Isn’t Sarah Palin Wonderful?
No, she isn’t. See my LRC article today. Since I wrote it on Saturday, what more I’ve learned about Palin has all been negative. She’s on film telling a church congregation that our war on Iraq is a mission from God, for one thing. I’m sure there’ll be a lot more of that sort of thing to come before too long. McCain was never going to put a crypto-peacenik or Buchananite on his ticket — who are we kidding?
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September 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Daniel,
With all due respect, I have to disagree with your assessment of Palin’s prayer. To me, and others, it seems that we have to read the word “is” in her prayer in the subjunctive. That is, she seems to pray in hope that it is a mission from God, not suggesting, definitively, that it is.
She’s far from perfect, but I think we ought to give her a fair shake. I certainly don’t think that this prayer means what many wish to suggest that it does.
Cheers,
NPO
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Nathan:
I doubt Sarah Palin knows what a subjunctive is. It sounds to me like you’re trying, rather desperately, to reassure yourself that she isn’t the extreme fundamentalist she appears to be.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Nathan, with all due respect, your point is about as substantial as a mouse’s fart in a hurricane.
Whether Palin is saying in that clip that the war in Iraq *is* a mission from God, or whether she’s asking everyone to pray that it is, either way, she’s showing herself to favor the same old warmongering neoconnized theocracy of the Bushite variety that we’ve had to endure for the past 8 years.
I honestly don’t see how pointing out that she stated that she hopes and prays that the Iraq War is the will of God is NOT giving her a “fair shake.”
She may not have stated that the Iraq War IS the will of God, but what she did say is that she WANTS it to be, and called on others to pray that it IS.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
“Paleos for Palin” is just the latest in a long line of nonsensical arguments to support warmongers offered up by traditionalist conservatives too afraid to leave the GOP plantation.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious Dan.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:30 pm
1. I have no particular interest in reassuring myself of anything: I’m a committed Barr supporter.
2. I, still, shall contend that, just maybe, it’s not so cut-and-dry. She may be suggesting that she wants it to be the will of God, but she might also be praying that it is lest we, otherwise, act against the will and draw the ire of God.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I think it is difficult to read nuance into a woman who is running on her small town patriotism and down home American values. The “Iraq War is God’s will” line will go well with people who get “good” chills down the spine when they go to church pagents on Christmas and see the santuary filled with uniformed American servicemen.
That said, Venezuela and Italy routinely elect female Beauty Queens and umm, et al to public office. Who knows, if Madeline Albright was actually attractive, maybe more people would have been aware of the evil things she said and did in the 1990s.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:15 am
There’s a longstanding cultural myth that an honest, authentic person will come to power accidentally and enact sweeping, benign reforms. This might not happen very frequently in real life, but it happens in the movies all the time.
Because of the unusual political and cultural nuances to her background, it’s easy to fall into that hope with Palin. We’ve heard so many times in the last week that McCain didn’t vet her properly. That only fuels our hopes. He didn’t know what he was getting into! we’ll tell ourselves.
Unfortunately, on the most important issue of the election — the war state — Palin appears to have lousy views, although she’s appealing in some other respects. And even if she were a peacenik, it wouldn’t make any sense to back McCain, of all people: The man at the top of the ticket would still be an imperialist. But if McCain does get elected, we can still fantacize that there’s a secret subversive at his right hand, just waiting for the opportunity to step into his shoes and throw some sand in the machinery of power.
Those fantasies aren’t particularly harmful. Just as long as they don’t become a substitute for throwing sand ourselves.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Why are people willing to vote for Palin now. Has Bush 2000 not taught a thing at all?
September 6th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Nathan P. Origer is 100% right in his assessment of the nature of Palin’s comment. I have absolutely no truck with the McCain/Palin ticket and what it represents, but truth is truth, she made no such remark that the Iraq project was a mission from God. To say otherwise is demonstrably and patently false.
September 8th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Well there is a silver lining to this cloud. Why have McCain and his neocon minders even bothered promoting a pseudo-palecon populist as a running mate? Are they afraid they are losing their grip? Certainly the liberal left and media are Palinophobic. So maybe this indicates a real popular shift to paleo ideas
September 8th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Tim,
Would that Palin were paleo, she’s actually ReichsChurch. If she were paleo we’d have at least an even chance of there being a rukus raised about running with a war-mongering, stem-cell research supporting poseur like McCain. Palin probably can be best compared to the early Martin Neimoller sans armband. But so good looking. How sad.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Great article. It seems to me that those who are motivated by culture wars or hatred of The Left have been seduced by the Palin play. Those of us motivated by policy, particularly foreign policy, are more concerned with who’s at the top of the ticket, and we have reason to doubt the judgment of anyone who would run with him.