. Instead of answering, I asked her what she thought. Here is her conscientious reply, which is a much more restrained and gracious statement than I want to make about an issue that begs the question, 'when is enough, enough?'"

Bristol Palin's statement was posted below her mother's Facebook entry, which read in part that the joke "hurt too much for us to remain silent."

"People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront, and yet they are some of the kindest and most loving people you'll ever meet," wrote Bristol. "Their lives are difficult enough as it is, so why would anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them?"

Speaking to the New York Times, Friedman also said she did not view the joke as an insult.

"It's not really an insult. I was doing my role, I'm an actor. I'm entitled to say something. It was really funny. I was laughing at it. I had a nice time doing voiceover. It was my first time doing a voiceover, and I had fun," she said.

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - ?Family Guy? actress defends portrayal that irked Palin - Blogs from CNN.com

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I'm convinced this woman is too uptight to function.

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I'm absolutely sure of one thing. Family guy is the worst animated show in history. I can't stand to even hear it on. If the tv upstairs is on and Family Guy comes on I'll make a special trip up the stairs just to turn it off or change channels.

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In the movie Annie Hall, Woody Allen's character, Alvy Singer, is standing in a movie line, listening to some blowhard intellectual hold forth about media scholar Marshall McLuhan. When the loudmouth cites his own academic credentials, Singer produces the actual McLuhan to refute him: "You know nothing of my work!" Alvy 1, Egghead 0.

Sarah Palin likes to position herself against the eggheads of the world, but she was on the receiving end of her own "I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here" comeuppance when she got in a public feud with the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy. In the Feb. 14 episode, the character Chris goes on a date with a young woman who has Down syndrome. When he asks her about her parents, she tells him, "My dad's an accountant, and my mom's the former governor of Alaska." Palin's 1-year-old son Trig has Down. (See the 100 best TV shows of all time.)

Palin posted on Facebook that the scene was "another punch in the gut." This time, however, Palin's outrage prompted not an apology but a smackdown, from Andrea Fay Friedman, a Family Guy voice actress ? who actually has Down. "My parents raised me to have a sense of humor," she said. "My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes." Ouch. Cartoon 1, Politician 0.

The Family Guy scene was a personal shot ? but at Palin, not Trig. Friedman's character was assertive, intelligent and confident (and a young woman, not an infant boy). Palin seemed to be defending neither her son nor the disabled generally but herself, a public figure whom a cartoon had the temerity to poke fun at. (See the top 10 TV feuds.)

But what's more important is the way Friedman bested her supposed defender: by beating her at her own game. As a public figure, Palin is the embodiment of the "I have Mr. McLuhan right here" argument, taking her authority not from policy papers or r?sum? credentials but from her biography.

Do you believe that white-male conservatives are hypocrites for limiting women's abortion rights? Why, we have Mr. McLuhan right here: Palin ? a woman! ? says that when she was pregnant with Trig, she had the fleeting thought that she could have an abortion but didn't. Disagree with her foreign policy? Her son Track went to Iraq! Reject her claim that health-reform "death panels" will cull special-needs children? She's worried about her own special-needs child! With Palin, the political is always intensely personal. She styles herself as someone who has given bodily to her beliefs, and that makes her connection with her followers visceral, a blood tie. (See pictures of Sarah Palin's life since the presidential election.)

Likewise, having a baby with Down meant that Palin had the authority to condemn Rahm Emanuel for calling politicians he was arguing with "retarded" but to excuse Rush Limbaugh for using the same term because he's "satirical" ? a dispensation that somehow did not apply to Family Guy. You say that's illogical? Well, do you have a special-needs child?

Palin is a master practitioner of identity politics, with an ironic twist. When it comes to social issues or the academic canon or civil-rights legislation, it used to be conservatives who would chafe at liberals playing race, gender or other such oppressed-group cards. With Palin, though, conservatives have a champion who uses group identity ? rural, female, military mom, special-needs mom, etc. ? as her seal of authenticity. But against Family Guy and Friedman, Palin, for once, was outranked by someone enlisting her own biography and personal experience. This time, Palin was not the McLuhaner but the McLuhanee. (See the best TV shows of the decade.)

Now, Palin and her defenders could argue that Friedman is simply one woman with Down and cannot decide for everyone ? disabled or not ? what is and is not offensive. That response, by the way, would have the advantage of being correct. But it would also implicitly undermine Palin's claim to authority. She would then be just one more military mom, one more teen mom's mother ? one more hopeful pol looking for attention. (See the fashion looks of Sarah Palin.)

She'll still get that attention, though, because the Family Guys and the David Lettermans can't resist giving it to her. (On March 2, she's scheduled to stick it to antagonist Letterman by guesting on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. And despite Palin's objections to "Hollywood" intruding on her family, daughter Bristol will play herself as a teen mom on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager.) Just as she has made her personal life the basis for her politics, so are the attacks on her consistently personal. That in turn feeds the victimization that only strengthens her connection with her fans: Hollywood is mocking me, personally, so it is mocking you, personally.

Did I say Cartoon 1, Politician 0? Maybe we should call it a tie.


Read more: Sarah Palin, 'Family Guy' Joke Fued: Outrage Smackdown - TIME