Many opponents of Sarah Palin have criticized her for her alleged lack of experience, and for issues of influence involving her pastors, her troopers, and her children. In another article, this writer will show how her experience, in perspective, is one of her strengths, as she stacks up against former presidential candidates and her present opponents. This article will respond to some of the main accusations that have surfaced shortly after she burst onto the national scene.
Her pastor problems cannot be ignored, but they pale beside the pastor problems of Obama. First, some preliminary distinctions:
Although Obama’s supporters now try to distance Obama from Reverend Wright by referring to him as a former pastor of Obama’s former church, Wright was the present pastor of Obama’s present church until this politician of change changed his position by succumbing to the pressures of politics as usual by finally disassociating himself from his mentor Wright after first claiming ignorance of Wright’s positions in the course of 20 years. By contrast, Ed Kalnin was Palin’s former pastor at the time she was catapulted onto the national scene; she had left his Assembly of G-d Church about 6 or 7 years ago, just two years after he had entered the pulpit at that church. Substantively, today’s evangelicals believe that Jews will be saved if they convert, and conversion would only be voluntary. By contrast, Reverent Wright’s views and allies hardly seem to be trying to save Jewish souls.
Although it might seem rather presumptuous (liberals might use a more colorful or off-color term) to link President Bush to G-d, as at least one of Ms. Palin’s pastors evidently did. It was presumably because right after 9/11, virtually all the good people of America rallied around President Bush as he sought to obtain a near consensus on how to react with success and honor to retaliate against Bin Ladin. Obama’s pastor, of course, took a position against this consensus.
After leaving the Assembly of G-d, Ms. Palin joined the nondenominational Wasilla Bible church. It would seem disingenuous to fault her for being too extreme in her views upon leaving a relatively extremist church in favor of a nondenominational one. The speech that was given in the nondenominational church by the executive director of the Jews for Jesus was given by a guest lecturer; not the pastor of the church. Furthermore, the pastor of the church specifically commented that the governor did not know about the Jews for Jesus preacher’s appearance in advance, and the Governor specifically dissociated herself from the objectionable statements of the Jews for Jesus preacher and her former preacher, whose church she relatively promptly left.
Those who oppose Governor Palin’s primary pastor, Larry Kroon, might also be surprised to know that he does not necessarily occupy the pulpit every week. In fact, in the 20 weeks through and including August 31, 2008, he only occupied the pulpit exactly half the time, otherwise yielding it to another pastor or guest preacher.
Newsweek, hardly an extremist publication, observed in an online article dated August 31, 2008, that the main church that Governor Palin worships at “is perhaps most remarkable for being unremarkable…The sermons of its ministers steer clear of politics and hot button social issues and dwell instead on scripture.”
On another matter, even the people who trooped out and trumped up what they have called “Trooper-Gate” concede that there is powerful evidence that the police officer Governor Palin felt should have been fired was violent to the point of tasering his own step-son, and the governor herself heard him make threats against her own father. Even in the worst case scenario, if the investigation will show that Governor Palin went beyond her authority in intervening on behalf of people in harm’s way, including her own father – against a person who was clearly breaking the spirit if not the proven letter of the law -- it would only reveal her quality of judgment. If she did technically and inadvertently exceed her authority, it was to do away with a misguided law and/or practice that deserve(s) to be reconsidered or thrown out, whether by a crusader like Governor Palin, or any other crusader on behalf of simple justice, fairness, and decency. Does it make any sense that a person whose behavior has rendered him unfit to continue to serve on the police force may stay in his position of authority, with full access to deadly weapons, in part because people he threatened happen to be members of the family of a public figure? Are public figures to be deemed disqualified to use their powers to intervene on the right side of the law? If so, it would be just another example of a criminal justice system focusing on the rights of criminals rather than victims, which crusaders like Governor Palin should be encouraged to reform; such reformers should be thanked and praised for such efforts.
The
Anchorage Daily News, as recently as during the Republican convention (9-4-08) stated categorically that its investigation revealed no instance of the governor’s banning books from any of the state’s public libraries, as alleged in the liberal media. Although at some point a librarian at odds with Palin was fired, the firing was not necessarily on the issue of censorship, and then she was rehired anyway, but most significantly, no books were banned. In fact, the outrageousness of this allegation is highlighted by the fact that at least one of the lists of the books that were allegedly banned included 4 Harry Potter books that had not even been published at the time!
The fact that Palin wore a Buchanan button on one occasion when Buchanan visited the town of which she was mayor was not an endorsement, and does not make her a supporter of Nazi sympathizers, as alleged by some highly irresponsible and unconscionable liberal spokespersons. Presidential candidates do not generally spend much time with local politicians in Alaska, and Ms. Palin specifically wrote to the editor of a local newspaper at the time that she was willing to wear the button “as a polite gesture of respect” during a visit, as she would for any visiting presidential candidate, but that it was NOT an endorsement. In general, she would favor conservative Republicans, and would be gracious to the few who would have spent any time with her, especially before she was a governor, let alone a vice-presidential candidate.
Even more conclusively, the allegations that Palin supported Buchanan are simply patently false on their face. The record shows that shortly after Ms. Palin temporarily wore the Buchanan button, she officially became co-chair of the state campaign on behalf of none other than Buchanan’s then-opponent Steve Forbes.
The Palins have been accused of being members of the political Alaskan Independence Party, and to have attended an event of that party in 1994; however, the polling records indicate that Ms. Palin has been a registered Republican, and a member of no other party, since 1982, and were she to have switched allegiances, this change would have appeared on the polling registers.
Governor Palin’s own impromptu speech at her former church a few months ago, and then her initial post-convention interview, have been distorted to support the allegation that she seeks to justify her views by arrogantly claiming that she feels that her views are just following G-d’s orders, as if she has a pipeline to G-d – as well as a pipeline to oil. The transcripts, however, indicate to the contrary: In the first instance, for example, she actually exhorted her listeners to "Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right.. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God… “That’s what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan." Clearly she wished to urge everyone to pray that they were following G-d’s will, not that G-d was necessarily endorsing her will. She specifically quoted Abraham Lincoln in this regard.
With regard to Palin’s daughter, who did not exactly follow her mother’s will as to abstinence but who did decide to exercise her choice to bring her fetus to term and accelerate her timetable to motherhood, the following observation cries out to be made.
Governor Palin’s unwed pregnant daughter may not necessarily be a poster child for abstinence, but she may be a poster woman for accepting responsibility, tying in with Governor Palin’s theme in describing the role of a small-city mayor – “kinda like a community organizer with responsbility.”
The first post-convention interview should be discounted for two reasons: (1) the interviewer's snide remark about Palin's qualifications clearly undermined his objectivity, and misleadingly led listeners to deduce that Palin's decision to accept the position was spontaneous although the announcement did not take her by surprise the way it took the rest of the country by surprise since she had indeed been vetted and had been on the relatively short list for a relatively long time. (2) The term "Bush Doctrine" (a) was coined by a news columnist, (b) has been used to describe various different aspects of Bush's policies, over the years, (c) has not generally been used by Bush himself or his surrogates, or anyone else, and (d) was improperly defined even by the haughty and openly condescending interviewer himself, at the interview.
Members of the anti-Palin jeering squad were quick to attempt to put down the governor’s rousing and wildly successful acceptance speech (of the nomination) by commenting that she was merely reading a teleprompter. However, once again, an attempted put-down ended up raising her reputation since it is now widely known that the teleprompter wasn’t operated properly due to the unscripted cheering so that the governor had to improvise parts of the most widely listened to vice-presidential nomination acceptance speech in U.S. history, and she did so in such a seamless manner, without missing a beat, that virtually none of the tens of millions of people who saw or heard the speech were aware of any problem, and now Governor Palin’s abilities as a great communicator are enhanced because of and despite the would-be fiasco of the teleprompter.
As to those who disagree with Governor Palin’s views on abortion or a couple of other issues, voters should keep in mind that decisions taken regarding the ballot box are complex, whether they are made out of the box or not, and should generally not be reduced to a single issue, or even to two or three. As the similarly independent, colorful, and maverick 3-time Mayor of New York Ed Koch has been quoted to have said, “If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 important positions that I take, vote for me; if you agree with me on 12 out of 12, see a psychiatrist!”
Next:
Sarah Palin’s Level of Experience Is a PLUS; Not a Minus
