• Palin is tied closely to a fundamentalist, ultra-right Christian church that places enormous emphasis on the “end times,” and which connects its fundamentalist theology with politics.
• Palin gives every indication of believing much of the fundamentalist dogma spouted in her Church, even putting the theocratic nonsense into her own words—she has said the Iraq war is “a task that is from God” and claimed further that it was “God’s will” for her to complete a pipeline project..
• Palin appears to be a supporter of creationism (which makes sense, given her fundamentalist background), and a continuing believer that global warming is unrelated to human activity; she appears, in other words, to be yet another conservative opponent of objective science.
• In a recorded video, Palin credits a witch-hunting pastor (Thomas Muthee) with making her Governor of Alaska; she did this only several months before being picked as McCain’s vice presidential nominee.  This is very recent—not something from the dim past.  A sampling of videos follows, including (1) Thomas Muthee’s blessing of Sarah Palin, asking God to “make a way” for her in politics, and protecting her from “witchcraft”; (2) Sarah Palin’s speech in front of the same congregation giving credit to Muthee’s blessing for her rise in politics; (3) Thomas Muthee’s self-promotional video describing how he forced a witch to leave an area of Kenya—his claim to fame which brought him, ultimately, to Alaska; and (4) a discussion of this topic from MSNBC. 

Hard to believe?  Look for yourself.

But Obama has shown as much steel in his own way, through a very different narrative, and I am not in doubt about the fundamental toughness and stability of his character.  For me, the fact that Obama demonstrably has—as so many have noted—a first-class mind to complement his first-class temperament, this fact sets him apart from McCain.  I mean no disparagement of McCain by this—it is simply a statement of evident fact.

But another aspect of this campaign strikes me as the core point emphasized by this moment:  This campaign is not really about Barack Obama or John McCain as much as it is about the teams for which they have chosen to fight. 

I am no orthodox liberal and am at the moment a Democrat, by registration, for reasons of painful pragmatism rather than ideological identity; I am moved far more by Nietzsche than I could ever be by John Rawls, whatever sympathy I have for the liberal vision of the social contract as a pragmatic device.  I am, therefore, by no means enthusiastic for the overall Democratic program.

What I know most clearly, however, is what I am adamantly against: The Religious Right and the Mob.  McCain belongs to neither category, but to obtain the Republican nomination, to become the however-grudging heir of Bush, he has enlisted as the reluctant champion of both. 

This is not about McCain: This is about Palin, this is about Bush, and this is about the need to fundamentally repudiate everything that they and their backers represent.

[S]enior officials warned that forcing Dow’s hand could endanger future investments in the country. A senior government official, prohibited from speaking publicly on such a contentious issue, described the quandary. “Do you want $1 billion in investment, or do you want this sticky situation to continue?”

By all means, let’s be rid of the “sticky situation,” let Dow off the hook, and declare India open for business, shall we? Will the environment take a beating? Well, the flow of cash and bribes is more important than either the environment or the plight of the desperately poor. Open for business, then—business as usual in India.

Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign … that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing.

(Hat tip–Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo)

And at another service at his 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, he punches the air and calls Islam a “false religion” that God has told America to destroy.

“We were built for battle! We were created for conflict! We get off on warfare!” he adds.

I don’t know exactly how he proposes to do this—perhaps put those nuclear weapons to use (even then, what of Muslims scattered across Europe and the United States?  Some kind of separate final solution for them?).  I don’t know how else you “destroy” a religion with well over a billion adherents.  Good to know we give tax exempt status to religious extremists who “get off on warfare,” as he puts it.

Seems like Hamas should qualify for a tax exemption under our system, does it not?

Parsley has growing clout among evangelical Christians, a group he calls the “largest special interest group in America.” The pastor has said that he was divinely placed in Ohio to help influence presidential elections, telling a Christian magazine that he believes “in the geographic locating abilities of the Holy Spirit.”

Well, perhaps the Holy Spirit can help him pay the taxes that normally apply to partisan political players. Let the Lord provide, as believers are wont to say.

However ghoulish it would be for her to stay in the race waiting for her opponent to be assassinated, it would also be utterly irrational.  Put aside the relative improbability of such a horrible event occurring before the Democratic Convention.  There would have been no reason to fear that the party would not have turned to her in such an event even if she had conceded the nomination.  She still would have had her supporters and delegates.  The Clinton’s are too smart to not understand this.

Why, then, the obviously deliberate decision to refer to the 1968 primary election repeatedly, sometimes including the word “assassinated” and sometimes not?  If the point was, as Senator Clinton has since claimed, merely to note that previous campaigns have stretched into the summer, citing that particular year seems an odd choice.  After all, the Democratic Party lost in the general election of 1968—hardly an encouraging analogy.  Moreover, the most singular event of that election year was Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, as she very clearly understands.  So raising that election year repeatedly does very little to support her case for extending the current primary campaign.

There is another possible motive for this theme.  The Clinton’s have hardly been bashful about suggesting that, perhaps, America is just not ready to elect a black president.  While they have not said this directly, they have certainly campaigned as if they believed this.  The constant claim that Obama would not be electable hinges strongly on the racial animus displayed by Appalachian whites in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky primaries.  Hence Senator Clinton’s reference to “hard-working Americans, white Americans . . .”

The belief that America is not ready for a black president would be a conveniently self-serving one for the Clintons; but it could be no less true for that.  Many Obama supporters hope America has matured sufficiently, but fear that it may not have.  In the black community especially, memories of racial violence are not old, and there has been a fear for Obama’s safety from the moment his presidential campaign began.  Obama received a security detail earlier than any previous candidate, on the basis of received threats and perceived risks.  The fear of an assassination gains credibility with every renewed expression of raw, virulent racism as the campaign unfolds.  In recent weeks, interviews of voters in Kentucky and West Virginia have uncovered just such sentiments.  A few days ago I heard a white Kentucky voter explaining that he voted for Clinton, that he could not vote for a black man, and that he thought Obama would be killed if elected.  He quickly noted that he would not himself kill Obama; but he thought others would.  This was days before Clinton’s recent assassination gaffe.  It was chilling to hear.

The Clintons must know something of this—they are too politically savvy to not know.  Bill Clinton, in particular, has too much history with the black community to not understand its anxiety.  Perhaps, then, the Clintons decided to raise the election of 1968—with enough subtlety to avoid adverse consequences—as a means of raising unease about Obama’s candidacy.  If the possibility and fear of an assassination could be fanned in the minds of super-delegates, perhaps they would be more inclined to support Clinton.  If members of the Congressional Black Caucus were sufficiently nervous about Obama’s safety, perhaps they would take the “safe” route by supporting Clinton.  The repeated references to 1968, and the assassinations of that year, if done subtly enough, might make just enough super-delegates uneasy to tip the election away from Obama.

Of course any such strategy would be playing with fire, to put it mildly, but with the odds stacked heavily against her and time running out, Clinton may have feared losing more than getting burned.  So she has deployed this theme—repeatedly.  Only in the most recent instance did she place her words badly enough to cause an explosion.