I'm to Curse Sarah Palin, But Can Only Bless Her

In the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament is a funny story of a false prophet named Balaam who is hired by the king of Moab to curse Israel. Three times Balaam attempts to make pronouncement upon the Israelis but under the direction of God he can only bless them. Balak, king of Moab, gets frustrated big-time.

I was reminded of the Balaam story while watching a clip of a CNN report on the sifting through of 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial e-mails. Posted by http://www.therightscoop.com/, the CNN piece features Drew Griffin of the CNN Special Investigation Unit discussing the findings to date in the Palin e-mails. He says the e-mails show Palin to have been a hard-working governor dealing with Alaska policy, taxes, budget cuts and mundane items. Griffin says the e-mails reflect Palin’s evolution as a politician. He, in effect, defends her against criticisms of being secretive because leaks, according to the e-mails, prompt her to have fewer people in the loop while “thinking out loud.”

Of course, this doesn’t seem to sit well with CNN anchor T.J. Holmes – after all, we can’t have a witch hunt if we can’t find the witch. As a result, Holmes prods Griffin, asking about allegations of Palin being thin-skinned with the media and he inquires about the whole issue of “Troopergate” involving her ex-brother-in-law. Holmes, by his questions, seems to be seeking a curse on Palin. Griffin gives a blessing instead, saying there is nothing about Troopergate uncovered so far and there were no cheap shots against the press. If anything, upon hearing criticism of her staff on a radio talk show, Griffin says Palin wrote that she wished the criticisms were directed at her instead of her staff.

On another issue, perhaps one might think Palin may be showing a sharpness when she writes about something as being “unacceptable.” What is unacceptable? It’s that she has not been getting timely information about the times of troop deployments from Alaska nor funerals of Alaskans killed in the wars. As a result, Palin complained that she had not been able to attend the funerals, nor see the troops off. “I do want to get to those,” she wrote.

So there it was: the Big Report on Sarah Palin from the CNN Special Investigation Unit. The whole thing, of course, was designed to curse Sarah Palin. But Drew Griffin could only bless. I wonder if anchor T. J. Holmes was thinking what Balak, king of Moab, said after his encounters with Baalam: “I called you to curse my enemies and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times.”