Palin On
God knows I’ve taken shots at Sarah Palin and I look forward to taking more! But the construction many (e.g. Sully) have been putting on her famous "church prayer about Iraq" strikes me as strained. The quote is, semi-famously,
She also told the group that her eldest child, Track, would soon be deployed by the Army to Iraq, and that they should pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”
This does not strike me as at all a confident declaration that the Iraq war is a task from God, but rather expresses a hope that it might be. It’s, dare I say it, humble, anxious and becomingly sincere – a genuine mother’s genuine hope and worry. The phrasing clearly admits the possibility that the war might not have God’s favor. I expect that Palin’s entry into Republican presidential politics marks the end of that brand of humility and genuineness touching matters of war and peace, but at least once it was there.
Comment by Dave W. —
September 6, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Spot on. She should have talked the son out of volunteering, tho.
Comment by Jonathan Goff —
September 6, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
Jim,
Also, it’s important to realize that just because something that God planned or had planned for, doesn’t mean that it is good. Was the Babylonian captivity part of “God’s plan”? Was Persia’s invasion of Babylon part of his plan? Sure. Does that mean that what Babylon and Persia did was righteous? No.
Or to quote a line from LDS theology:
“..and it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished; for it is the wicked that stir up the hearts of the children of men unto bloodshed”.
~Jon
Comment by Justin Slotman —
September 6, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
Agreed on what her statement actually meant.
I know it probably feels good to go after Palin for church stuff, but it seems like as much of a dead end as the Wright stuff was.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
September 6, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
Throwin’ down the Book of Mormon in this house. Approved.
That said, BYU still got a gift from the officials in today’s game in Seattle.
Comment by democommie —
September 6, 2008 @ 8:58 pm
“I know it probably feels good to go after Palin for church stuff, but it seems like as much of a dead end as the Wright stuff was.”
No comparison in those two instances. Jeremy Wright is not a politician running for office. If Barack Obama was on tape saying what Jeremy Wright said THEN, there could be a comparison.
Comment by diana —
September 6, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
Sully also thinks that Palin will “come undone” by election time.
I think not.
Comment by Nell —
September 6, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
Thanks for this, Jim.
As a politician, she’s a hateful, hypocritical, vindictive, lying right winger.
As a mother, it’s hard not to feel for her.
Comment by John —
September 6, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
Finely done, Jim. Sullivan will just keep on digging, of course …
Comment by matthew hogan —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:11 am
It looks like the new media buzzword is:
QUIRKY.
Comment by mds —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:33 am
Oh stewardess, I speak fundigelical. That is exactly what it is. There is a pattern of passive-aggressive fake humility to such pronouncements, whereby you say, “if it be thy will,” but have only brought it up because you are already assuming that the answer is “yes.”
Alternatively, I suppose a congregation full of rabid Christian Zionists could have been genuinely wrestling with uncertainty over whether the Iraq occupuation is a just war. And if you believe that, I have a jet on eBay to sell you.
Comment by matthew hogan —
September 7, 2008 @ 1:51 am
Oh stewardess, I speak fundigelical. That is exactly what it is. There is a pattern of passive-aggressive fake humility to such pronouncements, whereby you say, “if it be thy will,†but have only brought it up because you are already assuming that the answer is “yes.â€
Only the true Messiah denies his divinity.
Comment by roschelle —
September 7, 2008 @ 5:16 am
The “maverick” is looking more and more like a sidekick…merely going along with the powers that be…he says and does whatever he thinks his champions want to hear. Just like calling lobbyists ‘birds of prey’ which is a total contradiction to what his true ties with these unnecessary evils in Washinton are.
Comment by abb1 —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
I dunno, when I look at Bush and now this Palin character, I don’t see Jesus freaks, I see the opposite: punks, hoodlums, nihilists. A real Jesus freak will never climb this high; it’s always a swindler.
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
A real Jesus freak will never climb this high; it’s always a swindler.
And what would ever make you think these two camps are mutually exclusive?
Comment by daveadams —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
Yeah, this part reminded me of Lincoln hoping he was on God’s side. The previous bits of her speech about the pipeline were a little ickier. I can see God caring about a war, but not so much about a gas pipeline.
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
And mds has it right on Palin, and Jim that has it wrong. The post-9/11 Christian Right has seen the Terror War as a mission from a Christian God against the Muslims; I’ve sat in a Southern baptist church and heard a Jumbotron-projected preacher intone that, “if it be God’s will,” Iraq’s Muslims will be won by the sword to Christianity. Hmmmm – I wonder if he thinks it’s God’s will!
A lot of way-too-hopeful paleocon types have pointed to Palin’s 90s-era support for Pat Buchanan, but anyone who hung around the Christian Right back then can tell you that Buchanan’s appeal to them was strictly as a domestic culture warrior. They remembered Buchanan primarily for his ‘92 campaign and for his speech at the convention, sticking it to the gays and the feminists and the abortionists, and in an era short on high-profile wars, it was mainly the domestic obsessions of abortion and the dread Gay Agenda that took up the evangelical mindspace. Those domestic enemies are still the primary obsession, but post-9/11 the fundamentalists care a great deal more about killing Muslims for the holy war than they ever used to, and you’d be hard-pressed to find many of them supporting a Buchanan-style foreign policy today.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
Taking her words at face value, Jim is right, but I think that mds is probably right about what she really thinks and what sort of humility this prayer really represents. But I can’t prove that and it’s best to stick to accusations one can prove. (Not that Republicans haven’t had considerable success with a different philosophy.)
Comment by abb1 —
September 7, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
And what would ever make you think these two camps are mutually exclusive?
Well, if she is indeed a swindler, then analyzing what she said to some group of people is a silly thing to do. She said what needed to be said.
Comment by James —
September 7, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
This shouldn’t require any deep reflection; God made a fairly clear statement on the issue of war some time ago. “Thou shalt not kill.”
Comment by Thoreau —
September 7, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
A true believer Jesus freak may do a certain amount of swindling, but a true believer will also have points on which he or she is unwilling to bend. The Powers will not allow such a person to rise high.
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
September 7, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
This shouldn’t require any deep reflection; God made a fairly clear statement on the issue of war some time ago. “Thou shalt not kill.â€
Oh, but the right-and-proper evangelical response to this is to say that God didn’t actually say you shouldn’t kill, but that you shouldn’t murder, and that wars don’t count as murder. They also have ready responses for Jesus’s “love your enemy” thing: “See, in this passage, ‘to love’ means ‘to do what’s best for them,’ and sometimes in order to do what’s best for your enemy you have to kill them.”
Oh, and did you know that when Jesus was talking about rich men and camels passing through the eye of a needle, he wasn’t really talking about the actual eye of an actual needle, but a relatively cramped but quite passable roadway? Also, Jesus wants you to give him a generous corporate tax break.
Comment by Avram —
September 7, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Iron Lungfish, that bit about “Thou shalt not murder” isn’t some bit of evangelical verbal legerdemain; it’s the traditional interpretation of the verse by the people whose religion it was originally a part of.
If you’ve actually read the damn books, you probably remember that God not only commands killing as a penalty for various crimes, but explicitly orders the Hebrews to traipse around putting whole cities to the sword. The God of the Old Testament doesn’t place a very high value on human life. (The God of the Talmud is a bit nicer.)
Comment by James —
September 7, 2008 @ 3:18 pm
Ah, but for Fundies those words aren’t open to interpretation. Biblical literalism, wot. If the King James says “kill,” then it means kill, not murder.
Besides, back here in liberal-bias reality where interpretation is still allowed, there are many who would observe that the whole point behind Christianity (as in New Testatment) is to make a break with the smite-them-down past and to form a new covenant: one in which thieves and whores and enemies are welcomed to the table as friends. “Love thy neighbor,” “turn the other cheek,” yada yada yada.
But hell, what would I know, I’m just another nonbeliever.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
September 7, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
Oh stewardess, I speak fundigelical. That is exactly what it is. There is a pattern of passive-aggressive fake humility to such pronouncements, whereby you say, “if it be thy will,†but have only brought it up because you are already assuming that the answer is “yes.â€
I’ll have the loaves & fishes dinner, Miss.
Comment by Michael Turyn —
September 7, 2008 @ 8:49 pm
>>Oh stewardess, I speak fundigelical.[....]
>I’ll have the loaves & fishes dinner, Miss.
And I’ll take Death—-NO!, I meant “Cake”.
Comment by Gerald Fnord —
September 7, 2008 @ 8:53 pm
This whole “be it Thy Will” bit reminds me of a reveleation I experienced a few decades back: this sort of religion is a reverse-ventriloquism act, where the speaker’s beliefs and intentions are desperately credited to a controlling, much larger and wiser, manipulator.
And, in this case, the old car safety ad line, “You could learn a lot from a dummy,” doesn’t hold.
Comment by Glaivester —
September 7, 2008 @ 9:19 pm
Oh, and did you know that when Jesus was talking about rich men and camels passing through the eye of a needle, he wasn’t really talking about the actual eye of an actual needle, but a relatively cramped but quite passable roadway?
Actually, if you read the next passage, it is quite clear that whatJesus is saying is that a rich man has no hope of getting into Heaven on his own. The next line Jesus speaks is something to the effect of “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” That is, a camel cannot pass through the eye of a needle – except of course, with God who makes all things possible.
And this was less of a condemnation of the rich per se than people think. During Jesus’ time, many of most people believed that wealth was given by God in reward for morality, so anyone who was rich was rich because they were a good person – so the subtext to the people listening to Jesus would have been that even the best, most moral people have no hope of getting into heaven – except, of course, with God who makes all things possible. Remember, when told how difficult it was for a tich man to get into heaven, the response of the disciples was “then who can get in?” with an implication that if the rich couldn’t get in, no one should be able to get in.
Comment by Glaivester —
September 7, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
For a true right-winger, Sara Palin is just the lipstick on the smelly pig that is John McCain.
As for Andrew Sullivan, let’s be honest: his main criterion for whether or not a religion is how willing it is to endorse his sex life.
Comment by Glaivester —
September 7, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
For a true right-winger, Sarah Palin is just the lipstick on the smelly pig that is John McCain.
As for Andrew Sullivan, let’s be honest: his main criterion for whether or not a religion is acceptable or evil is how willing it is to endorse his sex life.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
September 7, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
For a true right-winger, Sara Palin is just the lipstick on the smelly pig that is John McCain.
Well, Michael Vick just put a coupla Benjamins on that lip-sticked pit-bull to win in the third.
Comment by diana —
September 7, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
What happens if Palin gets elected Veep, then McCain dies, she becomes Prez, and she gets pregnant? Shouldn’t we be able to ask if we’ll have the first pregnant President? Even if McCain doesn’t die in office, and she gets pregnant, won’t it be way weird? Is it sexist to ask that?
Comment by democommie —
September 8, 2008 @ 5:19 am
Here, this isn’t sexist:
Comment by democommie —
September 8, 2008 @ 5:19 am
I hate haloscan and its offspring.
This link was supposed to be on the previous comment.
http://exiledonline.com/sarah-palins-big-sleazy-safari/
Comment by diana —
September 8, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Re: QUIRKY.
The US has turned into one of those insane low-rent prime-time sitcoms, like TWO AND HALF MEN.
Who is Charlie Sheen in the Palin Administration?
Comment by abb1 —
September 8, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Read this, it’s funny: http://www.nplusonemag.com/over-my-dead-body