Ethics, Morality And Palinaide By: Mark W Adams

(Yes, "Palinaide." It's that tasty beverage best consumed ... luke-warm, like spit ... when you just can't get enough Palinfreude.)

Sweet Sarah, Patron Saint of the Dangling Participle has revealed her true self, at least according to Tbogg and the papers he reads. 

Most quotable take was Sully:

That's the dog-whistle behind "If I die, I die." It's a quote from the Biblical figure, Queen Esther, who rose from being a Beauty Queen to being the champion of the Jewish people in their battle for survival. Now imagine if McCain had won, had to resign because of illness, and we were facing an international crisis with Iran. Now take a Xanax.

Make mine a double.

She is a martyr, sacrificing herself on the alter of media stardom like the original beauty queen turned Empress and savior of a misfitted minority, Esther (which fittingly means "star" in Persian), who saved the Jews from genocide ordered because of their eccentric devotion to their deity.  Scorned, they just didn't fit into their world, just like the the 72% of the GOP who dig Sarah.

Of course if you do the math, since only 26.5% of adults identify as Republicans, that means 80% of the country have little or no use for the media whore from Alaska.

Sarah Palin, last seen wearing fisherman's waders (which are well known to be the Alaskan version of sack-cloth and ashes) is poised to become Empress of all Media after her sacrificial act of walking away from the glory that is the Governor's Crab Shack and General Store in Juneau.  Nears as anyone can tell it's so she can save the Fundamentalist Christian Conservative Whackadoodles from the modern-day equivalent of political genocide -- which according to the American Taliban means not getting their damn way on every fucking thing.

Her moral code drives her.  Unfortunately, few if any of us mere speakers of the English language can crack that code she speaks ... or rather, Tweets:

Talk in DC of a 2nd "Stimulus" Pkg: Impacts on AK? We'd be partaking in even more Big Govt largess & immoral natl debt accumulation when...
...NO ONE can measure DC's 1st attempt @ growing debt to "fix" prob. AK seeks development, industry, jobs for econ recovery vs growing govt

Her world view as it affects her governing style and decision-making process is revealed in between the word-salad.  She makes "moral" judgments regarding what is arguably a purely economic policy decision -- what to do to fix the broken economy.  Being a nation of laws, not men (or women); running a government according to a moral code is problematic at best and in extreme cases, like we see in Cleric-run Iran or Taliban controled Afghanistan, is nightmarish.

Morality and ethics are very different sides of the same coin.  Ethics can be codified without regard to any specific religious doctrine, which is likely as not to be in conflict with a competing sect's interpretation of scripture.  We know Sarah has a problem with ethics rules and was found to have "unlawfully abused her power as Governor."  However, this does not conflict with her notion of morality. 

Immoral behavior is subjective and can be rationalized by transgressors who invariably justify their actions as blessed by a higher authority or necessitated by a greater good.  Ethics laws are not so flexible or easily forgiven. 

Indeed, some of the most pious in our government profess a repulsively twisted morality which can justify all sorts of offensively craven behavior, twisting the Christian mandate of fighting poverty into a might-makes-right justification of protecting the wealthy and powerful from some of their most scandalous deeds -- so these "chosen ones" can bestow their blessed largess on the most well-connected no-bid contract recipient.  Sarah Palin fits right in with Washington's "Family," most recently seen smoothing the scandaled waters for Senator John Ensign and Mark Sanford when not fixing pancakes for presidents at their National Prayer Breakfasts.

The group’s approach to religion, Sharlet says, is based on “a sort of trickle-down fundamentalism,” which holds that the wealthy and powerful, if they “can get their hearts right with God … will dispense blessings to those underneath them.”

In practice, it's a glad-hand society who praise each other for how in-tune they are with God as they fuck each others' wives and steal each other's money -- and yours.  And yeah, this group formed initially as an anti-New Deal Christianist Cult has been Putsch-ing Palin from day one.

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, and Michael Gerson, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a Washington Post columnist, were among two groups of arch-conservatives who visited Gov. Palin in Alaska in the summer of 2007, bringing back to Washington, D.C. rave reviews of the then barely known governor as potential v-p material.

Both Barnes and Gerson are high-profile members of the so-called Falls Church Anglican, the name the defecting members gave themselves after voting to leave the Episcopal Church in December 2006.

In that congregation, they are closely aligned with a highly-secretive right-wing Christian fundamentalist political activist network known as "The Family," or "The Fellowship," many of whose leading members are active among the Falls Church Anglicans.

***

But the connection of the Palin selection as the GOP vice presidential candidate with Gerson, Barnes and the right-wing schismatic efforts within mainstream churches, generally, finds its broader expression in the mission of The Family, which has had as its objective since its founding as an anti-labor movement in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, to influence the political corridors of power in Washington, D.C. and globally.

Its core motive, as reflected in its activities over more than 70 years, is the intermingling of a shallow, unquestioning Christian fundamentalism with radical free trade, anti-New Deal, anti-trade unionist and anti-liberal passions. It has worked overseas to prop up dictators and mass murderers in support of big oil and other American multi-national corporate enterprises, as Sharlet documents in his book.

For all the world these folks look like the religious wing of the neo-con Project for the New American Century.  Small wonder Weekly Standard Founder and arch neo-con Bill Kristol has been her media Defender in Chief even before he pushed John McCain to foist this monster on us. 

She's less educated, less experienced, less comprehensible, yet more appealing than George W. Bush, in a: "politician I'd rather do beers/shoot moose with" sort of way.  A dangerous empty vessel they hope to again fill up with hallucinagenic policy theories and backwards talking points who is even less likely even than "W" to catch on to their nonesense ... like Bush seemed to after six long years of embarrassing cock-ups.