Last Saturday, Amy Poeler, portraying Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, challenged the press to "grow a pair" and to question Sarah Palin about her views. She advised the press: "Please ask this one about dinosaurs." Unfortunately Palin has been avoiding the media and attempting to hide her views. Lacking honest answers from Palin, reporters are forced to resort to information such as reports from those who have followed her in Alaska. David Talbot has interviewed people who have followed Palin and it appears Amy Poeler got it right as it does appear that Palin is a young earth creationist.
Talbot interviewed Howard Bess, a retired American Baptist minister from nearby Palmer, Alaska. Bess' book, Pastor, I Am Gay, was one of the books which Palin had attempted to have removed from the Wasilla library. After discussing this incident, along with her anti-abortion rights activities, Talbot wrote about discussing Palin's views on creationism with another local activist:
Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism -- your father's a science teacher.' And she said, 'We don't have to agree on everything.'
"I pushed her on the earth's creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she'd seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them."
Munger also asked Palin if she truly believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. "She looked in my eyes and said, 'Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.'"
It is quite scary that someone who rejects the fundamentals of basic science, and who shows such a shocking inability to engage in rational thought, could wind up being a heartbeat away from the presidency.
