Watching the CBN clips strongly reminded me of the hilarious Jon Stewart bit in which he posits that Palin is a Russian spy. She dots her language with odd, non-specific phrases like “the other countries,” “our leader in the White House,” and “those…things that Ronald Reagan did espouse (rhymes with mouse),”sounding nothing so much as an inept foreign agent trying to blend in by saying, “Why, yes, comrade, I am huge fanatic of sports team!”

Her execution is poor, but her plan is anything but random or idiotic. It’s the time-tested tactic of playing politics with an opponent who is otherwise occupied, and cannot respond.

Palin’s first attack is at President Obama‘s American-ness, a popular theme with her crowd, and the likely genesis of her malformed suggestion that the President wants America to aspire to the Sputnik launch. She says “we need to know what it is that America stands for so we know who it is that America will stand with,” and the fact that this is utter nonsense (we “stood with” the Soviets in World War II) is irrelevant, because the blow lands with her audience, and to hell with everyone else.

For the record, of course, Obama and Gibbs never stop talking about “what America stands for.” It’s what has put us in such a tough spot with Egypt, necessitating that we declare our stand for democracy, but against its use to install a majoritarian tyranny that could, by the way, destabilize the entire region.

Wagner and O’Donnell fail to point out that Palin’s reference to a 3 am phone call, in the next clip, is a reference to the infamous Hillary Clinton attack ad against Obama that ran during the 2008 Democratic primaries. It was noteworthy at the time because it provided Obama’s likely GOP opponent with ammunition, and Palin reloads it here.

They also miss the point of Palin’s suggestion, which is not that the administration utilize some supernatural predictive power to divine the outcome of the unrest in Egypt. When Palin says “…surely they know more than the rest of us know, who it is who  will be taking the place of Mubarek,” she is making a very odd, very concrete suggestion: that the Obama administration make any information they’ve gathered, via intelligence sources and diplomatic back-channels, public. Oddly, Palin wasn’t too happy with the last person who did that.

True, there’s a big difference between the President revealing such information, and Julian Assange, but the harms (if not the legality) associated with each act would be similar.

Obviously, this isn’t really what Palin wants. She is listing demands that are not only impossible for the President to meet, but ill-advised. She’s well aware, for instance, that the US must necessarily appear neutral as to Mubarek’s successor, and exploits that fact as hard as she can. Newt Gingrich employed a similar tactic during the Somali pirate crisis when he demanded that Obama do something, knowing full well that he likely was doing something, and that talking about what he was doing could have cost lives. It’s the political equivalent of punching a guy in the face when he’s holding an armload of injured babies.

But aside from all of this, O’Donnell and Wagner miss the biggest point of all. Palin’s not talking to them, or to me, or to anyone else who hasn’t already formed an opinion of her. She’s talking to a large group of people who have sometimes undefinable problems with Barack Obama, who suspect that he’s just not one of us. The only question that remains is whether that group is large enough to secure her the Republican presidential nomination, or even the White House.

Fans of Robertson should not fear though, because in the midst of armageddon he added that “CBN will prosper, Regent (the university founded by Robertson) will prosper” and in a needed moment of levity suggested “the ACLU will be needed like never before.” The ACLU is clearly something Robertson thinks is not particularly needed and instead quickly corrects his statement to refer to ACLJ, the American Center for Law and Justice, Robertson’s legal group. Robertson’s preview also included the following warning:

Your creditors will demand payment, and there will not be enough to satisfy their claims. Your currency will shrink in value; your bonds will lose value. People on fixed incomes will suffer. Unemployment will escalate, and there will be turmoil. And God says I will protect my people, but he says warn them now about what is coming. Tell them to get out of doubt and restrict purchases.

And in case the larger message wasn’t received by his viewers, Robertson concluded “it will not be a time of happiness.” Happy new year everyone!

Watch the clip from the 700 Club below:

(h/t The Daily Caller)

An article on CBN.com that alleges, among other things, that “most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches” has been removed by the site after becoming an object of mockery by The Huffington Post. (We linked a cached version.) The site ran a slideshow and poll of the most evil candy brands.

Why did CBN remove the post, which originally appeared at Charisma.com? Is HuffPo guilty of mocking Christianity, or are they justly targeting a fringe belief?

We’ve reached out to CBN to find out why they took the post down, and we await their response. There are several possibilities. It’s possible that CBN’s editors re-thought the content of the article, given the negative attention being paid to it. The piece also suggests the existence of an unholy trinity, and a laundry list of “behind-the-scenes” Halloween activities that includes:

* Sex with demons
* Orgies between animals and humans
* Animal and human sacrifices
* Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
* Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
* Revel nights
* Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
* Release of “time-released” curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

It’s pretty sensational, out-there stuff that might have slipped through initially due to the writer’s credentials. On the other hand, CBN head Pat Robertson engages in fringe activities like prophecy, so this is a sliding scale.

Or, it’s possible the deluge of traffic from HuffPo might have caused server problems for them.

Many Christian conservatives are sensitive about mockery from the left, which they view as anti-Christian. I asked Dr.Thomas Howe, Dean of Apologetics and Professor of Biblical Studies at the Southern Evangelical Seminary and author of books like The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, if things like “time-release curses,” demon orgies, and demonic candy are part of mainstream Christian thought.

“None of (this is) considered main stream Christian beliefs. Beliefs in curses is occultic, not Christian. I am not aware of any evidence supporting any of these claims about Halloween, neither do I subscribe to the notion of a demonic trinity. This is not found anywhere in the Bible, and it is not a historic Christian doctrine.”

Dr. Howe is an ordained Southern Baptist minister.

It seems, then, that the Huffington Post is not running afoul of mainstream Christians in mocking this article. Although we don’t yet know why CBN took the article down, according to Dr. Howe, they made the right call. This  goes to show that just because an organization puts something online, it doesn’t mean they speak for an entire religion.