As with the Taliban, both incidents show how far the religious right will go in imposing it ideology on the rest of us. What is notable is how in each incident the American Taliban went after key public institutions–in one education and in the other law enforcement and the library. Should there be any question the American Taliban are out to control our minds they need only look at Wasilla and Columbine.
Finally using tactics eerily reminiscent of the Afghan Taliban, the American Taliban eerily presented themselves as classic reformers. The Afghan Taliban promised to rid the country of the Russian invaders and restore Afghan society. The Littleton Taliban would take education “back to the basics.” The Wasilla Taliban would bring good government. Only when they had control was the extent of their agenda revealed. Sarah Palin did not, as some allege, purge the Wasilla library of books, but that she even thought about it is scary enough.
Wasilla, Littleton and the nomination of Sarah Palin ask what kind of America do we want? Do we want a country where religious ideology reigns unchecked? Do we want a country where dissenting voices are purged? Do we want a democracy or a theocracy?
Read it. There's cause to.
So ---- Is it a Taliban-like clique that allegedly selected Palin after McCain allegedly handed them a blank check to pick a right-with-Jesus young second spot person for the ticket headed by the seventy-two year old with repeated skin cancer bouts in his resume? Is it Dan Quayle redux, gender being the only real difference along with Bush the Elder not being seventy-two when running or serving in office?
But can you imagine, if we'd have had a succession, and a "President Quayle?"
Is the major factor a healing of a party rift along with a cynicism and desperation to goose up attention in an otherwise moribund old-rich-guy campaign? It seems so. The two views are not incompatible, mending fences vs. a putsch and power-play by the religious Right. It is only a question of focus and relative motivation, one of degree and not some either-or choice. There was no great tension, but two wings of the GOP thing needing both wings to try to fly.
The Culvahouse as studied, sharp, careful, clandestine McCain vetting operative running the choice McCain's Machiavellian way as was posited in the Pam Martens Counterpunch item already mentioned here hangs together and makes sense.
For the added view, the Dobson et al. crowd, (Ted Haggard before his fall, etc.), there's much on the Internet, with Joel's Army and all woven into things, see: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. That last item was emailed to me about a week ago by a person I respect, giving a head's up. The full parade of info is cumulative and overlapping, some writers citing others in the list, but the view is there of a political force in the GOP camp with an agenda of restricting everyone's freedom to fit their own views of religion and morality - a troublesome merger of church-state affairs that gave us the countless European Reformation wars and warfare, emigrations to the New World to escape that, and the inflexible Sunni-Shiite conflict in Islam, that current events Iraq put into sharp focus.
I see the Bush-McCain old line GOP using the alliance as Reagan used it, secular money interests in alliance with those having a non-pecuniary worldview and agenda. The names, Dobson, LaHaye, etc., are known in that camp and in our own State Michele Bachmann has used the bridge - a foot in each GOP camp with empahsis differing to fit audience and context, as her springboard from a trouble mongering school board candidate, to a State Senate prayer day stawalt, to a Congressional seat and assignment to the House Financial Services Committee, where the dollar end of the GOP lives and fosters its agenda.
I agree with the view that the McCain vetting was not prompt and inattentive, but looking for one who'd be pliant and alive enough read the teleprompter in attack mode as Palin did at the convention, while also having blessing from Dobson and affiliates.
A foot-in-each-camp pairing.
But a pairing with the top dog being the money end of the party, the head end, but aged there and ripe for seeing the other end possibly step into great successory power in the unlikely event Obama-Biden does not prevail, and with Obama-Biden being an alliance of experience and competence where such other strange and strained religio-cash-political "marriage" dynamics are absent.
In short, Palin is an ambitious and pushy and offensive politician first, by far, and an ideologue only as the distant second force in her candidacies.
Again in short, she is much like Bush the Younger. Power lust trumping faith, if you judge the balance that way. I suggest Dobson has the same balance, it is just a degree of emphasis the other way, perhaps, and then again, perhaps not.
______UPDATE_______
It is hard to say precisely what the concern I feel is, but I see a camp within the GOP with a general dictatorial intent, i.e., one that would infringe on my liberty by wanting other people in lockstep with their religious feelings, and wanting a government without separation of church and state. I see preserving reproductive choices against these zealous and ideological people hard because they want not only to live by their norms but to impose their norms and worldview on people who do not share such a view and want less government dictation of social norms and related decisions rather than more. People wanting to stick their noses into other peoples' business is a more colloquial way to say it. This is the antithesis of what the professed GOP norm in business and economics is, as witnessed by McCain's now famous "great deregulator" statement while current investment market realities show that deregulation has failed because it leaves greed unchecked. Unchecked human greed can invent ways to make the casino risks and rewards more skewed so that when the risks accumulate and gum up the works, our current Wall Street dilemma, it was deregulation that permitted it with the "great deregulator" pontificating against the greed his approach [the Phil Gramm approach] created within a previously wisely regulated situation.
The GOP seems insincere with two blocs in alliance, one wanting too much liberty, regarding money matters and the rich exploiting everyone else, and the other bloc wanting too little liberty (for others), but with them holding the power and "liberty" to dictate how others should live. I favor them having all the liberty possible to live in what they say is Jesus' way - they should be free to make that choice - but never free to push such an arbitrary and personal thing onto others.
I think the money manipulator wing of the party, the McCain wealth wing, is cynically using the other wing for a coalition of votes strong enough to win ballots, but with no real respect for the likes of James Dobson other than for his ability to garner, influence and deliver votes.
Dobson's motives and sincerity is something I doubt, seeing him more as a manipulative politician-evangelist than a sincere believer since in my view a true Christian would not be immune to sympathy and passion for the poor - those the other GOP wing exploits.
I see an inherent instability to the coalition except for a dislike on the one part for those who want the liberty to run their own personal lives without Puritanical interventions by outsiders coupled with a dislike by the other wing for those wanting a fair slice of the pie - a coalition with its only stability and viability based on dislikes toward others, and not on any positive feelings about anybody who disagrees with either a religious dogma, or a fiscal one.
I see the GOP as a coalition of bosses, one set wanting to boss your access to a fair part of the national wealth and the other wanting to boss your personal value system and decision making. Too many bosses and too little actual, real compassion for others.
I see the Dems as a coalition of bright people and of fools, with too many of the fools, or why else would a candidate of the quality of Elwyn Tinklenberg ever be offered by either major party as a ballot choice? That kind of opportunistic person, in and out of government and seizing on "transportation issues" for a living and dropping the name of James Oberstar way too much in the process, should have been culled out again by the bright ones in the DFL, as in 2006 when Wetterling was the Sixth District candidate. Offering a revolving door lobbyist insults an electorate that is likely to return Michele Bachmann, extreme faults and all, to Washington with a larger margin over Tinklenberg than she had against Wetterling, who ran a tepid campaign. I see that happening even with the economy being as bad as it is and with the GOP and "deregulation" responsible for the problems. I do not think people will see Tinklenberg as part of any solution but rather part of the problem. And voting people probably are smart enough to view Michele Bachmann, whatever the true legitimacy and zealousness of her commitment to the socially bossy wing of the GOP is, to be less a threat to good government and less a source of potential mischief in the minority than Tinklenberg, in the majority and in alliance with James Oberstar. Voters will be bright enough to figure such things out, while each party will have its hard-core loyalists willing to endorse party-boss choices regardless of quality. Someone who's been a registered lobbyist likely will be more susceptible to the host of lobbyist that, like a locust swarm, inhabit and devour Washington DC.