The ponderous hypocrisy of the Christian right

Palin is in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It is a cold Thursday night. Thirteen thousand faithful, with "their Christian literature and thundersticks in tow," have come to an outdoor baseball stadium to see the hockey mom from Alaska, the moose-slayer, the pit bull who ignites their basest instincts.

Rebecca Traister at Salon.com describes the scene as they waited for the Guv:

"Finally, about an hour before Palin's scheduled arrival, Bowman Field kicked off its pre-party with the National Anthem sung under the giant flag suspended from a crane over the 'Victory in Pennsylvania' sign. A security sniper ogled the chilly crowd with his night-vision glasses, and a local minister took the stage to offer a benediction that hit the trifecta of guns, gays and abortion. The preacher asked forgiveness 'for so many [who] have shed innocent blood through the course of abortions, and so many [who] would stop the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.' With these abominations in mind, the preacher continued, 'Thank you for raising up a woman like Gov. Sarah Palin at a time like this. Bless her for standing against those who would remove the guns from our cabinets, and those who would want to remove the baby from the womb of her mother. Bless her family as they adjust to changes in their lives that are going to be taking place on Tuesday.'"

Doesn't that sound exactly like one of Jesus' sermons as reported in the Gospels? I can just hear him now, standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, blessing the local procurator for "standing against those who would remove guns from our cabinets." And don't you remember all Jesus sermons against abortions? And boy, did he take after those gay folks! Wow! He wouldn't even let them have any of the loaves and fishes!

You'd think that clownish preacher might have said something about the blood dripping from the hands of all those neocons who sent our young men and women to fight an illegal war based upon the lies of the current Repugnican prez. I guess the only blood that counts is prenatal.


Ms. Traister writes that "Palin was her down-home bestest, peppering her brief address with references to First Dude's four snow-machine world championships, a lot of gratitude toward the veterans in the crowd, and a lot of folksy, g-droppin' references to how 'the time for choosin's comin' real soon,' a golden-oldie reference to Ronald Reagan's famous 1964 speech in support of Barry Goldwater. Combined with Palin's repeated use of the phrases 'You betcha!' and 'Drill, baby, drill!' and her guess that the crowd was 'so doggone proud' of the Phillies, and her environmental justification that 'God has so richly blessed this land with resources' that should probably strip-mine it, Palin seemed to be imitating Tina Fey's imitation of her on 'Saturday Night Live.'"

Toward the end, Palin invoked Reagan again, saying "In the end, what John McCain and I believe in is what Ronald Reagan believes in ... we believe that America is still that shining City on a Hill that Ronald Reagan used to speak of."

Yup. You betcha! That Shining City on a Hill. Where God lives. And all righteous Republicans. Democrats live on the bottom of the hill.

Now, lest you think Ms. Traister got out of that God-lovin' bunch of folks without incident, think again. Here's how she tells it:

"While I was interviewing some of the attendees, accompanied by another Salon staffer who was holding a video camera, a Palin fan in a newish silver sedan drove by and hit me hard in the back with the side mirror of the car, hard enough to bend the mirror back. Then the car drove off without anybody inside pausing to ask if I was all right. The middle-aged woman in the passenger seat, however, might have saluted me with an un-Christian hand gesture."


The ends justify the means, you know, for those who really believe in Jesus and Amurrica!