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!Sister Sarah and the Gospel of Conservatism

Snarkiness is not a qualification for Presidency. One cannot show leadership in 140 characters on Twitter. The American people cannot embrace the better angels of their nature on a Facebook page or in a manufactured fight with a talk show host or some other celebrity figure. Sarah Palin has shown no ability for self-reflection or collation building with those who do not share her political viewpoint. She is just a demagogue in a long line of American anti-intellectual political demagogues who drift through American history like autumn leaves tumbling across a yard, and as far as demagogues go, she is not that interesting. The likes of Senator Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace, William J. Simmons and James W. Barker were more hefty ideological figures, individuals of cunning and intelligence. In a reality show/short attention span world we are given Sister Sarah and her traveling show of the gospel of self-promotion and conservatism.

I thought her tents had folded long before her sideshow went solo. Remember the Katie Couric interview? It said a lot to me that the John McCain campaign shielded her from the media and purposely wanted her first interview to be with the CBS anchor, a journalist renown for her less than hard hitting style. It was basically supposed to be a verbal arm wrestling contest with an Ewok. The only way they could have picked an easier interview was to have asked Tickle Me Elmo from “Sesame Street.” According to campaign insiders Palin did not do her basic homework, and I kept thinking why should she have to do homework for an interview with someone who is basically verbal fluff and lace. When you are supposed to be one heartbeat away from being the leader of this nation, and your party’s standard-bearer has a history of cancer, heart problems and probably knew Noah when he was building the Ark, you kind of got to hit the ground running. Again, this is the McCain campaign’s handpicked journalist, someone who will never be confused with Edward R. Murrow, H.L. Mencken, or even Walter Cronkite. This is Katie Couric, who less than two years earlier was doing cooking segments, unveiling the latest fall fashions and joshing it up with Bryant Gumbel. Her previous greatest moments of journalism were wondering who Willard was going to wish a happy 100^th birthday to. In golf this would have been a putt an inch from the hole, a gimme!

What happened next, was akin to a deer in headlights. Couric looked like Bruce Lee in a fight with a 2^nd grader. Again, Katie Couric, Katie Couric! It might have been the worst political performance since Edward Muskie cried, Dan Quayle could not spell potato, or maybe Michael Dukakis putting on that stupid helmet and climbing into a tank. Those instances where brief moments, like a bad date, but Palin’s gaff went on and on, minute after painful minute. Watching this interview, I kept thinking if she cannot match wits with Katie Couric, how in the world is she going to be against formidable foes like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-il, Hu Jintao, the Castro brothers, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chávez or Osama bin Laden. I can be as patrician as the next person, but I am not crazy enough to throw the keys to a brand new Aston Martin to an overmatched 2-year-old, and tell them to have fun, and this is what would happen putting her in the Oval Office.

Afterwards conservative crowds hung on her every word, but I figured it was like a good family who recognized that she was an idiot, but she was their idiot and while privately I can call Sister Sarah an idiot if I am a Republican; in public I am going to defend her. Yet, when the votes were counted, the autopsy done, it was clear that the two main things that cost McCain the election were the economy and Sarah Palin. Now, one would think that this would stick in the throats of Republicans. This dingbat of a woman cost them the White House for at least four years, probably eight years. Time to vote her off the island. The only thing I was sad about was, I would not get my dose of funny hottie, Tina Fey pretending to be her every week.

Like a AAA pitcher called up to the big leagues before he was ready, I thought she would go back to Alaska, show that she can govern, reach across party lines, study the issues and be a beloved guest at all the Republican chicken dinners across the country. After a few years, she could proclaim that she had learned, grown and was ready for prime time, the big leagues. Instead, she quit. She took her ball and went home, well, not really to home, but to the deep, deep financial pockets of conservative America. I do not care what side of the aisle you are on. It is one thing to move up to a higher level, get the bigger office. It is another to leave those who voted for you holding the bag. Who cares about the people of Alaska? It was all about Sister Sarah and filling her bank account. Fox News paid her for show segments she had nothing to do with. HarperCollins paid her for books she did not write. Conservative groups across this nation paid her for speeches that she simply read off a teleprompter. Without a script in front of her or written on her hand, she made George W. Bush sound Shakespearean. Tweets written by staffers. Facebook video choreographed by a production team. While most parents would shield a child who had made several bad decisions, allow them to grow and mature without a television camera on them, in the world of Sister Sarah’s traveling revival, the collection plate must be passed around, even if it means a teenage mother, with a child, who is still having sex, campaigns for abstinence only???

I keep looking for a sign that the person surrounded by the machine, the woman propped up by handlers and talk show hosts, is ready to govern. Just a smoke signal, maybe even a blink or two, or a quick piece of visual Morse Code, something, anything, that tells me that she is ready for that middle of the night call that every President gets. I am pretty sure she did not come up with terms like “death panels,” “mama grizzlies,” and “lamestream media.” They are probably the creation of think tanks, focus groups and talented staffers, but a word or two about the better angels of our nature and how she could be the representative of all Americans would ease my concern. Still, that kind of language does not fill the collection plates, is not red meat to the faithful, and Sister Sarah would become a servant and not just the focus of attention.

Democrats want Sister Sarah to be the Republican nominee in 2012 as they figure she would be easiest to defeat. One problem with Democratic electoral wisdom is in the last few decades when it comes to patsies, it is usually wrong. Lyndon Johnson worked hard in 1968 to insure that Richard Nixon would the GOP pick figuring given his defeat in 1960 and his loss in California that his politics were as out of step as brown shoes with a tuxedo. We know how that turned out. In 1980, Jimmy Carter wanted Ronald Reagan as his foe. No need to talk about that one. In the poker’s game of politics a player never knows what card is going to come up next and I would rather not take a chance on a wild card. Sarah might not have the numbers but her people vote.

Sarah Palin is not like any political demagogue that has come before her. She is more like another famous sister, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, a woman scrubbed out of most history books, although she might have been the most powerful female in the 1920s and 30s. Sister Aimee was the cultural Rorschach test of her era with her turns of phrase and jabs at opponents as her voice crisscrossed America via the radio. Harper’s magazine in 1926 noted, "You may believe Aimee Semple McPherson to be a messenger direct from God Almighty to save His erring world. Or you may believe her to be the most unblushing fraud in the public eye today. Some do one, some the other... But the one fact that stands out is that her influence is incredible, that it carries as that of few evangelists has ever carried, that she is to-day one of the most amazing phenomena of power in this feverish, power-insane United States." Switch out the words “Aimee Semple McPerson,” replace them with “Sarah Palin,” and that quote could have appeared in Time magazine today. Sister Aimee’s gospel was Jesus. Sister Sarah’s is conservatism. Reality is both women feel they have been called by God but care and cared mainly about themselves.

Here is the problem with that. Many years ago I was forced to take a preaching class taught by the great Fred Craddock in graduate school. In this class I had to give an oratory. Something amazing happened. I was great with a capital G. My fellow students praised me and told me it was the most amazing thing they ever heard. Dr. Craddock quietly said, “I want to see you after class.” I expect him to pat my back, tell me I was verbal god among men. Instead he took me for a Coke, patted my hand and said with only the wisdom decades of life can give you, “You cannot glorify yourself and God at the same time. When you learn that you will be a good speaker.” You cannot glorify yourself and God at the same time. Nor can you glorify the ideals that this country stands for and yourself at the same time. Our greatest Presidents and leaders have understood that they had to be servants first in order to lead. Abraham Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and George Washington all grasped that even if it cost them at times political success and power, the ideals of this nation came first. I am still waiting for a sign that Sister Sarah understands this. Just blink is all I ask. Until then, let’s pass round the collection plate.