Palin at church

Mudflats highlights:

2:57 - First mention of Sarah

5:00 - We need God to ‘take over the education system.’

5:27 - We need God to ‘take over the media’ and Hollywood itself.

6:08 - We need the government run by born-again Christians.

6:58 - Praying for Sarah to become governor

7:12 - Sarah herself enters and is “prayed upon”.

8:38 - Another witchcraft reference.

The education system, the media, the government, and praying for someone to become governor: this is vile Christianism.

There is definitely cause for alarm here, but remember Palin left Wasilla Assembly of God in 2002, apparently because it was too radical. Whether she did this purely for political reasons or genuinely ascertained this herself, we do not know. We do know that as governor she renamed the church's street after its founding pastor, Paul Riley, so this suggests to me that she remains ideologically aligned with the church.

Here is part of the church's Wikipedia entry, with citations:

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said that such scrutiny was to be expected whenever a surprise vice presidential candidate is selected because the “The surprise guarantees that the other side hasn’t done the research".^[7] “When a presidential candidate surprises the country with a relatively unknown choice, then all hell breaks loose,” Sabato said. “It did with Ferraro, it did with Quayle, it’s happening with Palin."^[7] Sabato postulates that the goal of the Democrats is to find controversial statements to counteract the criticism Barack Obama faced due to his affiliation with Pastor Jeremiah Wright.^[7] The conservative media watchdog, Culture and Media Institute, went so far as to declare the effort as an "obvious attempt to create a Jeremiah Wright-style scandal".^[8] Others believe that the religious beliefs of Sarah Palin "raise important questions: mainly, what is Palin's faith and how exactly has it influenced her policies?"^[5] They argue that despite her leaving the Wasilla Assembly of God in 2002, long before the controversial sermons,^[7] she has maintained a close relationship there by speaking at the church in June 2008^[5] and, on the same visit, receiving a blessing by Kalnins.^[9]

Well, we see above a video of what's pretty much an anointing. For rational skeptics to consider voting for her, we must have a thorough explanation of this episode from Palin herself. She needs to convincingly repudiate her old church and provide some assurance that this sort of thing would not intervene with governance.

I suspect it will be difficult for her to make a convincing case, but I still think it's something she needs to do. Putting an end to this farcical campaigning and giving at least one serious interview a day would be a good start.