The Real Sarah Palin?

I have come not to bury Sarah but to praise her.

Who could forget that day in Roswell (no, really, Roswell), New Mexico when Republican vice-presidential nominee emphasized the overriding theme of the McCain-Palin ticket:

Senator Obama said he wants to quote 'spread the wealth.' What that means is he wants government to take your money and dole it out however a politician sees fit."But Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairy Man, I believe that they think that it sounds more like socialism. Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism.

If it later turned out that Mrs. Palin was proud to be presiding over the Socialist State of Alaska, so be it:

And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. Our state constitution—it lays it out for me, how I’m to conduct business with resource development here as the state C.E.O. It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.

Admittedly, as someone Palin would brand a "Socialist" (a Democrat), I couldn't object to any of that.

You might remember also how Governor Palin solidified her support with the Christian right when in late August she told conservative Christian activist James Dobson of Focus on the Family "And it also strengthens my faith because I know at the end of the day putting this in God’s hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4.”

In a far less quoted response during a more (in)famous interview (with CBS' Katie Couric) earlier in the campaign, the GOP vice-presidential nominee sounded a little different:

Well, you're absolutely wrong, again, on the facts. My church, I don't have a church, I'm not a member of any church. I get to visit a couple of churches in Alaska when I'm home, including one, Wasilla Bible Church, and that's the one that you're talking about.

I may not be on board with that, but with liberals frequently put on the defensive when slandered as irreligious, it would be wrong to complain too louldly about someone choosing not to identify with a church.

But now UPI reports that the ex-Governor has been

booked to speak April 15 at a $200 per plate dinner for the Juravinski Cancer Center and St. Peter's Hospital in the city 40 miles west of Toronto, the Hamilton Spectator reported Friday....

(An event organizer, Gabe) Macaluso said it's hoped 1,000 tickets will be sold to cover Palin's fee and the bulk of the funds for the hospitals would come from guests paying to have their photographs taken with her.

Think Progress notes

- St. Peter’s Hospital is a public hospital within the national Canadian healthcare system. In Palin’s worldview, universal, government-insured health care is “socialism.”

– St. Peter’s Hospital performs abortions. Palin, a staunch anti-choice zealot, has protested outside of abortion clinics and has refused to denounce abortion clinic bombers as terrorists.

– St. Peter’s Hospital, through its Centre for Studies in Aging, offers “advanced directives.” Palin tried to derail health reform earlier this year by falsely labeling advanced directive reimbursements as "death panels."

This is a delicious turn-of-events for the pro-abortion rights community: Sarah Palin aiding the pro-choice cause (albeit north of the border) and enabling abortion. Perhaps, though, she is not a supporter of advanced directive reimbursements, government-insured health care, or abortion rights (though she did consider termination of pregnancy before giving birth to son Trig), or even a hypocrite. But she is getting paid $200,000 for the speech- which, as George Bernard Shaw might have said, suggests that now that we have established what she is, we're just haggling over the price.