them<\/a>\n<\/p>\nBy the way, Palin probably didn’t notice, and probably didn’t care if she did notice, the campaign pin on folks’ lapel there in the convention center that read “Hoosiers for Hot Chicks” written above the pictures of McCain\/Palin. Character issues were on display right there before her eyes if she cared to notice.\n<\/p>\n
With the singing of the national anthem framing the opening and closing of last night’s convention session, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Palin would take a swipe at Michelle Obama with that “always proud of America” quip. The notion that you can’t find fault in the country and yet still fiercely love it riles me. This belief that America can never be wrong and it’s unpatriotic to admit America has faults is tied to the belief that America is God’s chosen nation. Could it be that there are those who believe that to challenge country is to challenge God? \n<\/p>\n
Finally, there’s the “community organizer” zinger by Palin, the punch that was supposed to be the knock-out. “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” Palin said. There are people who are actually making real change happen in communities and are more accountable to people than any elected official would hope to be. These are the people, many of whom with degrees like those of Obama, that are coming up with innovative programs and policy solutions on the local level that lawmakers are actually using to create pubic policy. Of course, many people, especially those from small towns, don’t know what a community organizer even though they think they have an idea what a mayor does or what a governor does.\n<\/p>\n
While Palin’s speech played very well there before convention delegates, it remains to be seen how it will be received among the rank and file around the country. Women and men from the conservative right usually don’t like punchy, tough talking women. (Think Hillary Clinton.) No matter how pretty they are. <\/p>\n
One last thing: there was something surreal about watching a Party made up of plenty of folks who belong to churches that teach that a woman can’t\/shouldn’t pastor a church trot out a female candidate to run as VP. Women can run the country, but they can’t pastor a church is what many conservative Christians are saying who hail Sarah Palin as the “just what was needed” addition to the McCain ticket. Which is only proof that, for the chance to win, even core values can be auctioned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Congratulations to Governor Sarah Palin for proving last night that she came honestly by her high school nickname “Barracuda.”. She certainly carried forward the McCain strategy of mockery, ridicule, sarcasm and disrespect. Sarah Palin showed that there is at least one aspect of the Vice President role on the campaign trail she can do well,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[98,83],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08","tag-rnc-convention","tag-sarah-palin"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Sarah Palin showed that there is at least one aspect of the Vice President role on the campaign trail she can do well,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-04T06:12:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Renita Weems\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Plenty of Punches, But No Policies - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Plenty of Punches, But No Policies - Progressive Revival","og_description":"Congratulations to Governor Sarah Palin for proving last night that she came honestly by her high school nickname “Barracuda.”. She certainly carried forward the McCain strategy of mockery, ridicule, sarcasm and disrespect. Sarah Palin showed that there is at least one aspect of the Vice President role on the campaign trail she can do well,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2008-09-04T06:12:52+00:00","author":"Renita Weems","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html","name":"Plenty of Punches, But No Policies - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-09-04T06:12:52+00:00","dateModified":"2008-09-04T06:12:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/971d22d0a220f240768193967e46b8eb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/09\/plenty-of-punches-but-no-polic.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Plenty of Punches, But No Policies"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/971d22d0a220f240768193967e46b8eb","name":"Renita Weems","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/3dd\/3ddb8763f611167523ce54f26e9c94a0x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/3dd\/3ddb8763f611167523ce54f26e9c94a0x96.jpg","caption":"Renita Weems"},"description":"Dr. Renita J. Weems is a nationally-renowned theologian and an ordained elder in the African Methodist Church whose scholarly insights into modern faith, biblical texts, and the role of spirituality in everyday lives have made her a much sought after author and speaker. Dr. Weems, formerly a member of the faculty of Vanderbilt Univeristy and Spelman College, has been celebrated by Ebony Magazine as one of America's top 15 preachers. She is founder of Something Within, a consulting service providing guidance for women of faith interested in connecting with their inner wisdom as well as interested in balancing faith and work, and their values with their vocation. Dr. Weems is a popular radio and television personality, regularly providing expert commentary on religion, gender, race, and sexuality. A guest speaker for numerous national gatherings of religious, civic, and sorority organizations, local churches, community wide events, and radio and television programs, Dr. Weems is in much demand as a speaker, preacher, and workshop leader. Ebony Magazine named her one of America's top 15 Her work as a scholar and a religious thinker has led to invitations to serve as a panelist for Bill Moyer's 1995 PBS award-winning Genesis Project, for various A&E, BBC, National Public Radio, the Michael Baisden radio show, and Hallmark cable programs on topics as wide ranging as miracles in the Bible, women, violence, and spirituality, and male-female relationships. She appeared on \"FlashPoints\" with Bryant Gumbel and Gwen Ifill to discuss matters related to religion and public life. Dr. Renita Weems is the author of several widely acclaimed books on women's spirituality and wholeness: Just A Sister Away (1987) and I Asked for Intimacy (1993), Showing Mary: How Women Can Share Prayers, Wisdom, and the Blessings of God (2003), and, more recently, What Matters Most: Ten Passionate Lessons from the Song of Solomon (2004). Her special talent is in drawing life inspirational wisdom from stories in the Bible about the triumphs and failures of ordinary people. A former contributing writer to Essence Magazine back in the late 80's, she has recently renewed her relationship with Essence with an article appearing in the December 2004 issue entitled \"Sanctified and Suffering.\" Dr. Weems writes a popularly bi-monthly e-column for www.beliefnet.org which focuses on matters of love and relationships. She has been particularly active lately speaking to professional women's organizations about women's spiritual values and support systems, juggling family and work, work and love, and women finding a balance between their spiritual values and their professional aspirations. She taught from 1987-2004 on the divinity faculty at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN as a professor of Hebrew Bible. She served in 2003-2005 as the William and Camille Cosby Professor of Humanities at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Ordained an elder in the AME tradition, Dr. Weems has written about the waxing and waning of faith all believers endure on the spiritual journey. Her 1999 book Listening for God: A Minister's Journey through Silence and Doubt (Simon & Schuster) won the Religious Communicators' Council's prestigious 1999 Wilbur Award for excellence in communicating spiritual values to the secular media. She earned her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and her Master and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. Finally, Dr. Renita Weems lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and daughter. Her readers can keep up with Dr. Weems by visiting her her blog, SomethingWithin.com, which allows her to keep in touch with readers interested in exploring women's values and interested in conversations about faith, love, values, and inner wisdom, and other topics of interest to what Dr. Weems likes to call \"thinking women of faith.\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/rweems"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}