Just Another Palin Smear Debunked

The supposed quote, as reported by the Associated Press:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a “task that is from God.”…

“Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God,” she said. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.”

The full quote (via Huffington Post, of all places):

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

The general gist of Palin’s remarks are not that of some sort of zealot speaking of a religious crusade, but rather seem to strike a tone that is an awful lot like this pithy (and oft-repeated and paraphrased) Lincoln quote:

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for a retraction; folks in the seats on the left will claim that Abraham Lincoln was himself some sort of crusading theocratic religious zealot first.

UPDATE: That last bit is sarcasm, for those of you in the seats on the left that are slow on the uptake.

Bloggers of the left, and Democratic politicians, have frequently (especially in the wake of September 11) cited the Lincoln quote as a (particularly clever) riposte to Republican appeals to patriotism and religious voters in the context of the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War. It is ironic that, when Governor Palin makes a sensible appeal of the very sort that Democrats and liberal bloggers have said Republicans should instead be making, the AP misquotes her and folks in the seats on the left try to depict her as some sort of crusading theocratic religious zealot.

That doesn’t make Sarah Palin like Abraham Lincoln; I make no such comparison (unlike a lot of individuals in the media and on the left have made with Lincoln and Senator Obama *cough* Brian Howey *cough* Chris Matthews *cough*). There is, and will only ever be, one Abraham Lincoln. It is foolhardy to think that Governor Palin, or Barack Obama, will be “another Lincoln,” just as it was foolhardy to think that John Kerry was going to be another John F. Kennedy just because of a similarity in initials and home states.

This all being said, Governor Palin’s paraphrasing of a pithy and wise sentiment first put forward by Lincoln is an admirable tradition in American politics that is often utilized by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Unsurprisingly, folks on the left would rather criticize the Lincoln element of that than acknowledge that Governor Palin was misquoted and wrongly criticized while espousing the very sentiment Lincoln first so admirably voiced.