CNN is reporting that a "suspicious" fire burned Sarah Palin's hometown church:
A "suspicious" fire devastated the church attended by Alaska Gov. and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Friday night in her hometown of Wasilla, the church's minister said.
"We have no idea what caused it," the Rev. Larry Kroon of the Wasilla Bible Church said Saturday, adding that investigators were considering arson and other possible causes.
I have to admit, I mostly started this diary to give the Daily Kos community a place to discuss this. The timing, along with the age of the church building (under three years old), makes me think arson is a very likely culprit. In fact, I would be shocked if this did turn out to be something as simple as a faulty bit of wiring.
While I lack warm and fuzzies for both Sarah Palin and religious fundamentalists, I do admit to feeling a bit of sadness at their loss. Let's face it, even with insurance, this is not a great time for any sort of non-profit organization to need additional funding. While church is not exactly my cup of tea, I would never begrudge those who use religion as a key part of their own social and spiritual lives. Moreover, churches do provide an important backbone for communities during times of hardship. Given that, this is a tragedy regardless of the famous names involved.
Niceties aside, this caps off a horrible PR week for the Democrats. The question at this point is if it even matters if this is not arson: the foundation is now there for a rip-roaring' Republican conspiracy. Here are some potential outcomes:
- It is arson. Short of the culprit being Todd Palin (or Bristol's baby daddy in a desperate attempt to avoid matrimony), the person will somehow be affiliated with the Democrats. If there is actually a viable connection, the Republicans will be forcing this into the mainstream media for years.
- It is not arson. Doesn't matter - the rumors will fly that the Democrats paid some people off (because, as the other scandal of the week showed, Democrats are immoral people who will do anything to manipulate the political machine). The stories will grow over the years until the right tells of how the evil, Christianity-hating Democrats were trying to burn down Sarah Palin's church WITH SARAH PALIN IN IT. Of course, the reason the mainstream media never reported it because they're in the Democrats' pockets.
(Just to be clear: all of the above was meant tongue-in-cheek. Although, yes, I do think my incredibly twisted story could carry quite a bit of mileage with certain right-leaning factions.)
I think this potentially has Democratic PR disaster written all over it. It's a church attended by the woman Democrats actively crow about hating. It plays quite well into fundamentalist Republican paranoia.
The upsides of this are when it happened (shortly after an election) and where it happened (in a state that does not carry much political weight and is unlikely to care much about the Democrats anyway).
That said, I open the floor to at least a few members of the Daily Kos community. What is this? Perfect kindling to light the Republican base (pun not intended)? The stuff of Karl Roves' dreams? Or just some non-story that will disappear in a few days' time?
ETA (12/14): Never expected quite such a response, but I did want to clear up a few things:
- This is a tragedy - I perhaps seemed a bit glib in my commentary, but I truly do feel for the congregation of the church.
- I should have been more clear in that I was looking at this from an extremely hypothetical viewpoint with a focus on fodder for future elections - as a former Republican, I have firsthand experience with story twisting to make Democrats into demons. Democrats do the same with Republicans - it's, to some extent, the nature of the political beast. Given some of the other Democrats-hate-religion propaganda from the past few years, I admit I do not think my tall tales are that far off. I hope they are, but until the Republican party moves away from its current religious platform, I think events that can invoke fear will continue to hold sway, regardless of the truth of the matter.
- I am not a troll, I merely saw a lack of places to comment on this particular story on Daily Kos and wanted to provide a forum. Do we have any definite evidence of what happened? No, but in my own experience with this site, that has not stopped commentary before. Nor should it - there is very little to discuss if we only stick to safe, completely decided topics, no?
Finally, thanks to everyone for commenting - I wanted to hear what the Daily Kos community thought about this, and you all helped in that regard.