Sally Quinn founded the “On Faith” section of The Washington Post, and she’s shown a repeated pattern of loathing conservative Christians, especially Sarah Palin.
In Saturday’s Post, she went there again, trashing Sarah Palin as selfishly ruining our political culture, insisting she recommends a “long long silent retreat for her.” Rather typically, Quinn was cooing over a feminist Buddhist lecturer named Tara Brach:
What has been happening in politics in Washington lately is symptomatic of an “I”llness. Too many people are thinking of themselves and not of others...
Sarah Palin just called upon Congress to impeach President Obama. She says Washington is "broken.” Yet she, perhaps more than anyone in our political culture, is representative of the ‘I’ llness in our country’s culture. She is the epitome of self-centeredness. I suggest a long, long silent retreat for her.
This is just the latest insults in a long string. Consider a few choice examples:
September 3, 2008: Quinn insists Palin can't be a mom and vice president: "Here I am, supposedly part of you know, the -- what one would call the liberal elite media. That's what we've been all -- the critics of Sarah Palin have been called. And yet, taking the position that a woman with five children, including one with special needs, and a daughter who is a 17-year-old child who is pregnant and about to have a baby, probably has got to rethink her priorities. It seems to me that there is a tipping point, and I think that she's crossed the tipping point. I believe that it's going to be very difficult for her...I think this is -- this is too much."
July 8, 2009: On MSNBC, Quinn picks up this attack again: "Well, clearly, she has not put her family first...And these children have, it seems publicly, to have been exploited by her in a, I think, really unfortunate way." When challenged, Quinn was happy to elaborate: "Well, you know, she brings them all to the convention, including Trig, the baby. She brings the pregnant daughter with the boyfriend who clearly didn't want to be there. She then travels around with the children, using them as sort of photo ops...she brings the children up when she needs them to shore up her own image."
November 2009: When Palin's first book comes out and describes both her faith and her harsh treatment at the hands of media types like Katie Couric, Quinn went on a long rant about what God wanted for Palin, which ended this way:
Certainly Palin could say that God planned for her to publish a book that would be a huge, bestseller, go on Oprah, and make an enormous amount of money. Why would God choose her? Why would God look at the suffering around the world of so many millions and say, Sarah, I'm going to give you all of this.
Perhaps God wants more out of Sarah Palin.
You would think that God would ask of her to live her life as an example to others of a compassionate loving, caring person. One of the most powerful examples of God's love in the Bible is that of forgiveness. Turning the other cheek. But Palin's book is a screed against everyone who ever done her wrong.
