As galling as it may be to admit it, Sarah Palin has energized the electorate: the far-right is thrilled to bits with her fundamentalist credentials, the left is terrified that a moose-killer who isn’t Teddy Roosevelt may be heiress to the Whitest House ever; and those in the middle are in a muddle: they may not be convinced about Obama’s ideas but they aren’t sure they want the old guy and the pit bull to win, either.
I’ve been goosed by Sarah too, into (finally) starting to blog, although my intention initially was not to write about politics but instead to write about being a parent, professor, and writer in Manhattan. Now, however, I am riveted by Palin-otology and wondering what it is about her that makes me want to clench my fists and hop around like Rumpelstiltskin when he finds out that the Princess has discovered his real name.
It’s not the accent, the hair-do, or the hypocrisy of advocating marriage and motherhood for her 17-year-old daughter. It’s not her facile assertion that any woman can juggle work and family — without bothering to mention the need for health insurance, a nanny, and a job (or the power) that makes it all right to bring her kids to work whenever she needs to.
No, it’s none of those things. It’s the god’s will argument: that whatever she does is god’s will — and therefore unassailable. It’s like we’ve been thrust back into the days of the divine right of kings, when to argue against the king was to argue against god, and therefore a double sin: heresy and treason in one fell swoop.
Joe Biden offers an alternative: a deeply religious person not convinced that his god should be your god. Here’s Joe on Meet the Press last Sunday (9/7), when Tom Brokaw asked him about abortion rights:
MR. BROKAW: But if you, you believe that life begins at conception, and you’ve also voted for abortion rights…
SEN. BIDEN: No, what I voted against curtailing the right, criminalizing abortion. I voted against telling everyone else in the country that they have to accept my religiously based view that it’s a moment of conception. There is a debate in our church, as Cardinal Egan would acknowledge, that’s existed. […] How am I going out and tell you, if you or anyone else that you must insist upon my view that is based on a matter of faith? And that’s the reason I haven’t.
During that same interview, Biden also talked about McCain’s new “change” mantra, saying “I heard Sarah Palin and John McCain talk about change. Tell me one single thing they’re going to do on the economy, foreign policy, taxes, that is going to be change. Name me one. This is such malarkey.”
The pastor of Palin’s Wasilla church offered a clue about what “change” might really mean, for a McCain-Palin administration: it might mean readying the country for the Rapture. On the youtube video of Palin’s church (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGOu-X76rR0), he describes Alaska as a “refuge state,” a place where “folks” can find safe haven during The Last Days. As he talks, you see Sarah nodding and smiling, while the congregation waves its hands and claps …
Actually, if Sarah wants to run Alaska based on that premise, that’s fine. I feel bad for those in Alaska who maybe aren’t so Rapturously inclined, but could she please leave the rest of us in the Lower 48 alone?
So what I’m thinking here is that in fact, Sarah is malarkey: Ma Larkey, winging around the country, talking only to “real people” but not the press (when did reporters become cyborgs?); claiming sexism is behind every policy question she’s asked (it’s not sexist to ask about her record, only to ask what she was wearing when she did — or did not — order the Alaska National Guard to do…something); and spouting claims about her reformist zeal when the record shows that her zeal is reserved pretty much for god, Todd, and the “gold under the ground,” as she says in the church video (begging the question of where else one might find gold).
McCain and Palin equal changin’? Seriously? Can anyone else taste the old wine swilling around in these new bottles?
What’s next? John, Sarah, and Cindy, holding hands and singing Dylan tunes?
On the church video, Ma Larkey tells her audience that it’s time for the people of Alaska to get their hearts right with god.
Here’s hoping that most of the US opts for Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” on election day and puts Ma Larkey back in her snowy cage.
