A Divinely Inspired Document?

It's hard to nail down a speech that is a string of virtually endless sound bites, but Sarah Palin, who was unable to handle a job as governor, made a few interesting comments at the Tea Party rally yesterday in Searchlight, Nevada. Speaking, obviously, of President Obama, Palin remarked

In these volatile times when we are a nation at war, now more than ever is when we need a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor lecturing us from a lectern.

Don't think for a moment that this is a stupid thing being said by a stupid person. Sarah Palin is a well-educated and well-traveled individual, though until the last few years rather disinterested in national and international policy and a disinterested consumer of news. When she ridicules being "a constitutional law professor," she's doing it as someone who is pretending that she believes knowledge of the law and experience as a professor is disqualifying. She figures her audience, not as well educated as she, will buy it. Call it elitism of the right, an instinct to look down on her own audience (as she demonstrated months ago in Indiana, video below).

Palin went on to express admiration for the Constitution, maintaining

We're going to get there, friends, though, because, our vision for America is time-tested truths. The government that governs least governs best. That the constitution provides the path to a more perfect union. It's the constitution.

So the constitution "provides the path to a more perfect union"- and it's troubling that our President knows that document inside and out as a constitutional law professor.

If that seems like a contradiction, well, that's because it is. And it doesn't end there. The constitution, Palin declares, "provides the path to a more perfect union" because, presumably, it represents the idea that "the government that governs least governs best." (Reproductive freedom ? That's another issue, but consistency is the hobglobin of little minds, don't you know.)

But, digression aside- that would be the point of digression- Palin continued to say

And that only limited government can provide the opportunities for prosperity for all of us equally. And that freedom is a god-given right and freedom is worth fighting for.

Let's replay that:

the constitution provides the path to a more perfect union. It's the constitution. And that only limited government can provide the opportunities for prosperity for all of us equally. And that freedom is a god-given right.

This is not taken out of context. The constitution -it's the constitution"- "provides the path to a more perfect union." But "freedom is a god-given right."
So is it the constitution or God? It has to be one or the other.... unless this document itself is divinely inspired, which would be a truly bizarre claim for a Christian or someone who claims to be such. It's almost blasphemous- but Sarah Palin either is contradicting herself or making an extraordinary assertion, one that is typically made (with more credibility) about only the Bible. And maybe that "lamestream media" her spechwriter derides should ask her if she is, in fact, putting these two documents on a par with each other. That would be the media which, Mrs. Palin's supporters periodically whine, are oh, so tough on her.