Update: Sorry, I had to change the headline. No one is reading the diary and are only responding to the headline.
On some levels, people have gone too far on the Palin thing. Without any further information, there is no straight line connection between her and the Giffords assassination attempt (unlike the violence linked to Beck and O'Reilly). I think that some people have handled this critique correctly -- that the violent imagery and words of Palin and her ilk create an atmosphere where loons can become violent. There were already plenty of examples of that in the last two years (Tides Foundation, anyone?) to make the point.
The true point is Palin is irresponsible and, put simply, ignorant. (surprise, surprise.) She doesn't understand that words have consequences. And nothing reflects that better than her comments about Jews.
The blood libel comment was just stupid, stupid, stupid. While I sucked in a breath on hearing it, I also know that Palin is not bright enough, or educated enough, or intellectually curious enough to know what that meant. There is not a whiff of anti-semitism here, as some people (not on Kos, that I have seen) have suggested.
However, there are some things about Palin and the Jews that seem to have escaped attention. And these are the most frightening of all.
In an interview with Barbara Walters a little more than a year ago, Palin said this:
I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.
Once again, I sucked in my breath when I heard that, and was astonished that no one stepped forward and said "what the hell are you talking about? Why do you say that Jewish people are going to start flocking to live in Israel? What statistics do you have for that?"
None. It is not true. So where does this come from?
The Bible. The Book of Revelation. The beginning of the End of Times. The Apocalypse.
That is the ONLY place where there is a reference to the Jews returning to Israel. We know that Palin is a Biblical literalist (even though Revelation was included in the Bible to give Church interpretation to its meaning, that it is metaphorical).
For the literalist Christian ), a mass Jewish migration to Israel means Jesus is returning to bring them to heaven in the rapture. (You can always tell someone who doesn't read the Bible, because in fact the Rapture is not in Revelation, but Thessalonians.) Then, those left behind will have to face the apocalypse. In essence, the Jews are being sent into a death trap launched by God.
What was most frightening to me at that point was not only understanding the meaning of what she said -- again, no Biblical literalist could POSSIBLY not know this, particularly one as wrapped up in the Rapture as Palin is -- but that she believed this was coming in the weeks, months and years ahead.
At the time, there were many fundamentalists proclaiming that Obama was the anti-Christ and armageddon had begun. Maybe Palin was throwing coded meat at those folks, maybe she believed it herself. The point is, just like her violent rhetoric, her words have meaning, and she knew what that meaning was.
But...could someone who believes in this falderal, and believes that it is happening NOW, also be the person with her finger on the button?
And so, I was delighted with Palin's self-absorbed and ignorant comment today. Any chance that she would ever become President is gone. She can return to her church now and babble this nonsense to her fellow literalists, without risking the rest of us to her frightening beliefs.