Palin comes as a Thief in the Night

[Ian_rd]

I certainly hope I learn of nothing more disturbing than this NYT article posted by jefferson_dem concerning Governor Palin's opinion that rape victims should pay for their own rape kit, while the investigative tools for other crimes are happily paid by the State.

With this in mind, and with an inkling of her extremist religious views, it's difficult to avoid the assumption that Governor Palin believes a rape victim is obligated to carry and raise a rapist's child. And she is incredibly close to entering the White House and inheriting a tremendous amount of political leverage and policy influence, even if she remains a Vice President.

Our nation is yet again on the verge of insanity. With the election of President George W. Bush, I believe a sizable but previously sleepy religious demographic awoke and hijacked large portions of our government. These are the religious extremists who believe in holy war against non-believers and that the End Times are upon us. Karl Rove saw them when no one else did, and stirred them with a candidate whom he crafted as a divine messenger of God to fight Evil. Rove was only trying to win elections, not necessarily hand control of one of our two major political parties to dangerous fanatics. But that, nevertheless, is the consequence. And they are not going anywhere just because Bush is on his way out.

This is why McCain needed Palin. John McCain is a pariah among this demographic, seen as insufficiently righteous and therefore unworthy of their support. And, because they are the new party base, he cannot win without them. Hence the selection of Palin, a woman straight out of their own tradition, fanatic enough to be worthy in the eyes of their wrathful and violent interpretation of God.

I believe that the extremism of the Bush administration thankfully brought a moment of clarity to many Americans, which resulted in the 2006 electoral defeats, strikingly low approval ratings for Bush, and the defection of many influential old school conservatives away from the Republican Party. But the True Believers are still among us, there are millions of them, and they always vote.

In addition to hiding himself, McCain is hiding Palin away from the press and the American people as much as possible until the election, primarily for the fact that she makes an ass of herself in an unscripted venue. They're even trying to postpone (or worse) the Vice Presidential debate against Biden. As an obvious consequence, they are catching heat from the press. But that means the McCain campaign is calculating that all the browbeating from the press and the appearance of weakness for a run-and-hide campaign is less damaging to them than letting Palin speak frankly and take questions. Which is scary enough, but even more frightening is the possibly that in this fashion a religious fanatic could be sneaked into the White House, like a "thief in the night" perhaps.