THE REAL MESSIAH IN THIS CAMPAIGN?

Just ran across this Boston Phoenix story by David Bernstein, who wrote it after attending a Sarah Palin campaign rally in New Hampshire. It points out something some of you may know about, but was news to me.

At one point, Bernstein went to an entrance at the venue where campaign staffers had gather some audience members' signs that might have seemed a bit excessive if they showed up on TV. Of those signs, Bernstein said,

the two most striking were adorned with Jewish stars. One read "PALIN -- TRUE NORTH." The other, "SARAH -- FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS."

Why are these striking? Well, it's all about the Messiah in the race -- who isn't Barack Obama:

That last phrase comes from chapter four of the Old Testament Book of Esther....

Soon after the Republican National Convention, an e-mail went viral in conservative Christian circles, in which Pastor Mark Arnold claimed to have found himself next to Palin at a rally in his hometown of Lebanon, Ohio. According to the account, Arnold came face-to-face with Palin, and God spoke through him, telling the governor that "God wants you to know that you are a present-day Esther.... Keep your eyes on God and know that He has chosen you to reign!" ...

Esther, for those not up on their Old Testament, was a Jewish woman plucked from obscurity to become Queen of Persia after winning a beauty contest. This placed her in the right place, at the right time, to intervene in a plan to annihilate the Jews....

The big question, of course, is for what vital role -- what "time such as this" -- is Palin being groomed?

One common theory among the Christian cognoscenti is that, just as Esther stopped a threat in Persia to wipe out the Jews, Palin must stop a threat from modern-day Persia -- Iran -- to wipe out Israel....

Jon Wiener, blogging last month on thenation.com, took note of this suggestion and pointed out that, in the Biblical account, Esther also got the king to grant the Jews the right "to destroy, to slay ... every people and province that oppress them," including women and small children. Wiener suggests that, to the Christian fundamentalists, the Book of Esther appears to authorize the bombing of Iran -- regardless of civilian casualties....

An alternate theory is that the enemy Palin is meant to destroy is, well, us dirty secularists:

"Our freedom to worship God, and our biblical values are under attack like never before in our country," wrote William H. Carney, author of the small religious-press book How Would Jesus Vote? ... "God has positioned Sarah to serve as a standard against the enemies' onslaught."

Or, perhaps, abortion providers are the enemy.

Sorry if this seems irrelevant, given the likely outcome of this election. Me, I'm still fascinated by the Palinites -- they're the people who for most of my adult life provided the votes that kept the plutocrat thieves undertaxed and deregulated. That system may not be working anymore -- but I think these voters are just going to get crazier and more apocalyptic in the next few years. They'll certainly be entertaining (I hope that's all they'll be).