War and “God’s Will”

In his interview with Sarah Palin, did ABC’s Charles Gibson throw softballs or engage in “gotcha” journalism? My guess is it all depends on whether you loved or loathed Palin going in to the interview.

Gibson had a tall order: his was the first (and, so far, only) interview the McCain campaign has granted for Palin, and the nation watched closely for how he’d handle it.

There’s a lot that interested me in the interview, but as an evangelical pastor, I’ll just comment on Gibson’s tin ear for Palin’s request that “God’s will” be done in the Iraq war.

Much has been made of Palin’s request in an Alaska church that people pray for the troops in Iraq.

Gibson, at least before ABC edited his misunderstanding, followed a typical mischaracterization of the story.

Here’s the prayer: “We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”

Oops, no, that’s not from Governor Palin’s prayer about the Iraq War. That’s President Franklin Roosevelt’s prayer on D-Day, expressing far more confidence in God’s approval of Americans going to war than Palin did. Here’s what Palin said (the one “going to be deployed” is her 19-year-old son, Track):

“Pray for our military. He's going to be deployed in September to Iraq. Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do also what is right for this country--that our leaders, our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.”

It must be noted,” Peggy Noonan wrote, “that Mrs. Palin never told a church that the Iraq war was God's will; she asked them to pray that it was God's will. It wasn't the sound of Republican hubris, it was the sound of Christian humility: We can't know the mind of God, we can only pray we are in accord with it.”

Dead on. Has any media personality other than Noonan actually listened to Palin’s prayer request?

As James Taranto said in relation to the “God on our side” stuff, the Gibson interview with Palin revealed “someone embarrassingly unprepared”--and it wasn’t Palin.