Republicans Born Again
Bible Belt evangelicals unhappy with McCain take simplistic comfort in Palin as VP candidate
By Eric Margolis
09/09/08 "Toronto Sun" -- - PARIS - Trying to explain American politics to my French friends and Paris media is not easy. They are still struggling to understand how Barack Obama popped out of nowhere to run for the world's most powerful office.
Now the French are even more stunned and confused by Sen. John McCain's surprise vice-presidential choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska, a hamlet just a snowball's throw from the North Pole.
Frenchmen, being French, think she has nice legs. But no one here can understand why Republicans picked a lady whose primary experience was being mayor of a one-husky town and making moose stew.
"Mon dieu," one Parisian told me. "Those crazy Republicans must have the wish of death." No, no I explained. The party is being born again.
Palin's emergence simply confirms the final dumbing down and ruralization of the Republican Party, and its metamorphosis into a right wing politico-religious movement.
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The evangelist's view of foreign policy is simple. Either wicked France, Russia or the UN is the anti-Christ (take your pick). Muslims are evil and a menace. Israel is the paramount foreign policy issue. Support for Israel must be absolute and unlimited. All Palestinians must be expelled from the biblical Holy Land, the world's Jews gathered therein, and converted. Then the Messiah will return, Armageddon will come and Earth will be consumed by fire and brimstone.
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