Everybody needs a hobby

[Obviously this post is not going up "later today" as I said it would in my previous post - from Thursday. On the other hand, it's not the post I intended to put up, either, so perhaps that balances things out. That post crashed and burned but I am going to re-work it and get it up, well, I was going to promise a specific date but we've just seen how well that works so I'll just say "soon". Or perhaps "eventually". In the meantime,something a little lighter. ]

I wander over to the Naked Capitalism blog every several months to look for cute animal pictures. I download them, put them in folders, and use them as screen savers. It drives my husband nuts.

Occasionally while I'm over there I think I should be reading some of the posts. After all, they have great cute animal pictures; surely that means they're the kind of people worth reading. I find, though, that when I try to read the posts I either don't understand them or, if I do understand them, their tone is so unpleasant I would be inclined to distrust what they're saying even if they told me that the sun rose in the east.

During my last foray (which netted some wonderful pictures), I ran across a couple of posts referencing Megan McArdle, both in a negative way. Since I usually find McArdle's writing interesting and helpful, my initial reaction was to assume the writer had an ax to grind and ignore what was being said. However, I do at least try to keep an open mind so I read them.

One of the posts was entitled "Project S.H.A.M.E.: Megan McArdle, a Covert Republican Party Activist Trained by the Billionaire Koch Brothers". The introduction read:

We are delighted to post the latest offering of Project S.H.A.M.E., a media transparency initiative led by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames.

The article lists bullet points that it claims are "The recovered history of Megan McArdle". The first several items had nothing to do with "the Billionaire Koch Brothers" but then came pay dirt: three items tying McArdle to the "right-wing Institute for Humane Studies, headed by Charles Koch since the 1960's". The first two revealed that McArdle had "received journalism training" from the Institute and had "returned to her Koch alma mater as a guest lecturer and instructor". (So far as I can tell, the "journalism training" is some kind of Internship Program .) Third was this item:

In a sign of just how close and trusted McArdle is to the Kochs, in October 2011, she was chosen to emcee Charles Koch’s 50th Anniversary gala celebration of his flagship libertarian think-tank, the Institute for Humane Studies, featuring Charles Koch as the keynote speaker and guest of honor. McArdle and Koch were joined by hundreds of leading GOP donors and activists. An IHS newsletter wrote of her performance: “Emcee Megan McArdle wove a humorous narrative through the program.” The IHS attempted to hide McArdle’s involvement, scrubbing her name from the dinner announcement page.

The link supporting the "scrubbing claim" goes to an Evernote page which provides links to copies of two announcements of the event:

Original announcement (accessed Sept 2011)
Scrubbed announcement no longer lists Megan McArdle as emcee (accessed after event took place)

I checked the two announcements and, yes, the first one lists McArdle and the second one doesn't. However, the second announcement has not only "scrubbed" McArdle; it has also "scrubbed" everyone else listed on the program. The original announcement contains this listing:

Program
Remarks - Charles G. Koch, Koch Industries, Inc. & IHS Chairman
Tribute - Walter E. Williams, George Mason University
Stories - A Parade of IHS Alumni
Emcee - Megan McArdle, The Atlantic

That entire section is gone from the "scrubbed" announcement which contains this notice:

WE ARE CURRENTLY SOLD OUT OF TICKETS. PLEASE FILL OUT THIS WAITLIST FORM AND YOU WILL BE CONTACTED SHOULD SEATS BECOME AVAILABLE.  

Apparently the Institute not only wanted to hide Megan McArdle's involvement in this event; they also wanted to hide Charles Koch's involvement as well as that of their own alumni and Mr. Williams. The writers of the piece do not explain why this was important to IHS.*

I have to admit that after that I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the points but one other caught my eye:

In 2008, McArdle argued that the recession had a silver lining for liberals and the 99%, claiming the economic downturn would reduce wealth inequality because it hurt the rich more than middle- and lower-income Americans: “Recessions are bad for everyone, but they’re worse for the wealthy.” In fact, wealth inequality has substantially worsened since then.

As anyone who has ever read McArdle can probably guess, this claim cherry-picks the quoted post. Still, while cherry-picking the writing of someone you're attacking is not quite right, it is so common on the Internet as to be hardly worth mentioning.

More interesting to me is the link backing up the "wealth inequality has substantially worsened" claim. That link goes to a Naked Capitalism post , published in April 2012 and entitled, "Growth of Income Inequality is Worse Under Obama than Bush". The embedded graph shows that for the period from 2009 to 2010:

Average Income Real Growth was +2.3%
Top 1% Incomes Real Growth was +11.6%
Bottom 99% Incomes Real Growth was +0.2%%
Fraction of total growth (or loss) captured by top 1% was +93%

Based on those numbers, inequality did substantially worsen from 2009 to 2010. However, the chart also shows that for the period from 2007 to 2009:

Average Income Real Growth was -17.4%
Top 1% Incomes Real Growth was -36.3%
Bottom 99% Incomes Real Growth was -11.6%
Fraction of total growth (or loss) captured by top 1% was -49%

In other words, from 2007-2009 (which I believe includes the 2008 during which McArdle wrote her post) the rich took a bigger hit than anyone else - just as McArdle claimed they were and would.

Of course, none of this is substantively important. The writeup was clearly an amateurish hatchet job, pure and simple, and those are a dime a dozen in blogs. If someone finds McArdle an interesting and generally sensible writer, he or she will continue to do so. If someone doesn't, then the claims of this piece won't be examined closely and it will simply provide a gratifying rush of confirmation basis.

But while the substance is uninteresting, the form in general fascinates me for a couple of reasons. First, and most simply, it's another entry in the Category I never got around to setting up called "Always click on the links". It still amazes me that people provide links to support their claims when those links do nothing of the kind. Perhaps the sheer flood of information means that most people don't click on the links most of the time and so the writer knows he can claim whatever he wants about what is on the other end of that link. But that brings me to the other aspect that fascinates me: is the writer knowingly providing a backup link that doesn't back up his claims, or does he truly read what's at the link as supporting his contentions?

So I wonder about what goes on in the minds of the people who write these types of pieces. How could the authors of the piece on McArdle not notice that all the names in the program had been removed from the Institute announcement? Or, if they did notice it, how can they find some conspiracy relating just to one person in that fact? How can they not notice that the link they cite as proof McArdle was wrong in 2008 in fact says just what she was saying at that time?

I understand despising someone - even someone you've never met. I understand vendettas and righteousness and being absolutely certain you are right and someone else is wrong. Believe me, I understand all that. I even understand, in an excess of bile, saying something untrue about the hated person. It's reprehensible but sometimes emotions overcome us. But writing is a lengthy process, requiring thought and consideration. What process goes on that makes it possible to write something untrue about someone you want to discredit? Is it a calculated move, designed to harm an enemy, without consideration of truth or falsehood - the ends justify the means? Is it that the writer can tell himself he's not actually being dishonest: the things he describes did kind of happen and if his choice of words implies something more than what's there, well, that's not really lying? Or is it that the writers of these types of articles truly do not see what is right in front of them? I don't know. It's very strange to me.

Beyond that, I simply find it sad that a site with such great cute animal pictures would re-post something like this. On the bright side, it does mean I can stop feeling I should be reading posts at Naked Capitalism. On the not so bright side, I worry I should re-examine my attachment to cute animal pictures.

*****

Notes:

* As this was about to go to press, I read this at Instapundit:

NPR SCRUBS A COMMENT ABOUT THE NRA.

I think whether you read the linked post from the NPR Ombudsman as admitting to "scrubbing" or as explaining why this wasn't scrubbing in the sense of "attempting to conceal" depends on your politics and your opinion of NPR (which may well be the same thing).

I read the explanation from NPR as "not scrubbing" as did the person making the original complaint (see the first comment, the third and fourth points). Therefore, if I wanted to highlight this incident, I would have referred to the Howard Bryant's comment rather than to NPR. Or, if I wanted to praise NPR, I would describe the incident as "NPR removes a gratuitous swipe at a civil rights organization".

I'll take Feminism for $200, Alex

Kathleen Parker is writing about “hard-core” women:

The feminist woman of the left, who burned her bra and insisted that all hear her roar, is today a taupe-ish figure who wonders where things went wrong. The daughter she begat may well be a Republican - a gun-toting, breast-feeding supermom of several who condemns government for being a "nanny" and tells men to man up.

So far, so good. Looks like it’s going to be an interesting discussion of the shifting face of feminism. But then she comes up with this (emphasis mine):

We needn't name the queen of this emerging bevy of can-dos, who wouldn't deign to call themselves feminists even though they certainly are.

It’s pretty clear that “the queen” Parker isn’t naming is Sarah Palin. So what is it about Palin that causes so many people to simply assume that what they believe to be true about her - or want to be true about her or need to be true about her in order to make their world view work- is, in fact, actually true? Because Palin most certainly does call herself a feminist and based on her remarks last May it appears that the “emerging bevy” doesn’t object to calling themselves feminists right along with her (emphasis mine):

In May of last year, Sarah Palin told an audience of more than 500 pro-life women at a Susan B. Anthony breakfast that they represented an “emerging, conservative, feminist identity” with a growing ability to influence policy.

But perhaps Parker doesn’t consider Fox a news source. How about Newsweek from last August (emphasis mine):

The fact that Sarah Palin wants to call herself a feminist is astonishing. It’s not that she is conservative—there have been plenty of conservative, eccentric, and outlier feminists in history. It’s that it has been such an unloved, if proud, term for so long that it is odd to watch it being fought over, as though it were a political asset and not something women used to have to pretend not to be so they didn’t upset any voters.

Maybe this is relatively new, maybe Palin has embraced feminism only after her defeat as Vice-President and Parker just didn’t notice. Nope (emphasis mine):

Feminists for Life's policy is that all memberships are confidential. However, since Governor Palin has been public about her membership, we can confirm that Palin became a member in 2006.

I wish Parker had read Meghan Daum’s May 2010 LA Times piece, entitled “Sarah Palin, feminist”. From her wide-open definition of feminism; to her pointing out that liberal women who object to Palin calling herself a feminist are often reluctant to apply the term to themselves; to her admonition that we “think hard about who or what is to blame for increasingly narrow definitions of feminism”; Daum’s article is a must-read. Her bottom line (emphasis mine):

If [Palin] has the guts to call herself a feminist, then she's entitled to be accepted as one.

Amen, sister.

Palin Jeopardy

[February 21, 2011: As you’ll see from my preface dated August 3, 2009, this has been written for a long time. I got as far as writing this; putting together what I knew about some of the Palin stories; and putting some of my existing posts about Palin into the “Palin Jeopardy” category; but I never really closed the deal. Life intervened; polishing up the posts seemed like a lot of work; whatever.

Then over the weekend I wrote a post about Kathleen Parker's assumption that the Palin type of women would never call herself a “feminist” and I realized I was, once again, writing a Palin Jeopardy post. So I decided to resurrect this and to call my Parker post “I’ll take Feminism for $200, Alex”. Whether any of the other Palin Jeopardy posts I wrote back in 2009 ever see the light of day depends on what they look like when I review them; the time I have; and whether my interest in blogging flags again.

This isn’t strictly about Palin, of course. The eagerness to believe the worst, to let things that seem awfully unlikely pass the smell test, occurs on both sides of the political divide with regard to all kinds of issues and people. What is interesting about the Palin case is that it seems to me to be extreme; it often involves actually ignoring facts rather than simply interpreting them in a particular way; and it is so, so prevalent among a group I hoped would treat Palin decently - liberal women. That they would hate her politics is expectable; that they would be so eager to believe the worst about her is sad and, even after all this time and all the theories offered up, inexplicable to me.]

[August 3, 2009: I started writing this several weeks ago and put it aside when other issues caught my interest. Even when I wrote it I wasn’t sure I’d post it; after all, Sarah Palin is gone from the political scene (right?) and who really cares if the old stories about her are true or not.

However, one of the things I set this aside for was taking a look at Section 1233 of the House health care bill. Realizing how determined people were to believe the worst about that, regardless of evidence to the contrary, made me decide to go back to the Palin stories. They’re the same thing, really: stories spun from flimsy evidence (no evidence in the case of Section 1233 and many of the Palin stories) that both fit a preconceived notion of reality and serve a useful political purpose. In fact, some of the concepts I wrote about in my posts on Section 1233 were born here, especially the idea of “emotional” truth and the willingness - nay, eagerness - to believe those we oppose are first monstrous and then simply monsters.]

Reclusive Leftist has noted a post over at I Blame The Patriarchy that began as a discussion of the feminist issues at work in the Letterman/Palin brouhaha but ended up spending a lot of comment pixels arguing about whether or not Sarah Palin was awful and, if so, how awful. The IBTP comment string fascinated me for a couple of reasons, not least because the commenters managed to regurgitate so many of the Palin attacks launched over the last 10+ months. It was stunning to see them all trotted out and arrayed like a virtual battalion of scarecrows to keep that terrible, terrible woman away from decent feminists.

I’ve repeatedly started to comment at IBTP but once I start explaining why what some of the commenters there believe isn’t exactly so, I end up with way, way too many words for a blog comment. So I figured I’d cover the ground here - and maybe post a link to this post over there. We’ll see.

I already had a lot of background on the rape kit smear which was a major bone of contention in the comment string and I had information on some of the other issues that were raised. In addition, some of the attacks - like the Wayne Anthony Ross one - were ones I always meant to find out more about one day. However, once I started digging through the comments at IBTP, finding all the Palin attacks that were buried in there, and figuring out which ones were valid and which ones were simply nonsense, I realized I’d taken on a huge task - there were a lot of attacks baked into those comments and the information trail is quite cold on some of them. Thus what was originally planned as a somewhat lengthy single post is now going to be a series of posts.

I originally planned to call the single post “I’ll take Sarah Palin for $200, Alex” hence the name of this post. Instead, I’m creating a category called “Palin Jeopardy” and each post in the category will cover a particular Palin attack or a group of related attacks. I don’t imagine I’ll hit them all but I’ll see how far I get.

Besides the volume of Palin attacks in the IBTP comment, I was also fascinated by a couple of particular comments. One was this:

i always just assumed that the story conflated several actual facts - that it conflated the fact that Palin is *very* anti-choice and anti-woman, and the fact that Alaska has a *horrible* track record when it comes to rape.

*shrug*. it seems like the sort of story that is meant to be “true” at an emotional level. and while that means that the story is, in fact, a lie - it is a *very* used, overused, tactic. look at the fact that so many people are still agitating to see Obama’s “real” Birth Cert! Obama wasn’t born outside the US, but the story is really that he “is different”, and that is true, so “truth” to some people becomes NOT “Obama is an america who isn’t white” but rather becomes “Obama isn’t an American”.

It is an actual fact that Alaska has a horrible track record when it comes to rape (although that’s hardly Palin’s fault) and it is an actual fact that Palin is very anti-choice (opposed to abortion). That Palin is anti-woman, however is an opinion that probably rests on three legs: her opposition to abortion (an actual fact); her opposition to contraception (an actual falsehood); and her billing for rape kits (an actual falsehood). You see the circularity here: the rape kit story is “true” emotionally because it supports a preconceived notion that rests partially on the very story to which it imparts emotional truth.

More generally, this comment seems to me to sum up much of the reaction to Palin. For some reason, people became convinced that she was a monster. After that, any monstrous story was accepted because it fit what people believed about her.

It’s interesting this commenter compares the “Palin billed for rape kits story” to the “Obama isn’t a United States citizen story” since the level of support for both stories is about the same; that is, enough for a determined opponent to spin into a narrative that falls apart when examined closely. I’ve written about why people might want to believe that Obama is not a United States citizen and I think it fits in with the idea of finding dubious “facts” to support preconceived notions. What this commenter does not make clear and what I believe is vitally important is this: facts matter. They matter morally because it is simply wrong to lie about, slander, and libel actual living breathing human beings. They matter politically because when we are deciding who is to run our governments, we will make better decisions if we have more information and more accurate information. I would argue that facts are the basis of a working democracy. Most importantly, facts matter individually because rationality is better than blind belief.

The final reason the IBTP comment string interested me so much was this comment by the blog holder:

Is Sarah Palin a politician who unequivocally embraces the radical feminist worldview? No. Does she publicly support the liberation of women from patriarchal oppression? No. Does she support a woman’s right to an abortion? No.

All true and surely that's enough reason for any like-minded feminist to oppose Palin. More generally, Palin does oppose abortion both personally and politically: she has said she would like to see Roe v Wade reversed and decisions about abortion made by voters in the individual states. For anyone who believes supporting abortion is a must for a politician that should be enough reason to oppose her. More generally still, Palin is a rock-ribbed conservative Republican. Her positions on the economy, the environment, the Second Amendment, global warming, energy policy, and a whole host of other issues should be enough reason for any liberal/progressive to oppose her.

All of this is why I find it so puzzling that those facts do not seem to be enough. In some cases, the attacks on Palin are based on information that is ambiguous at best; in other cases, they are outright lies; in still others, they rest on the unsupported testimony of one person who is - by their own admission - anti-Palin. I simply do not understand why so many people who have so many perfectly legitimate reasons to oppose her are so eager to seize upon reasons that are shaky at best and untrue at worst.

I oppose Obama's policies and his tactics and that's sufficient for me. I do not need to believe all the dubious claims about his birthplace, his religion, his allegiance to Alinsky, his narcissistic disorder, or any of the other stories that have been spun about him with little or no basis in order to justify my opposition. I have no need to make Obama a monster simply because I disagree with his politics. Why make Palin one?

Finally, let me make it clear that I have no illusions my going through the exercise of examining each Palin attack, assessing its truth or falsehood, and providing sources for my assessment will ever change the mind of anyone who is determined to believe the worst about Sara Palin - any more than people refuting the Obama birth certificate story has changed the mind of those determined to believe it. No, the reason I stuck with my sifting and sorting was for my own benefit. Partly to sort out fact from fiction in stories I had never researched before; partly to collect together all the little scraps of information I’d been accumulating over the last 10 months. Mostly, though, to help me understand how these stories started, how they grew and - usually - mutated, and how they spread.

The hatred of Palin and the adulation of Obama, the willingness - even eagerness - to ascribe all evil to her and all good to him, are two sides of the same coin, two symptoms of the same unbalanced emotional state. However this amalgam of bandwagon effect, black-and-white thinking, groupthink, and confirmation bias originated, the cure for it - and for the somewhat milder Obama hatred and the possibility of Palin adulation - is having the facts, being willing to consider them with an open mind and an unclouded eye, and understanding that everyone has both virtues and vices.

If we cannot accept this cure then we will find we are truly living in a postmodern world where - as Brad Holland - put it:

Postmodernists believe that truth is myth, and myth, truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It used to be called psychosis.

Or, more pithily, reality-based, my great aunt fanny.

The birth of a lie

[Update at the bottom of the post.]


I often find myself wondering where some of the lies about Sarah Palin come from. I’m in the middle of tracking down where the rape kit slur started and how it grew but I think we’re seeing the birth of a new lie right now:

Sarah Palin quit as mayor of Wasilla before finishing her second term.

A brief background: Palin’s last term as Mayor of Wasilla would have ended October 7, 2002. Wasilla elections are held the first Tuesday in October; in 2002, this would have been October 1. The mayor takes office the following Monday; in 2002, this would have been October 7. So the story is that Palin did not remain in office until her successor, Dianne Keller, took over on October 7, 2002. This is a lie.

The earliest statement of this I’ve found so far was in a comment on Wonkette, posted by Alaska Girl on July 4, at 1:26am:

She didn’t finish her term as mayor, stepping down to run for Lt. Governor.

Wonkette promptly promoted it to “Comment of the Day”. By July 6, this lie had shown up at Celtic Diva as a post (which said it was “absolutely correct”) and at an Atlantic blog as a comment (this is where I first saw it).

By July 7, Paul Begala had a commentary up at CNN in which he says:

The speculation is that, rather than returning to being a private citizen, Palin aspires to the presidency. Good luck. She quit her job as city councilwoman to run for mayor of Wasilla. She quit her job as mayor of Wasilla to run for lieutenant governor. She quit her job as the head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to run for governor. And now she's quitting her job as governor to ... be a private citizen? Right.

The Begala article has been reproduced far and wide: searching for keywords from his article returns 529 hits in Google. Today, July 12, I heard Nina Totenberg repeat this lie on Inside Washington, a show which was apparently taped on July 10. (The transcript is not yet up; the video is accessible here. I cannot access it - no Microsoft viewer - but Totenberg’s comment came near the end of the show.)

As far as I know, Palin stepped down as councilwoman after she was elected mayor: running for a higher office while already holding office is a very common practice. I believe our current President did that himself recently. There is no evidence she resigned her position on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to run for Governor: she resigned in 2004 and was elected Governor in 2006. Clearly she has resigned as Governor. However.

Sarah Palin did not quit her job as mayor of Wasilla to run for Lieutenant Governor.

Palin ran in the Republican Primary for Lieutenant Governor in 2002, lost, and finished her last term as Mayor (term limits prevented her from running for a third term). Even if she had won the primary and gone on to win the Lieutenant Governorship, she would have been able to finish her term as mayor which ended in October of 2002 before being sworn in as Lieutenant Governor in December of 2002.

Determining that Sarah Palin did not leave early as Mayor of Wasilla simply took a search of the Anchorage Daily News. Behind the fee-to-read wall are 5 articles about the 2002 Wasilla mayoral race. One, dated October 1, 2002, is about the process of counting the votes. Three others are virtually identical (emphasis mine):

Author: S.J. Komarnitsky
Anchorage Daily News

Staff
Date: October 2, 2002
Publication: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Page: A1

Word count: 578

Wasilla chose a city council member as its new mayor Tuesday, while Matanuska-Susitna Borough residents filled two positions on the Assembly.

The races were among a string of city and boroughwide contests in Mat-Su.

In Wasilla, Dianne Keller will take over the city's top job from outgoing Mayor Sarah Palin, who could not run again because of term limits. Keller beat three other candidates, including Palin's stepmother-in-law, Faye Palin, to take the [Read article (fee)]

The fifth article begins this way:

LETTERS
Author: Commentary
Date: October 7, 2002
Publication: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Page: B3

Word count: 348

Thank you, Wasilla, for allowing me to be your mayor. I have cherished this time of serving you and now look forward to working with our new mayor as Dianne Keller helps guide Alaska's fastest-growing community.

Best wishes to the Keller administration. I am confident we'll see invigorated, courageous leadership in pursuit of a larger vision for our community. The Valley is on the cusp of reaching so much potential. We can reach it with the perseverance of residents [Read article (fee)]

This is not rocket science; it’s basic due diligence. One of the most amazing things about the Sarah Palin phenomenon has been how eager those who oppose her are to believe virtually anything without making the slightest effort at verification. Apparently Mark Twain was correct:

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.

*****

Update, July 13, 2009, 11:15am: I’ve now paid to read the Anchorage Daily News articles behind the fee-to-read wall and they make it clear Sarah Palin was mayor when Dianne Keller took office on October 7, 2002. I’ve also found an article in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman that begins:

When Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin dismissed deputy administrator John Cramer last month she said that Cramer was let go so the next administration could have a smooth transition when the next mayor takes control after Tuesday's election.

The date of the article is September 30, 2002.

Odd that it is this little lie that puzzles me most, that angers me most. Perhaps it is because it is such a pointless lie: the election is over, the other guys won. It serves no rational purpose. It is simply a cruel and dehumanized vandalism:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

Confirmation bias

Let’s take a look at an article on ABC’s Political Radar blog, dated October 31, 2008, and headlined, “Palin Fears Media Threaten Her First Amendment Rights”. The article begins:

ABC News' Steven Portnoy reports: In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

The article is referring to this interview. Palin’s one-sentence quote is taken from a longer exchange that can be found at the beginning of “Chris Plante Interviews Sarah Palin Part 2”:

Host: And of course Rashid Khalidi is not the only radical that Barack Obama’s associated himself with over the years and you also have been kind of out there on the pointy end of the spear talking about William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn to a lesser extent perhaps but William Ayers and once again the role of the news media in this campaign when it comes to Barack Obama’s relationships over the years with Rashid Khalidi and William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn and Father Pfleger and all of these other people. Is, is the news media doing its job, are you getting a fair shake, the Republicans getting a fair shake this year?

Palin: I don’t that that they’re doing their job when they suggest that calling a candidate out on their record, their plans for this country, and their associations is mean-spirited or negative campaigning. If they convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media. Look at Joe the Plumber, good old Joe the Plumber in Toledo, Ohio. He just asked a simple, straightforward question and the media started investigating and attacking him. So there is some fear there and in those terms, no, I don’t think that they’ve been doing their job in that kind of context.

Is Political Radar’s description of what Palin said accurate? Certainly the first sentence in the second paragraph is way off base:

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks.

Palin most certainly did not say “that her criticism of Obama's associations ... should not be considered negative attacks.” (Is there such a thing as a positive attack?) What she said was that it is not the media’s job to declare her criticisms of Obama “mean-spirited or negative campaigning”. In other words, the media does not get to decide what is and is not a valid criticism of her political opponent. (I believe that would be the job of the voters.)

There is nothing new about what Palin is saying in this regard: many who oppose Obama have expressed frustration that much of the media seems to consider virtually any criticism of Obama an irrelevant distraction at best and downright racist at worst. Palin is simply arguing that Obama has succeeded in getting the media to enthusiastically support his rules for the general election:

[Obama] can’t be called a “liberal” (“the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (“attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (“the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (“pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”).

After eliminating that sentence, what remains of Political Radar’s description is:

Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama. [snip] for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

The article has elected to confound two different points Palin made: her concerns about the First Amendment and her concerns about “our” being able to ask questions without fear of “attacks” by the media. Let’s separate these out.

The First Amendment concerns are the hook on which most of the commentary criticizing Palin for this interview has hung its hat. You can take a look at HuffPo (channeling Jeff Greenwald); ThinkProgress (which apparently feels no commentary is necessary - other than that picture - but does get full credit for providing audio - although not text - of the whole exchange); Daily Kos (channeling Alex Koppelman); Keith Olbermann (nope, not linking); The Young Turks; and a slew of other sources. The thrust of this commentary is that Palin is so stupid she thinks the First Amendment does (or should) protect her from the press when in fact the First Amendment protects both free speech by individuals and a free press from interference by the government. The Young Turks video provides the best summary:

She’s saying that the media is challenging her First Amendment rights when they say that she is lying or running a negative campaign. But the whole point of the First Amendment is freedom of the press. I mean, it’s in there. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Both things are in there. And second of all, it doesn’t negate your freedom of speech if someone else speaks. Third of all, you’re a politician. The whole point of the First Amendment was to keep our politicians in check.

(I’m not going to rant and rave about The Young Turks’ decisions to translate “mean-spirited” as “lying”. The whole discussion of what constitutes lying in a political campaign is a huge one that I suspect will become extremely germane if we end up with an Obama administration.)

Is Palin saying “that the media is challenging her First Amendment rights when they say that she is lying or running a negative campaign”? Maybe. It’s certainly one interpretation of what she said. However, I think that interpretation is most likely to occur to people who are already convinced Palin is stupid and doesn’t understand the Constitution. The very people, for example, who are (wrongly) convinced Biden wiped the floor with Palin when they discussed the Constitution during the Vice-Presidential debate.

There’s an alternative explanation that I find more likely. Oddly enough, I believe Governor Palin was agreeing with The Young Turks: “The whole point of the First Amendment was to keep our politicians in check.” You see, Barack Obama is a politician also. If the majority of the media goes along with his campaign’s desire to define his opponent’s criticisms of him as invalid then what keeps him in check? In Palin’s formulation, the press has not only refused to criticize Obama themselves, they have also delegitimized her attempts to do so. Palin is arguing - admittedly very sloppily - that when so much of the press is so supportive of one politician over another then the press is not doing the job envisioned for it by those who wrote the First Amendment.

Is she advocating somehow making the press do her bidding? I really can’t see that. So far as I know, Palin has not suggested anything like banning further interviews with a Florida station for raising unpleasant issues; ejecting non-endorsing papers from her campaign plane; or mobilizing supporters to flood WGN with phone calls for inviting a guest critical of McCain. In fact, despite her claims of mainstream media bias she hasn’t even proposed enacting a new Fairness Doctrine.

Rather Palin is using the power of the bully pulpit. She is stating that the press is not doing its job and expressing her concern about what the consequences will be if the voters do not realize that.

What about Palin’s second point, her concerns about asking questions without fear of the “attacks” by the media? Here Palin is talking about the chilling effect non-governmental actions - specifically media attacks - can have on ordinary people questioning politicians. Again I don’t think she’s advocating muzzling the press but is stating her belief that the press’ job does not include attacking citizens who challenge Obama.

The criticisms of Palin’s remarks have both sprung from and reinforced previously held beliefs about her: she is too stupid to understand the Constitution and committed to the “standard” Republican agenda of leashing the free press. Those beliefs have made it easy for the media - and those they inform - to focus on her reference to the First Amendment and ignore the full meaning of her remarks: the media are attempting to delegitimize not only her criticism of Obama but also any negative remarks leveled at Obama from any source. And should the full meaning of her remarks slip through, well, the “fact” that she is both stupid and thuggish renders her points invalid. After all, how could someone like her possibly have anything legitimate to say about anything?

I sincerely hope I’m alive twenty years from now when objective observers are able to take a long, hard look at the Sarah Palin phenomenon. The political analysis will be fascinating, of course, but even more interesting will be the sociological analysis of the class-based nature of Palin’s treatment by the media and the psychological analysis of how people so clearly saw exactly what they expected to see when they looked at Palin.

Mommy, what does the Vice-President do?

I was looking for the full “Hardball” interview with Representative Michele Bachmann and while searching YouTube I found an interview Chris Matthews did with Bill Maher on October 21. Matthews began by asking Maher about Bachmann but before Maher could get his entire answer out, Matthews said

Can I cue you up another one? Here’s something fresh from today, fresh from the world of 2008 politics. This is the Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party talking about her notion of what the Vice-Presidency holds for her.

He then proceeded to play a clip of an interview Governor Palin did with station KUSA in Colorado. Here’s a transcript of the clip Matthews played:

A Vice-President has a really great job because not only are they there to support the President’s agenda - they’re like the team member, the teammate to that President - but also they’re in charge of the United States Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes what will help make life better.

Matthews and Maher then had the following exchange (I’ve omitted the disbelieving nasal sounds):

Matthews: Wow! I heard this begin during the debate when her notion of the Vice-Presidency is she’s gonna run the United States Senate. I thought it was a formality to just break ties and sit up there. She says she’s gonna basically be in charge of the Senate, she’s gonna get through good policies, she’s gonna get in there and work. I guess she has to take a look at the Constitution before she, well, at least takes office.

Maher: Well that would involve reading, Chris. I wouldn’t hold your breath on that. I was just gonna say before you showed the second clip is what I’ve been hearing about this Congresswoman is that she’s the only person in public office who’s actually dumber than Palin but I don’t know. After I heard that clip that you just showed me, that’s a tossup. That’s a real Beavis and Butthead we’ve got there.

I got curious and did some poking around and found the Palin interview with KUSA on October 20, 2008, which runs 8 minutes and 13 seconds.. (Warning: Make sure your sound is turned OFF when you start this. There’s a brief ad before the interview that is nothing but incredibly loud static. Turn the sound back on when Palin appears.)

After watching the whole interview, I can report there are two problems with M&M’s take on Palin’s remarks. One is Constitutional, the other is contextual. Let’s take the Constitutional problem first.

The Constitution mentions the Vice-President in Article I which defines the Legislative branch of government and in Article II which defines the Executive branch of government. For our purposes, we need only be concerned with Article I. In Section 3 of this Article, we find the following:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

As you can see, Palin was Constitutionally correct in saying the Vice-President is “in charge of the United States Senate.” During the Twentieth Century the involvement of the Vice-President in the normal activities of the Senate has waned but I don’t see any reason why the Vice-President could not - if she wanted to - “get in there with the Senators”. She would not be able to vote or debate but as anyone who has tried to get work done in a committee or meeting knows, the person who runs things can wield a lot of power if he - or she - so chooses.

Do modern Vice-Presidents mix it up with the Senate? No. According to the Senate Website:

The first two vice presidents, Adams and Jefferson, did much to shape the nature of the office, setting precedents that were followed by others. During most of the nineteenth century, the degree of influence and the role played within the Senate depended chiefly on the personality and inclinations of the individual involved. Some had great parliamentary skill and presided well, while others found the task boring, were incapable of maintaining order, or chose to spend most of their time away from Washington, leaving the duty to a president pro tempore. Some made an effort to preside fairly, while others used their position to promote the political agenda of the administration.

During the twentieth century, the role of the vice president has evolved into more of an executive branch position. Now, the vice president is usually seen as an integral part of a president's administration and presides over the Senate only on ceremonial occasions or when a tie-breaking vote may be needed. Yet, even though the nature of the job has changed, it is still greatly affected by the personality and skills of the individual incumbent.

So while Palin is Constitutionally correct in her description of the Vice-President’s role in the Senate, as a practical matter the extensive involvement she envisions is rarely seen these days. I see no Constitutional reason why she could not involve herself as much as nineteenth century Vice-Presidents did but I imagine the Senators themselves would dislike that very much and their dislike would make life more difficult for a McCain administration.

Certainly, M&M could have used the “impractical” argument to make what Palin said sound ridiculous. They would have had to figure out a way to avoid making the Senators sound unconstitutional while making Palin sound like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington but I’m sure they could have managed it. Since they chose to use the “she needs to read the Constitution” argument instead, I can only assume they are far more clueless about the Constitution than Sarah Palin.

As long as we’re on the subject, let’s look at what was actually said in the Vice-Presidential debate, a forum that Matthews pinpointed as the beginning of what he apparently believes are Palin’s grandiose notions about the role of the Vice-President. Based on the New York Times transcript of this debate, the discussion of the role of the Vice-President begins when the moderator, Gwen Ifill, says, “But tell us now, looking forward, what it is you think the vice presidency is worth now.” Palin and Biden do a little back and forth about joking and then:

PALIN: No, no. Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that's not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are. John McCain and I have had good conversations about where I would lead with his agenda. That is energy independence in America and reform of government over all, and then working with families of children with special needs. That's near and dear to my heart also. In those arenas, John McCain has already tapped me and said, that's where I want you, I want you to lead. I said, I can't wait to get and there go to work with you.

IFILL: Senator?

BIDEN: Gwen, I hope we'll get back to education because I don't know any government program that John is supporting, not early education, more money for it. The reason No Child Left Behind was left behind, the money was left behind, we didn't fund it. We can get back to that I assume.

With regard to the role of vice president, I had a long talk, as I'm sure the governor did with her principal, in my case with Barack. Let me tell you what Barack asked me to do. I have a history of getting things done in the United States Senate. John McCain would acknowledge that. My record shows that on controversial issues. I would be the point person for the legislative initiatives in the United States Congress for our administration. I would also, when asked if I wanted a portfolio, my response was, no. But Barack Obama indicated to me he wanted me with him to help him govern. So every major decision he'll be making, I'll be sitting in the room to give my best advice. He's president, not me, I'll give my best advice.

And one of the things he said early on when he was choosing, he said he picked someone who had an independent judgment and wouldn't be afraid to tell him if he disagreed. That is sort of my reputation, as you know. I look forward to working with Barack and playing a very constructive role in his presidency, bringing about the kind of change this country needs.

So when Sarah Palin speaks of “working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies” she’s out of line but when Joe Biden says “I have a history of getting things done in the United States Senate. ... I would be the point person for the legislative initiatives in the United States Congress for our administration” M&M presumably have no problem with that. Personally, I don’t see a dime’s worth of difference between the intentions of the two candidates. Palin may intend to try to use her role as President of the Senate to accomplish what Biden would probably accomplish via personal contacts and, well, schmoozing, but the desired outcome is the same. Each plans to be the President’s liaison with the Senate.

The debate discussion continues immediately with (emphasis mine):

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

IFILL: Vice President Cheney's interpretation of the vice presidency?

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

Oops! Let’s see how many errors we can ring up in Biden’s comments:

1) Article I defines only part of the role of the Vice-President, not all of it.

2) Article I defines the Legislative branch not the Executive branch.

3) The Vice-President has Constitutional duties in both the Legislative and Executive branches.

4) Constitutionally, the Vice-President can preside over the Senate whenever he or she darn well pleases.

5) Constitutionally, the Vice-President has as much authority over Congress (at least the Senate) as he or she chooses to exert. I simply don’t see any way the Senate could refuse to let the Vice-President run things if she showed up, gavel in hand, to do so.

6) The idea that the Vice-President is part of the Legislative branch is a bizarre notion invented not by Dick Cheney but by the Framers of the Constitution. Silly unitary power aggrandizers.

Call me cynical but I’m willing to bet a fair sum of money that M&M never had a little chuckle-fest over Biden’s understanding of the Constitution.

Okay, enough of the Constitutional problem with M&M’s tete-a-tete. On to the contextual problem.

Actually, there are two contextual problems, one immediate and one overarching. The immediate one is that the clip Matthews played is, shall we say, abbreviated. The whole exchange between the interviewer and Palin took about 45 seconds; Matthews played about 18 seconds worth. Here’s the whole exchange:

Interviewer: Finally, Governor, we’ve been trying to engage some local grade schoolers the last few elections cycles. We do have a few more questions from the third grade.

Palin: Good.

Interviewer: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

Palin: Aw, that’s something that Piper would ask me as a second grader, also. That’s a great question, Brandon. And a Vice-President has a really great job because not only are they there to support the President’s agenda - they’re like the team member, the teammate to that President - but also they’re in charge of the United States Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes what will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it’s a great job and I look forward to having that job.

Now Governor Palin sounds just a tiny bit simplistic in the clip Matthews played and her affect is definitely kind of cheery, for lack of a better word. Once you realize she is in effect talking to a ten-year old, though, she sounds more like a mommy than a lightweight.

The overarching context is this: the entire interview was just over eight minutes long. The 45-second exchange Matthews carved up and ran came at the very end of the interview. This would seem to mean that someone must have sat through the entire interview to find this little segment. Surely that someone could have found something newsworthy in Palin’s answer to the following questions:

1) Are you ready?

2) Are you surprised at the intensity with which some have gone after you?

3) Why should a voter who is struggling economically put his trust in you?

4) The First Lady of Colorado supports a tax increase to help children with autism, Down syndrome, and similar issues. Do you support that?

5) What Democrats would be a good fit for a McCain/Palin administration?

6) Why isn’t there more comment about oil shale extraction?

7) Is there such a thing as clean coal?

Palin was at least as impressive as Biden is in similar interviews. She knew her facts and marshaled them well. In fact, throughout the interview Sarah Palin was - if I may plagiarize Joe Biden - "articulate and bright and clean and ... nice-looking.” (Although I have to admit I wasn’t crazy about that red leather.)

Why didn’t Matthews play some of the earlier interview for Maher? We have so many possible explanations it’s hard to settle on just one. In the tank for Obama? MSNBC misogyny (aka, dog bites man)? Class prejudice? I know. How about “All of the above”?

Holy war

When Charles Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin, one exchange got a lot of attention:

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?

PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.

GIBSON: Exact words.

PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said -- first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.

But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.

The words Gibson spoke were not, of course, Palin’s “exact words” and there has been a great deal of comment about Gibson’s misquote. Unfortunately, the idea that Palin referred to the United States' presence in Iraq as God’s will seems to be ineradicable. Nonetheless, here’s my attempt to get on the record exactly what Palin said.

I want to start with a brief tour of Palin’s church history since references to “Palin’s church” and “Palin’s pastor” can be confusing. Palin was baptized Roman Cathoic. When she was four years old (around 1968), her family joined the Wasilla Assembly of God church. Assemblies of God churches are Protestant, Trinatarian, Evangelical, and Pentecostal.

Around 2002, Palin began attending the Wasilla Bible Church as her home church in Wasilla. An article in the New York Times quotes a member of the Wasilla Bible Church who believes the Palins moved from the Wasilla Assembly of God church because the Bible Church is less extreme - it is not Pentecostal - and because the Palins preferred to maintain a lower profile when in church. Palin also attends the Juneau Christian Center when in Juneau.

The Wasilla Assembly of God church was founded by Paul Riley. Mr. Riley was pastor for most of the time the Palins attended the church. In 1999, Ed Kalnins became pastor, apparently because Mr. Riley, who would have been about 70 at the time, retired.

Larry Kroon has been the pastor of the Wasilla Bible Church since 1978, one year after the church was founded.

The Juneau Christian Center has not figured prominently in any stories about Sarah Palin. The Center’s
statement on Palin refers to her as a visitor who “has occasionally attended Juneau Christian Center.”

The statement that Gibson mangled was made in a talk Palin gave at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, her former home church, on June 8, 2008. The occasion was the graduation of a Master’s Commission class. Master’s Commission is a one-year program devoted to discipleship and learning ministry. You can view the video of Palin’s June 8 talk in this Huffington Post article.

Palin talks about God’s will in connection with a natural gas pipeline she wanted to build and in relation to the United States’ military mission in Iraq. Palin’s comment about the pipeline begins around 3:55 into the video. She is striking a deal with the Master’s Commission graduates, essentially splitting up God's work and Caesar's:

I can do my part in doing things like working really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline - about a $30 billion project that's going to create a lot of jobs for Alaskans and will have a lot of energy flowing through here. And pray about that also. I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.

I read Palin's comments to mean not that the pipeline is God's will but that in order for the pipeline to be built it must be God's will that people and companies be unified so she is asking her audience to pray that such unification is God's will.

Palin’s comment about Iraq begins around 5:35 into the video. She says:

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.

I simply don’t see any way to read this the way Gibson did, that “[o]ur national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God", much less to wonder if Palin thinks we are “fighting a holy war”. She is clearly asking the congregation to pray that our leaders are sending troops on a Godly task. This is entirely in keeping with Lincoln’s sentiments:

To a minister who said he hoped the Lord was on our side, [Lincoln] replied that it gave him no concern whether the Lord was on our side or not "For," he added, "I know the Lord is always on the side of right;" and with deep feeling added, "But God is my witness that it is my constant anxiety and prayer that both myself and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour

[One note before I begin. If I had not seen the post I’m about to analyze referenced at Palin Rumors (this is Number 21) with an intermediate stop at Andrew Sullivan, I would have figured it was just more fringe lunacy and ignored it. Palin Rumors, however, has been widely referenced in the last couple of weeks and Andrew Sullivan - for reasons which totally escape me - is still considered in some circles to provide a veneer of respectability. Hence my decision to take this post seriously.]

On September 5, 2008, Max Blumenthal put up a post called “Palin’s Pastor: God ‘Is Gonna Strike Out His Hand Against...America”. In this post Blumenthal gave a highly condensed version of a July 20, 2008, sermon preached by Larry Koon, pastor of the Wasilla Bible Church. Wasilla Bible Church is where Governor Sarah Palin worships when she is in Wasilla.

Blumenthal extracted a few phrases from the sermon and strung them together with his own paraphrases. If you begin reading his post at the words “the book of Zephanaiah [sic]” and end with “It’s all” and include Blumenthal’s paraphrases, his version of the sermon is 132 words long. If you begin and end at the same points in Blumenthal’s post but include only the words he actually quotes from the sermon itself, his version of the sermon is 86 words long.

Pastor Kroon’s sermon is 4,895 words long.

Blumenthal’s first quote from Pastor Kroon’s sermon is:

“that great day of the Lord when God will finally bring closure to human history… a day of wrath.”

There are 1374 words in the sermon before that quote. Pastor Kroon is explaining Zephaniah’s prophetic vision and credit him with credits him with popularizing the phrase “day of the Lord”:

to refer to the closure of all things, when God would finally bring everything that we know to an end; that timeframe when God would finally bring everything up, bind it together, and deal with it. And the world that we now know will cease to exist. That’s the day of the Lord.

Now, we’re not talking necessarily about a 24-hour time period. We’re talking about the whole timeframe of the end, when God begins to bring closure to the world as we know it. It’s not...it’s not a sunny picture. In fact, later in Zephaniah, when we get down to the very end of chapter 1 if you wanna glance there, chapter 1 verses 14-16, there’s a drumbeat almost of descriptive terms in which Zephaniah, looking at the future and seeing that great day of the Lord when God will finally bring closure to human history, he says this--it is a day of wrath.

Blumenthal’s second quote is:

“all things and all people” are going to bear the brunt of God’s “intense anger.”

In Pastor Kroon's sermon there are 1565 words between “all things and all people” and “intense anger”.

Blumenthal’s third quote is:

“There’s anger with God,” he proclaimed. “He takes sin personal.”

This actually comes near the end of the sermon: there are only 226 words left to go. The full paragraph in which this quote occurs is:

“Yes. There’s anger with God. He takes sin personal. But there is something that answers to that anger, and that’s His love. And it’s a love that, we’re told, not only does He love the world—“He loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son.” He put His Son there and said, ‘You take the anger for them.’ And with that promise is “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” No ‘perhaps’ there. It’s simply sayin’ “I’m gonna seek the Lord, starting with Jesus, responding with faith.’ That’s what you do, given the reality of the day of the Lord.

Blumenthal’s fourth quote is:

“And if Zephaniah were here today,” Kroon bellowed, “he’d be saying, ‘Listen, [God] is gonna deal with all the inhabitants of the earth. He is gonna strike out His hand against, yes, Wasilla; and Alaska; and the United States of America. There’s no exceptions here — there’s none. It’s all.’”

This quote appears in the sermon before Blumenthal's third quote and in the midst of Blumenthal's second quote. The full paragraph in which this quote occurs is:

He has to be emphatic at this point; he has to get specific at this point, because the people of Jerusalem had the prevailing attitude—and it’s stated in Zephaniah—that ‘God won’t do anything to us, good or bad.’ And what Zephaniah says—‘Listen, He is going to remove everyone from the earth. He is gonna deal with all the inhabitants; so, as a result, understand He is going to deal with you, Jerusalem and Judah. There’s no exceptions here.’ And if Zephaniah were here today he’d be saying, ‘Listen, He is gonna deal with all the inhabitants of the earth. He is gonna strike out His hand against, yes, Wasilla; and Alaska; and the United States of America. There’s no exceptions here—there’s none. It’s all.’

Pastor Koon is not saying that God is angry with Wasilla or Alaska or the United States in particular. This is an analogy: Zephaniah telling the people of Jerusalem, “Listen up because God means you, Jerusalem and Judah” is analogous to a modern-day prophet telling the congregation in Wasilla, “Listen up because God means you, Wasilla and Alaska and the United States.”

I’m hardly a regular - or even irregular - churchgoer but I can read a straighforward text. My summary of this sermon (only 95 words long yet within hailing distance of accurate) is:

- God has promised he will end (or destroy or purify) the entire world; this is standard Revelations fare although here it is coming from an Old Testament book.
- What the congregation (and people in general) must do to avoid that fate is turn to Jesus; this is standard Christian doctrine.
- Turning to Jesus doesn’t mean following rules by rote or keeping a balance sheet of vice and virtue. Rather it means establishing a personal relationship with God just as you establish a personal relationship with people you care for. Pastor Koon says:

I picked this verse [chapter 3, verse 2].because it gets to the very essence of the nature of sin. Sin is deeply and profoundly personal. It’s not simply ‘I didn’t keep this rule, and I didn’t keep that rule. I blew it on the seventh command. I’ll make it up on the eighth.’ Sin is saying, ‘I’m not going to listen to the voice of God.’ And there’s nothin’ more personal than sayin’ ‘I don’t want to hear You.’ Sin is saying ‘I want to do it my way;’ and there’s nothin’ more personal than saying ‘I don’t trust Your way.’ Sin is saying ‘I don’t have any confidence in You, God, to handle my situation, my circumstance, given what I’m dealing with. You are not competent enough and You do not know the situation well enough.’ And there is nothing more personal than saying that to God. And that’s what you say every time you sin. And there’s nothing more personal than saying ‘I really don’t have time for You.’

Blumenthal closes his post by noting that Palin’s presence on the day Pastor Kroon gave this sermon has not been confirmed. I assume he is implicitly likening this sermon of Pastor Kroon to the sermons by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright that caused Barack Obama so much trouble. Certainly Sullivan makes that comparison explicitly.

I am not unsympathetic to the idea that the Reverend Wright’s meaning may have been distorted by the use of excerpts from his sermons. I wish someone had provided easy access to the full text of the sermons from which the more inflammatory statements were drawn. Although it’s been lost in the mists of time, one of my early ideas for a blog post was to take Mr. Wright’s remarks and see if I could find analogies to them in more mainstream and temperate sources. I also wanted to do this with Father Michael Pfleger’s swan song about reparations and Hillary Clinton’s tears - I thought that would be easy to match up and I may yet try to do so.

However, my sympathy is for the Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger. Obama’s decision to claim he had not heard Mr. Wright’s sermons, to dismiss Mr. Wright’s rhetoric as a relic of a painful but bygone era, and later to denounce his pastor were his to make as he saw fit.

I would be very surprised if Palin feels any need to distance herself from Pastor Kroon’s sermon and I sincerely doubt she will be throwing her Wasilla Bible Church pastor under a bus any time soon.

Talking about earmarks

Yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Claire McCaskill and Carly Fiorina went a couple of rounds on earmarks. You can read their argument for yourself but basically it came down to McCaskill saying Palin claims to oppose earmarks but asked for gazillions of dollars in them and Fiorina saying Obama asked for even more and at least Palin as governor acknowledged they were corrupting and wanted to ask for fewer of them. McCaskill finished up with:

She took the money for the bridge to nowhere. She took -- she hired lobbyists to get earmarks.

This is a woman who has been lobbying for earmarks, has received earmarks. As a mayor, as a governor.

This is a good example of what I’m talking about. You know, honor is talked about a lot in this campaign. Honor comes with honesty. And you’ve got to be honest about the facts.

Sarah Palin has been an earmark queen in Alaska. That’s the facts.

Setting aside the specific issue of earmarks for a moment, I’d advise Obama supporters to step very cautiously around the issues of honor and honesty. Challenging someone’s honor or honesty is still a fighting offense to a lot of people and the Obama campaign better have more to back up those charges than cries of outrage over the type of spin, hyperbole, and political license that all campaigns - including most definitely the Obama campaign - practice all the time.

More on topic, I wonder if an “earmark queen” is anything like a “welfare queen”?

Back to the fray. Fiorina’s last word on earmarks was (emphasis mine):

Sarah Palin has made significant reforms and significant progress in the amount of earmark money that Alaska takes. She stood up as governor and said, “we must reform this corrupting process.”

It is true that as mayor, she worked within the system that she was a part of, but it is also true that she stepped forward against her own party and said enough is enough.

I think Fiorina is on the right track with regard to how Palin’s people should be talking about earmarks. The way to address the discrepancy between wanting to reform the earmark process and taking earmarks is to be up front about the whole thing. Admit that of course Palin asked for earmarks. Everybody asks for earmarks. Look at all the earmarks Obama asked for. If Palin hadn’t asked for earmarks for Wasilla and for Alaska she would have been putting her city and her state at a disadvantage with regard to other government that were asking for and getting Federal money. That’s why she understands how important it is to reform the whole system: as long as earmarks exist local officials have to make use of them to stay competitive and to stay in office. A corrupt system inevitably corrupts everything and everyone it touches and that’s why she wants to change the system itself.

A Begala Canard

Last night on Charlie Rose*, Paul Begala claimed that John McCain had not vetted Sarah Palin properly because he "met her once two years ago and had one fifteen minute phone conversation with her. I wouldn't even have dinner with someone based on that."

Begala is - to put it as politely as possible - wrong. As the Washington Post reported McCain first met Palin at the National Governors Conference in February of 2008 (sometimes referred to as “this year”). They met privately, then spoke for about fifteen minutes at a social event. Palin’s name was on the list of possible Vice-Presidential candidates from that point on.

Similarly David Brooks of the New York Times talks about “[w]hen McCain met Sarah Palin last February”. (Brooks’ entire article, “What the Palin Pick Says”, is well worth reading. It provides a far more interesting explanation of McCain’s pick of Palin than most other accounts.)

If Begala had offered his snappy but inaccurate observation as part of a campaign speech or statement or if Obama or Biden had made it, it would still be untrue but I’d cut them some slack for taking political license. As part of what was supposed to be an “informed” “discussion about the 2008 Presidential Election”, it’s out of line. In that situation a little spin is to be expected but - as Senator Obama himself would say - “You can’t just make stuff up.”

*****

* As I write this, the video is not yet up. I saw the show and the text of Begala’s statement can be found in the comment made by Scott A. Snyder on Thursday, September 11, at 11:24pm.

Something the cat dragged in?

The story is making the rounds that Governor Sarah Palin tried to ban books from the Wasilla City Library in 1996 when she took office as mayor. There is even a list circulating via email and blogs of books Palin supposedly wanted to ban. The fact that some of these books hadn’t even been published in 1996 seems to be irrelevant to those passing the list along.

I took at look at the information behind this story and this is what I found.

The “at the time” source for this charge is a Wednesday, December 18, 1996, article published in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. Entitled “Palin: Library censorship inquiries 'Rhetorical'” the article was republished on the Frontiersman Website on September 5, 2008. You really have to read the whole thing. I’ll wait while you do.

In this article, Library Director Mary Ellen Emmons reports Palin twice spoke with her in October about censoring library material. I believe there was also a third conversation in December around the time the article was originally published. The article says:

The issue [the October discussions] became public last Wednesday [which would have been December 9], when Palin brought it up during an interview about the now-defunct Liquor task Force. [snip]

Palin called Emmons into her office Monday to discuss the censorship questions again.

Palin also attended Friday's staff meeting at the library, but without mentioning censorship , Emmons said.

I think this means a third conversation took place on Monday, December 7, and that Palin attended the staff meeting on Friday, December 11.

In this article, Emmons states that Palin’s questions were different from questions about normal book selection or book challenge issues and at one point says, “She was asking me how I would deal with her saying a book can't be in the library.” She goes on to say that “Palin asked her on Oct. 28 if she would object to censorship, even if people were circling the library in protest about a book.” Emmons also says she told Palin any attempts at censorship would result in ACLU involvement.

Palin says the questions were rhetorical and were asked because she was trying to get to know her staff.

This article also states that Palin had asked for letters of resignations from all Wasilla’s department heads - including Emmons - after becoming mayor. As far as I can tell from this article, none of the department heads actually left. I suspect Palin’s October request for letters of resignation from all her department heads has become confused with Palin’s attempted firing of Emmons three months later in late January and has helped to feed the rumor that Palin attempted to fire Emmons because Emmons opposed censorship.

I don’t see a smoking gun in this article. It’s possible Palin wanted to ban some books and backed off when Emmons pointed out how much grief that would bring. It’s possible there were citizens in Wasilla who had asked Palin to ban books and she was trying to determine if that was possible, feasible, and appropriate. It’s possible Palin was simply trying to determine where Emmons stood on the issue.

There are three other facts I weighed in determining whether Palin did, in fact, want to ban books.

First, Emmons supported Palin’s opponent in the mayoral election. This would tend to give Emmons a less positive view of Palin’s motives.

Second, on Thursday, January 30, 1997, Palin fired Emmons. She reversed that decision a day later. According to this article in the Anchorage Daily News (originally published Saturday, February 1, 1997), Palin decided to fire Emmons because she felt Emmons did not support her administration then changed her mind because she decided Emmons did support her after all. Interestingly, a September 4, 2008, story in the Anchorage Daily News which revived this issue says:

Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.

I find the latter explanation more believable. It’s hard to imagine Emmons would be able to convince Palin of her support after only one day when she hadn’t been able to do so in the previous three months.

Whichever explanation is correct, Palin’s attempt to fire Emmons is being cited as proof that Palin wanted to ban books and wanted to fire Emmons so she could do so. I’m disinclined to believe that for two reasons. First, this attempt to fire Emmons took place more than a month after the last time censorship was raised. Second, there is no evidence Palin even attempted to ban books either before or after Emmons resigned in August of 1999.

The September 4 Anchorage Daily News story says:

Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.

Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time.

The short preface to the September 5 Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman post says:

Please note that not at any time were any books ever banned from the Wasilla city library.

And that is the third factor I weighed: no books were ever banned from the Wasilla City Library. Given that fact, I don’t think this story has much basis.

There is one other aspect of this story that deserves attention: Anne Kilkenny. She appears to be driving the narrative that Palin tried to fire Emmons because Emmons wouldn’t ban books from the library. Kilkenny is the author of the August 31, 2008, “About Sarah Palin” email which specifically ties the attempted firing to the censorship issue without explaining the timeline. She also implies Palin had specific books in mind to be banned (emphasis mine):

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Kilkenny turns up in a September 2, 2008, New York Times article which doesn’t mention Palin’s attempts to fire Emmons but does imply Palin had specific books in mind for her ban and introduces a new piece of information about why Palin wanted to ban them (emphasis mine):

Anne Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled.

Kilkenny also has a role in the September 4 Anchorage Daily News story where she says no specific books were mentioned (emphasis mine):

When the matter came up for the second time in October 1996, during a City Council meeting, Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla housewife who often attends council meetings, was there.

Like many Alaskans, Kilkenny calls the governor by her first name.

"Sarah said to Mary Ellen, 'What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?" Kilkenny said.

"I was shocked. Mary Ellen sat up straight and said something along the line of, 'The books in the Wasilla Library collection were selected on the basis of national selection criteria for libraries of this size, and I would absolutely resist all efforts to ban books.'"

Palin didn't mention specific books at that meeting, Kilkenny said.

This article goes on to say:

Palin might have become a household name in the last week, but Kilkenny, who is not a Palin fan, is on her own small path to Internet fame. She sent out an e-mail earlier this week to friends and family answering, from her perspective, the question Outsiders are asking any Alaskan they know: "Who is this Sarah Palin?"

Kilkenny's e-mail got bounced through cyberspace and ended up on news blogs. Now the small-town mom and housewife is scheduling interviews with national news media and got her name on the front page of The New York Times, even if it was misspelled.

And what does Emmons herself have to say about all this? According to the September 2, 2008, New York Times story:

Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

According to the September 4 Anchorage Daily News story:

Emmons, now Mary Ellen Baker, is on vacation from her current job in Fairbanks and did not return e-mail or telephone messages left for her Wednesday.

I am sorry not to hear from Emmons about this but I can’t blame her for not wanting to get involved in the maelstrom of this campaign. Librarians are very, very smart people.