Anti-American Extremism

David Talbot writes in Salon.com:

Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.

Replace Michelle Obama and Barack Obama with the names Todd Palin and Sarah Palin, and you have the situation that took place in Alaska in the '90s.

"'My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand,'" said Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Todd Palin belonged to this secessionist party for seven years. Before his strange murder in 1993, party founder Vogler preached armed insurrection against the United States of America. Vogler, who always carried a Magnum with him, was fond of saying, "When the [federal] bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own [Alaska]. There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don't have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we're ready to die."

How interesting. Despite Sarah Palin's recent statements about Obama 's "palling around with a terrorist', the Palins' connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies than anyone might have imagined.