The Sarah Palin Smear-Fest?

September 12th, 2008.

Article by Glenn Beck of CNN: Commentary: The Sarah Palin smear-fest

I am not even going to use commetary from the readers today, there is enough fodder from Beck to shoot down. This guy is a great spinner of truths, or falsities, as is the case with his defence of Sarah Palin (Who I keep mis-typing as “Plain” for some unconscious reason).

Let’s break this out, starting with her take on the War in Iraq:

Beck says: In reference to claims of - “Sarah Palin believes God told her to go to war with Iraq!”

“There has been some hard-core journalistic malpractice on this one. The Associated Press ran this headline about a speech she gave at her church: “Palin: Iraq war ‘a task that is from God’”

In the story, they omit the first part of the sentence they’re quoting along with the entire previous sentence for good measure.

Here are her actual words: “Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

Palin is clearly praying that we’re doing the right thing in Iraq, something sensible for an introspective woman of faith concerned about the lives of our troops to do. She’s not saying that she just received a text message from heaven’s BlackBerry ordering her to launch missiles. Sorry to disappoint you.”

I say: Beck, oh how misled are you? Let’s start with her actual words, “Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

Notice the parts I highlight in bold. No confusion here Beck, she is clearly stating our leaders are sending our troops out on a task from God. Now, she may not be saying God told her to send troops out to war (God told Bush), but she obviously believes the act of creating conflict in the region was a plan outlined by God. This not only implies our leaders perpetuated a plan by God, but that God actually came up with the idea of going to war in the first place. How twisted is she? Im all for praying for the troops if you are a God-fearing person, but to mix in the idea God has something to do with the war is reckless. If God exists and it is a good God, why plan and execute a war on other people?

Next item of business…

Beck says: In reference to the claim “Palin only supports abstinence to be taught in sex-ed!”

This claim is usually followed by a super classy comment about her daughter and the use of contraception, but the premise is false. Palin hasn’t said she doesn’t want condoms discussed in sex-ed, calling their discussion “relatively benign.”

“I’m pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues. So I am not anti-contraception. But, yeah, abstinence is another alternative that should be discussed with kids. I don’t have a problem with that,” Palin said. Hers is hardly an extreme point of view in America today.”

I say: Personally, this is a non-issue. However, there is a larger issue at hand here and this is her position on abortion. She is a pro-lifer who believes abortion should be outlawed in every case, including rape.

And lastly, and probably not least: Beck goes on about managing budgets and how Obama has made the claim he has managed millions of dollars per month since starting his campaign. He counters this with the idea Palin is in charge of a state budget with revenues in excess of 1.3 billion per month. One thing Beck chooses to omit…

The 223 million dollars of an earmark given the the State of Alaska to build a bridge to nowhere, which Palin ultimately killed but never gave the money back to US taxpayers. She is using the money on other state projects. Tisk Tisk!