Yesterday in a column titled Olbermann vs. America, what I wrote regarding Keith Olbermann's unfortunate response to the stunning Scott Brown victory included a challenge to Sarah Palin:

Yesterday's vote in Massachusetts is a vote against estrangement from our national and creaturely identities. Yesterday stems the tide against freedom, and for that we give thanks.

But strategic victory and a strategic initiative await a critical mass of Americans who insist on returning homeward (and thus forward) to the Founding Vision -- the Declaration, the Constitution, etc. -- where a real Creator and not the pretend god of the secular state is recognized as the center of gravity of human freedom.

I have said and written many good things about the views of Sarah Palin, but it should be pointed out that her heartfelt affirmation of a "commonsense, independent agenda" may not be enough to meet the strategic challenge of our moment in history. For "commonsense" could have made you a slave in Athens, eaten by lions in Rome, headless in France 1793-94, "verboten" in Deutschland, and frozen in the workers' paradise. 

So I am happy to report that last night on Fox in an interview with Sean Hannity, the former governor of Alaska did in fact bring the Constitution to the fore. Here's how the interview concluded:

Hannity: If you had to look into the Gov. Palin's crystal ball for 2010, what do you see happening? Do you see this continuing? Do you see the Republicans taking over Congress? Do they have a shot at the Senate?

Palin: I do. I have a lot of optimism for some takeover of just commonsense conservatives being elected and being reelected to make sure that we have a sound agenda and sound policies to get our country back on the right track.

I see that the momentum is on the commonsense and constitutional conservative side, and that this provide[s] a whole lot of optimism for all the country.

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights to recovering America as a country that embraces freedom and dignity under God, as opposed to unfreedom and indignity under the heel of some kind of coercive, impositional state that in practice, in effect, seeks to replace the Creator.

Clearly, the Founding Fathers would have understood this emphasis. Just as clearly, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party would do themselves well to articulate and practice that self-same vision. Idolatry, including the idolatry of the secular state, makes for bad politics.