Instant Stupid (Just Add Two Drops of Paranoia and a Pinch of College Professor)

The Philadelphia Inquirer has an online article written by one Catherine McNicol Stock, chair of the history department of Connecticut College, titled “Intolerance Thrives in Palin’s Pacific Northwest”. The hit-piece is an extraordinarily loopy attempt to bridge the gap between Sarah Palin’s politics and religious beliefs, and a variety of backwoods secessionists, bomb-mailing anarchists and red-neck terrorists – including the Montana Militia, Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski. It is a genuine bridge to nowhere, but Stock get’s an ‘A’ for effort.

Professor Stock tells us that “It has been years since groups such as the Montana Militia, the Posse Comitatus and the Sagebrush Rebels, and individuals such as Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski have made us wonder why so many ‘angry white men’ populated our rural regions. Many of us have forgotten the threat once posed by domestic terrorists and instead have turned our attention to foreign terrorists.”

In case you have forgotten, Stock is here to remind you. “Other groups, like the Aryan Nation, with headquarters in Hayden Lake, Idaho, actively planned to rid the United States of African Americans, Jews, and other ‘non-Aryan’ peoples. A few carried out their plans, murdering Jewish radio host Alan Berg in Denver, the Goldmark family in Seattle, an African American state trooper in Arkansas, Fish and Wildlife officials and FBI agents in Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana, and more than 160 federal employees and their children in Oklahoma City.”

Of course, Stock is a professor, so you know she’s got to make a stab at being objective: “There is no evidence that Palin was ever affiliated with white-supremacist groups during her years in Idaho or at home in Alaska.” Oh, what the hell! Let’s don’t be objective; Barry’s got an election to win. “On the other hand, the beliefs of ultraconservative, evangelical churches like her family's come dangerously close to those of the Christian Identity movement of those years. Likewise, Palin's husband was a member of a political party whose members favored secession for Alaska, suggesting an affiliation with radical antistatism.”

Can you imagine someone on the Right taking this line with Obama? “It has been years since Al Capone, Bugs Moran and Deanie O’Banion have made us wonder why so many violent gangsters populated the greater Chicago area. Many of us have forgotten the threat once posed by domestic criminals and instead have turned our attention to foreign drug lords. There is no evidence that Obama was ever affiliated with organized crime; on the other hand, the traditional reliance of many Cook County politicians on a political machine that has had the support of professional criminals comes dangerously close to the mob influence of that time.”

But, now, wait a minute; a thought occurs to me. Palin hasn’t ever been affiliated with any terrorists; yet it is in the back of my mind somewhere that a certain Democratic candidate for President has. Help me here; who could it be?