Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

(Weekly Column)

To Read on Huffington Post

To fight her culture war, Sarah Palin needed a cultured wardrobe. The Main Street hockey mom wasted no time trading up to 5th Avenue and found the attire much nicer at Saks. Dressed in her Sunday best, Palin pried herself away from Bergdrof Goodman and ventured into the "real America," where she promptly announced her support for a U.S. constitutional amendment prohibiting gay people from marrying.

Cinderella then appeared on James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio show. Dressed in her exotic new duds, she explained that the McCain/Palin dud of a campaign was on track because she was "putting this in God's hands." Well, if the Lord doesn't come through, at least she has discovered the joys of Lord & Taylor.

While all politicians have skeletons in their closet, finding a walk-in closet stuffed with $150,000 in new GOP-financed clothing, was seen as obscene by voters already furious at Republican excess in a time of economic duress. Scrambling to excuse the inexcusable, the Palin campaign said the clothes would all be donated to charity after the election. So, if you see a bag lady with a Gucci bag in December, you can thank Sarah Palin.

The great irony of wardrobe-gate is that most of Palin's remaining fans are sexually repressed Evangelical men who are undressing the VP candidate with their eyes. The New York Times reports that her rallies are overrun with "dudes" who wear buttons that read, "Proud to be voting for a hot chick."

As Palin brilliantly played the role of Imelda Marcos, her fellow Alaskan, Sen. Ted Stevens, stepped on stage as 2008's Jack Abramoff. At the very moment the McCain campaign was desperately trying to distance itself from corruption on Wall Street, Stevens was convicted of failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, including extensive renovations on his house. Between Palin's self-improvement and Steven's home improvement, the image of the Republican Party has been solidified one week before Election Day.

On the cusp of a defeat, the GOP ticket has gone from avaricious to just plain vicious. McCain is using so many code words one might think he was running for director of the CIA. For example, he shamefully claimed that Obama would turn the Internal Revenue Service into "a giant welfare agency."

Palin, meanwhile, mocks Obama as a socialist who sees this nation differently from true Americans and pals around with terrorists. (It was actually McCain who was endorsed by Al Qaeda this week) With such a frightening portrait of Obama, is it any surprise that two white supremacists were arrested this week in Tennessee for plotting to assassinate the Senator? The McCain campaign obviously does not wish Obama harm. But, they have irresponsibly pandered to extremists and stoked the passions of violent, angry "patriots" to win their votes.

The specter of an Obama presidency has anti-gay forces in a swivet. Focus on the Family's Dobson sent out a paranoid "hypothetical" letter from the year 2012 that said the election of Obama could lead to terrorist strikes on four American cities, Israel being hit by a nuclear bomb, Gay marriage in every state and hospitals refusing service to anyone over 80 years old.

Meanwhile, in California, a jowly Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, literally morphed into the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. In a video that distorted history and stretched logic, the phony "moderate" strongly urged voters to pass Prop. 8 because, "we should not let two percent of the population determine the change of definition of marriage...that has been supported for 5,000 years."

Of course, this is roughly the same percentage of people who identify as Christian in China. Based on Warren's mob rules philosophy and respect for historical precedent, he should find China's persecution of Christians acceptable in the nation's efforts to uphold and protect thousands of years of Asian history.

No sooner did Warren dehumanize gay people and demean their relationships -- in the name of love - then new FBI statistics were released showing that hate crimes against gays increased in 2007, up 6% from 2006 even though the overall numbers of hate crimes slightly dropped. We can only look forward to more of Warren's contrived compassion after his religion-based bigotry trickles down like a drop of blood into our lives.

With Republican losses likely, the Los Angeles Times reports that ambitions social conservatives are already plotting to take over the Republican National Committee. Like vultures circling the walking dead, these rapacious and repugnant culture warriors are already poised to foist blame on McCain - if he loses - for not being conservative enough.

Palin, it seems, is already laying the groundwork for a presidential run in 2012. With a huge portion of the GOP base and talk radio already in her pocket, she will likely get the nomination. Clearly, Sarah is all dressed up, because conservatives think she has someplace to go. What amazes me about her is that she is a filthy campaigner who is most comfortable in the mud, yet her designer clothes always look fabulous.

3 Comments:

Glad she's getting some new duds, but that isn't going to conceal an ugly, bigoted soul. Palin, no matter how expensive her clothing from Sak's and Lord &Taylor are, it does not change the essential woman, a mean-spirited, homophobic, animal-hating hick.
posted by Merlyn, at 10/28/2008 8:39 PM

A little correction here: her clothes came from Saks AND Neiman Marcus, which doesn't alter the mean-spirited, homophobic, animal hating hick remark. According to MSNBC, McCain campaign sources which labeled her a diva, then a rogue are now calling her a whack job. If the shoe fits. . .
posted by richard schillen, at 10/29/2008 12:20 AM

I'm sick of all this "palintology". She's on the road to nowhere. Her only chance at fame and fortune will probably be as a host in some mindless game show where she would excel at demonstrating her talent as the perfect airhead or act as Pat Sajack's sidekick. Spin that wheel one more time, Palin.
posted by Anonymous, at 10/30/2008 8:14 AM