Is Sarah Palin the new Jerry Falwell?

Newsweek:

At a breakfast in Washington, D.C., last month, Palin, wearing a rosarylike cross around her neck and a sparkly American flag lapel pin, told a version of the Trig story to 550 women who had paid at least $150 each to the Susan B. Anthony List, an organization devoted to supporting pro-life female politicians. When Trig was born, Palin recounted, “they lay him in my arms, and he just kind of melted right into my chest... And it was just like he was saying, ‘See, God knows what he’s doing, and this is going to be good’... I tell you truly, Trig has been the best thing that has ever happened to me and the Palin family.” Around the room, women rose from their chairs, stamping their feet, clapping, and hollering. And when they all finally sat down, Palin smiled like a beauty queen and said, “Yes. Bless you.”

Let’s face it: the Trig story is a women’s story, the kind girlfriends share over coffee or in church. It has all the familiar elements of evangelical testimony: tribulation and dread; trust in God; and, finally, great blessings. Many Christian women loathe Palin, of course, and many men love her, but a certain kind of conservative, Bible-believing woman worships her. And it is these women Palin has been actively courting as she crisscrosses the country talking about Trig to women’s and pro-life organizations.

To millions of women, Palin’s authenticity makes her a sister in arms—“Sisters!” she called out in Washington, as if at a revival—a beautiful, fearless, principled fighter who shares their struggles. To a smaller number, she is a prophet, ordained by God for a special role in the cosmic battle against the forces of evil. A 2009 profile in the Christian magazine Charisma compared Palin to the Old Testament’s Queen Esther, who saved her people, in this case the Jews, from annihilation.

Palin has been antagonizing women on the left of late by describing herself as a “feminist,” a word she uses to mean the righteous, Mama Bear anger that wells up when one of her children is attacked in the press or her values are brought into question. But while leftist critics continue to shred Palin as a cynical, shallow, ill-informed opportunist, and new polls show her unpopularity rating to be at an all-time high—53 percent—Palin is now playing to her strengths. Even if she never again seeks elected office, her pro-woman rallying cry, articulated in the evangelical vernacular, together with the potent pro-life example of her own family, puts Palin in a position to reshape and reinvigorate the religious right, one of the most powerful forces in American politics. The Christian right is now poised to become a women’s movement—and Sarah Palin is its earthy Jerry Falwell.

As many of you already know I have been consistently making the case that the living breathing key to Sarah Palin's influence is her little Down syndrome toddler Trig Paxson Van Palin.  Without that child Sarah would currently be at the end of her disastrous first term as Governor of Alaska and headed toward blessed obscurity. It was Trig that provided her the boost she needed to burst onto the national scene.

Now admittedly when I first started to make that argument, I was often met with patient, yet unimpressed, smiles and perhaps a condescending nod of the head. "Sure thing Gryphen.  What ever you say. Good luck with that."

However NOW when I have similar discussions the response is much different. I get the rapid nodding of the head and the eager verbal agreement that frankly would have been pretty nice to receive two years ago when I first started this investigation. However to be honest it IS a rather crazy notion to absorb, the idea that a woman would purposefully adopt a special needs child and use THAT as her source for political and religious credibility.  I mean even I have to admit that is kind of nuts.

And if we were talking about anybody else, I would STILL be on the receiving end of patient nods and strained smiles.  But I am not talking about somebody else, I am talking about Sarah Palin. And after the unfathomable number of lies she has told, and odd behaviors we have seen ("boobie-gate" just being the latest), people have come to the conclusion that there is probably NOTHING so bizarre that it is out of the realm of possibilities for that woman.

The result of these epiphanies has been a lot of e-mails and phone calls that start off in a very similar manner. "Hi Gryphen,  Look I was kind of a skeptic about this whole "baby" thing but lately I have begun to think and....."  And then they go on to share their observations or conclusions and I find my little "babygate" file growing just a little bigger.

Now days I do not often have to do the heavy lifting of convincing people that she was not pregnant in 2008. Almost everybody that I talk to has already reached that conclusion on their own, and they just want to talk about their theory, or in some cases observations, as to the "why" and "how" of the scandal.

It is an unbelievably slow process, and as many of you have observed a lot of blogs and interested parties have fallen by the wayside, yet I am just a little too stubborn to walk away.  Sometimes I feel like one of those crash test dummies who are constantly hitting a brick wall.  Only in my case I just dust myself off,  adjust my trajectory, and continue moving forward.

The recent confirmation about what happened with the Johnston computers has certainly resulted in renewed interest as to WHAT was on them to cause such concern from the McCain campaign and so has the gossip about just how many people Sarah is paying to stay silent. (If my sources are correct Sarah needs to give at least one speech a month just to break even.)

I actually have a lot of hope for this summer.  With Joe McGinniss up here, and Geoffrey Dunn's book nearing completion, there are a lot of people who have started to talk that had been fairly silent before.

My dance card is filled almost every day, and I may have to take out a bank loan to pay my phone bill, but progress is definitely being made.  On that you can be certain.