Gov. Palin and the Fib from Outer Space

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska continues to repeat the claim that she opposed the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere” pork-barrel project.

In her first public appearance as the running mate of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, Palin made this claim with gusto, saying that she “told Congress thanks, but no thanks” on that project. The truth is, frankly, the opposite of that. As a candidate for governor, and then after she was elected, Palin was a forceful advocate for pork in general and for that bridge in particular. What she actually “told Congress” was more along the lines of “pleasepleaseplease, oh, pleeeeease, gimme, gimme.”

Eventually, after Palin and Alaska’s congressional delegation secured the funding for the project, it began to attract lots of negative publicity. The Bridge to Nowhere became a national symbol, an icon of corrupt, feeding-trough politics. That killed the project. As the political winds changed direction, so did Palin. She pulled a 180 and abruptly began trying to position herself as an opponent of the project. Not such an opponent, mind you, that she didn’t take the money and run. Alaska kept the pork-barrel earmark for the Bridge to Nowhere, Palin just spent it on something else.

So Palin’s line in that initial national speech wasn’t true, but it went over well with the crowd. So she stuck with it. She’s used some variation of that “Thanks, but no thanks” falsehood just about every time she’s spoken in public over the past week and a half. She’s even begun to embellish the story.

What I find most interesting about this particular lie is that Sarah Palin is, famously, an evangelical Christian. Evangelical Christians aren’t supposed to tell lies.

I’m of course not suggesting that we live up to this standard all or even most of the time. But the existence of that standard is undeniable. Nor am I suggesting that this particular moral rule is in any way unique to evangelical Christians. It’s pretty universal, actually. Everyone agrees, in principle, that Good People tell the truth and that telling lies leads to becoming a Bad Person.

Yet we evangelical Christians are a famously moralistic bunch. We’re the “values voters,” don’t you know, putting individual morality front and center at every opportunity. So it’s a bit odd to be introduced to a new national figure and to learn, simultaneously, that she is both proudly evangelical and, just as proudly, a habitual liar.

Gov. Palin is also, of course, a parent. As an evangelical Christian parent she is no doubt familiar with Veggie Tales. The predicament she has created for herself over the past two weeks reminds me of that classic Veggie Tales episode, “Larry-Boy and the Fib from Outer Space.”

In that story, you’ll recall, Junior Asparagus tells a small lie about breaking his father’s plate. The small lie begins to grow, as small lies tend to do. The longer Junior Asparagus refuses to tell the truth, the stronger and larger the lie becomes, until finally it turns into the gigantic Fib from Outer Space, stomping through Bumblyburg like Godzilla.

That’s pretty much the situation Palin has put herself in. She created this lie in her first speech and she’s been feeding it ever since and now it’s out of control. I doubt even Larry-Boy could save her at this point.

Yet the really interesting thing about Palin’s predicament is that she doesn’t seem to think that it is a predicament. She doesn’t seem to think that the transparent lies she keeps repeating about her record are in any way wrong.

What’s more, her biggest supporters — evangelical Christian voters — don’t seem to have a problem with this either. They’ll half-heartedly pretend that she isn’t lying, pointing fingers at the hostile “media” and claiming that Lenny broke the plate. But they don’t really seem to care whether this duplicitous defense of duplicity holds water because they don’t really care whether or not Palin is lying. Not as long as the lie works.

These voters don’t care that Palin supported the Bridge to Nowhere. And they don’t care if she’s lying now when she says she didn’t. This election, for them, isn’t about earmarks, or fiscal responsibility, or political reform, or Iraq, terror, taxes, torture, corruption, education, gas prices, health care or the environment. It’s about abortion. And winning that fight is, to them, worth swallowing a thousand lies.

Moral certainty in defense of dishonesty is corrosive, but I fear this is an example of something larger and worse: the desire for moral certainty in defense of dishonesty.