Sarah Palin

We already knew that Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann were going to be joining right-wing activists like Roy Moore and Rick Scarborough at the First National Tea Party Convention next month.

But now organizers have added another new and exciting guest - Joseph Farah:

The First National Tea Party Convention hosted by Tea Party Nation is happy to announce updates to the convention itinerary.

World Net Daily's Joseph Farah and Fox News Contributor Angela McGlowan will be attending the convention and both will be speaking at the Friday evening dinner.

If the fact that Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, will be sharing the stage with Farah, a full-fledged conspiracy theorist/Birther, doesn't perfectly sum up the current state of the conservative movement, I don't know what does.

• Today, Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the marriage equality legislation into law.
• Box Turtle Bulletin: Kalamazoo churches don't want to be seen with tolerant Christians.
• David Neiwert: Bennett compares climate-change science to Nazi medicine, debate to Hitler's persecutions.
• Think Progress: Sarah Palin is booted from her scheduled speech at a Canadian hospital fundraiser.
• TPM: Lawyer From Far-Right Group Picked For Key Legal-Aid Post.
• Good As You is not impressed with the Liberty Counsel's list of "victories" this year.
• Finally, Steve Benen on "Bill Kristol, Public Safety Advocate."

A few weeks ago in his column for WorldNetDaily, Ken Hutcherson penned this line:

I think Christians are the new Negro – but that's an issue for a follow-up column.

Well, that follow-up column is here:

Many reading this may not understand where I came up with this concept of calling Christians "the new Negro."

The reason is because there are undeniable similarities. Jim Crow laws were passed to keep me from having my constitutional rights and my rights under the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though the Constitution gave me those freedoms, man was smart enough to be able to keep me from living those freedoms by saying I was "separate but equal."

Today, my constitutional right of freedom of religion is being eroded again by laws such as the Hate Crimes Bill and repeated attacks by the politically correct crowd. Threats that came along as a result of an African American wanting to get out from under Jim Crow laws were formidable and scary and designed to keep African Americans quiet. The same thing is happening to Christians today.

...

Sarah Palin is another example.

The politically correct crowd has a very difficult time dealing with Sarah because of who she is. Mrs. Palin is a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional marriage, pro-hunting, white, conservative, Christian male who happened to have been born a woman! The politically correct crowd knows exactly what to do with a white male with those attributes, but a woman?

She is the perfect picture of the politically correct woman – strong, beautiful, able to both buy and fry the bacon, take care of the family, run an entire state and still take care of her baby. But because of who she is, and because she does not subscribe to politically correct thinking, she has been attacked for no other reason than her Judeo-Christian values, just as African Americans were attacked for no other reason than their skin color.

...

The only difference between Christians and African Americans is that Christians put up with this intolerance while standing behind the false disguise of humility and love. We are obsessed with showing the world our love when our primary job is to tell them the truth. The Bible does not say, "Sensitivity shall set you free." It says, "The truth shall set you free." Are we not the truth-tellers?

When are we as believers, like the African Americans that came before us, going to say, enough is enough? No more "separate but equal!" Our battle cry is "We are the salt of the earth, onward Christian soldiers and to God be the glory! For in unity we will stand and we will not be stopped!

I'm guessing that we've probably seen that last of Mike Huckabee's "Mr. Nice Guy" routine regarding Sarah Palin: 

Sarah Palin says former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee made a “horrible decision” nine years ago in granting clemency to a man suspected of killing four police officers two weeks ago in Washington state.

...

“It’s absolutely tragic and just unfathomable what has happened there, and I do feel bad for Huckabee,” Palin said. “But it was a horrible decision that he made.”

As governor of Alaska, she said she had never been in the position of having to grant a prisoner clemency, adding that “most Alaskans know me well enough to know that I don’t have a whole lot of mercy for the bad guys.”

“I’m on the good guys’s side,” she said. “I’m all about redemption and recovery and reform and all that. But I will always error on the side of punishing even stricter, even harder on the bad guys.”

Ever since Palin burst on the scene, Huckabee has been exceedingly diplomatic and careful never to say anything that might come across as critical of her, even though it was pretty obvious that he's been irked by the fact that overnight she became the darling of the conservative movement despite having accomplished next to nothing and having no real public record on key conservative issues, at least in comparison to him.

Presumably, Huckabee won't be quite so diplomatic regarding Palin down the line after this ... though whether he'll really be willing to run the risk alienating Palin's supporters remains to be seen. 

• In a video released by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Sarah Palin says the United States should rededicate itself to seeking God's will. You can see the video here.
• Sadly, Tom Tancredo is not going to run for Governor.
• It looks like Gov. Tim Pawlenty is ramping up his plans for a 2012 presidential run.
• When did CWA's Wendy Wright become an "official international election observer"?
• Elaine Donnelly is, not surprisingly, against anything and everything that might lead to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
• Finally, the Family Research Council announced that it is launching "an eight week campaign to call all household phones in Louisiana" to generate opposition to healthcare reform.

Gary Bauer reports the shocking news that Sarah Palin is the Religious Right's choice for President in 2012:

My Inbox was overflowing this morning with responses to yesterday’s question on preferred presidential candidates in 2012 – and they are still pouring in. But as my staff worked furiously to sort through the barrage of e-mails, two things stood out.

First, I was surprised by the wide range of names that came back. Granted we asked a very open-ended question, but folks obviously are thinking outside the box and willing to consider many options. Quite a few people insisted on a fresh face, such as Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, who tied for fifth place with Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Other suggestions included Senators John Thune and Jim DeMint, as well as General David Petraeus.

Nevertheless, the final results were quite surprising. There was a spirited contest for second place with Mike Huckabee edging Mitt Romney, while Newt Gingrich finished fourth. But to say there was a clear favorite is an understatement. In fact, one individual got more votes than the other 23 names combined. If my emails and her book sales are any indication, Sarah Palin has a very bright future indeed!

And it's not just emails to Bauer that Palin dominates, as she's also running away with this OneNewsNow poll:

I think the GOP should just do away with its primary process entirely and simply pick its next presidential candidate based solely on the contents of Gary Bauer's email inbox. 

Of course, in 2000 and 2008, Bauer was John McCain's biggest (and pretty much only) Religious Right supporter... and that didn't work out too well for McCain either time.  

Alan Keyes, writing on his blog Alan Keyes is LOYAL TO LIBERTY (seriously, that is its name,) explains that just as he warned back in 2004 that Barack Obama was a "hard line Marxist bent on destroying America," he must now sound the alarm bells about Sarah Palin, declaring her to be insufficiently opposed to abortion: 

Nothing Sarah Palin has said or done supports the view that she is pro-life as a matter of justice, law and public policy. So far as I can tell, she is just a pro-choice politician who turned a laudable personal choice into a seductive, but false pro-life public image. All the choices and statements she has made in her public capacity support this conclusion. If I'm wrong, show me the facts and statements that indicate something beyond the "I'm personally pro-life" position so common among the so-called "pro-choice" promoters of "abortion rights".

Unless Sarah Palin fundamentally alters the views she has enunciated and acted on up to now, I predict that she will disappoint the hope so many sincerely pro-life people are mistakenly investing in her supposed pro-life stand. I am sure I will pay a price for saying now what others will only realize when it may be too late. I was excoriated starting in 2004 for calling Obama a hard line Marxist bent on destroying America. That view is not at all so contemned today as it was when facts and reasoning first convinced me of its truth. Similarly on account of facts and reasoning I and others insist that Obama cease to withhold evidence bearing on whether or not he satisfies the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Office of President of the United States. For this we are vilified and ridiculed, though many of our fellow Americans now join in this demand.

My view of Sarah Palin's supposed pro-life stance, and the danger involved in following her leadership, is similarly based on facts and reasoning. I will hold to it until one or the other clearly compels me to do otherwise. Experience has taught me that even among those whose pro-life hearts espouse the self-evident truths that make us free, when it comes to politics the factual standard of truth often gives way to personal feelings and expedient calculation. Given the crisis we are in, I can only pray that at some point they will realize that this neglect of the requirements of truth is the very reason America's liberty has reached the crisis point. Before a people finds leaders willing to act in truth, they must become a people willing to submit their own judgments and decisions to its demands.

• Sarah Palin says she's qualified to be President because she has "common sense" and "American values."  By that logic, isn't pretty much anyone qualified to be President?
• Lou Dobbs for President? Are you kidding me?
• Gov. Mark Sanford faces 37 charges of violating state ethics laws.
• I have to admit that the absurd editing in this Newsmax interview with Richard Land just cracked me up.
• Ralph Reed and Mike Huckabee: together at last.
• Joseph Farah warns that "America is being judged by God."
• Janet Jenkins has been granted custody of her daughter due to Lisa Miller's repeated refusal to provide her access.
• Randall Terry is heading out on tour ... again.
• Finally, I though the Manhattan Declaration was a vow by the Right to never give up in the culture war, but Jim Daly sees it differently: "What this declaration is saying is, if you want a fulfilling, rewarding, joyful, peaceful life then embrace Jesus Christ as your Savior."

I've been avoiding talking about Carrie Prejean and her latest scandal because, honestly, I feel bad for her about it and don't think she deserves to be humiliated in this manner by an unscrupulous ex-boyfriend or anyone else.

But she has a new book out and she's making the rounds promoting it and inevitably the topic is bound to come out, as it did in this interview with Meridith Vieira on "The Today Show." But what I am most interested in begins around the four minute mark, when Prejean goes into right-wing victim mode, claiming that conservative women are under attack, comparing herself to Sarah Palin, and complaining that nobody would ever say nasty things about women like Sonia Sotomayor or Michelle Obama:

Prejean: Well, I think it's important for people to understand. I think that Americans heard only bits and pieces of what really happened and I think that there is a liberal bias in the media. And it's unfortunate that conservative women are attacked, they are attacked for their beliefs and it's unacceptable and it shouldn't happen. And so many Americans are frustrated, so many Americans believe that their beliefs are under attack and that they should silent and free speech doesn't exist. Since when does free speech not exist? Since when is someone able to go on national TV and call someone the most awful names you could ever call a woman and get away with it?

...

Vieira: You say in the book you've been "Palinized" ... what do you mean by that?

Prejean: You know that attacks Sarah Pailn is under, don't you?

Vieira: But you think if you're a conservative woman ...

Prejean: Do you think Sarah Palin's been attacked?

Vieira: I think Sarah Palin has certainly been criticized, absolutely, by a lot of people, as have many politicians.

Prejean: And there is a double standard out there. There is an extreme double standard that conservative women are under attack for whatever it is. I mean, if Sean Hannity went out there and said some of the things that Keith Olbermann has said about me, you know if he said anything about Sonia Sotomayor or Michelle Obama, he would be off the air. Why is there this double standard? And that's the reason why I wrote this book.

She's right: nobody on the Right would have ever attacked Sotomayor or said anything offensive or crazy about her.