Saradise Lost - Book 5 - Chapter 30: "She's Like a Big Melting Iceberg in Warm Water, and a Big Bunch Just Slid Off the Side"

and:

Saradise Lost & Found - Chapter 16: The Open Door Thing

The video PA and others posted yesterday, The Battle Hymn of Sarah Palin, contains the line "Sarah Palin has the wisdom to walk through an open door." In the video below on The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and a colleague go through the entire song. Then they take a look at the lyrics:


The "open door" line actually has important context. This is from a week after the 2008 election, in one of Palin's first post-election interviews:



So, these people, keyed up on their song, dedicated to "The Tea Party and all their patriots," have - in this country western homily, evangelical church-attending, pre-2010 election environment - not only declared their fealty to the Palin-inspired meme that God will, as Palin beseeched in the November 2008 interview, "open a door" for Sarah, they've managed to sneak the metaphor past one of the sharper progressive commentators without notice.

Cenk says, "I'll tell you what, she can walk through a door - OK - she really can."

Palin had said "God, if there is an open door for me somewhere - this is what I always pray - don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it's cracked open a little bit, maybe I'll plow right on through. Maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door - in '12 or four years later. ...... I'll plow through that door."

Uygur's misreading of Palin's coded text, conveyed back through a couple of her acolytes, isn't entirely surprising. But Cenk's staff might have googled "Sarah Palin God, if there is an open door for me somewhere" before producing their segment on the seemingly inane lyrics.

People, like Max Blumenthal, Outside atheist and anti-theocracy bloggers, and some of the Alaska bloggers, have made important observations about those November 2008 lines, and have followed their embedment into her riffs and into the reactions of evangelicals, fundamentalists and charismatic Christians and Christianists to Palin's ascendancy. It was longtime anti-Christianist and milita movement expert, David Neiwert, who brought this video to light the other day at Crooks & Liars.

On one level, the Battle Hymn of Sarah Palin is hilarious. On others, it is clearly ominous to some of us. More people need to take her Christianist sub-texts seriously. She will be doing more of this in the coming weeks, and will be trying to tie it into more statements designed to heighten media attention to her upcoming visit to Israel.

Saradise Found - Chapter 21: The Battle Hymn of Sarah Palin

I assume, with the open bible on an altar in the foreground (turned to one of the late books of the Old Testament), this was performed in a church. Less than a week before the 2010 election (October 29, 2010).

Hat tip to Gryph.

MLK Day - and Other Anniversaries

Today is Martin Luther King Day.

It is also the 50th anniversary of President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address, on January 17th 1961:


I grew up in South Seattle (Burien). When Eisenhower was inaugurated, I was in the 2nd grade. When he gave his farewell address, I was in junior high school. At night, you could hear the jet engines of brand new B-47s and B-52s warming up, and the sounds of these giant bombers winging their ways from testing facilities to bases and back. We would practice "duck-and-cover" under our school desks once per month. For years.

In the seven years between Eisenhower's speech and Martin Luther King's death, Dr. King had an epiphany on the evils of war far greater than that of President Eisenhower:


Yesterday - Sunday - was the 20th anniversary of the launch of the aerial bombing phase of Operation Desert Storm. For twenty years, we've been involved in almost perpetual war against Iraq. For over ten years we have been involved in war against Afghanistan.

Here's Rep. Ron Paul, last July, addressing the U.S. House on the 20th anniversary of April Glaspie's helping to start this awful conflagration, by telling Saddam Hussein that our interests in what he did in the matters of Iraqi-Kuwaiti relations were basically a local issue of minor importace to Americans:


Eisenhower was right; King was absolutely right; Rep. Paul is correct to continue to point out the absurdity of constantly pursuing one war after another that we cannot win in meaningful terms.

Saradise Lost - Book 5 - Chapter 29: "I Don't Think This Was the Week to Play a Game"

Saradise Lost - Book 5 - Chapter 28: Max Blumenthal on Palin's 'Blood Libel' Comment

Gryph asked me yesterday why I had not yet addressed this issue. I told him that I was waiting for somebody of Max Blumenthal's caliber to weigh in instead. Max has now done that - at his blog and elsewhere.

Interesting that the segment starts out qualifying Max as somebody who has visited Palin's own church. When he did that, he prepped for it at our house in Wasilla.

I suspect that if Max can schedule it, he will be covering Palin's Reno hunters' convention appearance.

Saradise Lost - Book 5 - Chapter 27: Tucson Shooting Survivor: "It Looks Like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the Rest Got Their First Target"

Clear Channel Takes Down Limbaugh Bullet Hole Signs in Tucson & David Brock Recounts Three Glenn Beck-Induced Assassination Attempts This Year

At least Palin's SarahPAC people took her target range images immediately after the Tucson shootings. Rush Limbaugh's Tucson producers finally got around to pulling this one down today sometime Monday:

Several weeks ago, NewsTalk 790 KNST in Tucson put up a billboard to advertise Rush Limbaugh's radio show. The text reads, "Rush Limbaugh/Straight Shooter," and the ad is riddled with images of bullet holes. In the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 18 others on Saturday, KNST's parent company, Clear Channel, decided to take down the billboard.

In a statement to TPM, Clear Channel, which also manages the billboard, said the ad "used the common expression 'straight shooter' to describe Mr. Limbaugh's candid and direct style." The company also said explicitly that it was KNST's promotion department that created the ad, not Limbaugh's show. But after Saturday, company management decided it might not be such a good idea to keep the ad up.

"Clear Channel Outdoor management in Tucson quickly elected to take down this ad - believing that discussion of its interpretation would not contribute to the desire for healing in the Tucson community," Clear Channel said.

Straight shooter? I didn't know Limbaugh took his oxycontin intravenously.

On MSNBC, Media Matters for America founder David Brock recounts three Glenn Beck-induced assassination attempts thwarted - just within the past year:

Man on Bended Knees Begs Kenneth Feinberg for His Life Back

From WWLTV:

This Just Makes Me Sick

A compilation from more than one source:

Several reporters for foreign outlets, including the Washington Post and Al Jazeera, were strip searched by Israeli security and made to stand around in their underwear before being let into a private gathering with Netanyahu, with cocktails, ahead of a speech he was giving Tuesday night. One was pregnant, and security demanded that she remove all her clothing. Says the Foreign Press Association: "While we appreciate the need for security, it is not remotely acceptable to invite people for cocktails at a five-star hotel and then make them undress at the door. Several members were forced to remove their underwear, waiting for as long as 20 minutes in this humiliating situation while security checked their documents."

The Foreign Press Association just might be pissed about this unnecessary indignity.