Because this is a serious blog that eschews prurience, we have refrained from taking note of the accusations of inappropriate physical relationships and one-night stands that have been swirling around one of Sarah Palin’s Mama Grizzlies, Tea Party-er Nikki Haley, who bade fare to become the first Sikh to serve as governor of one of these United States; namely South Carolina. But now that a Palmetto State Solon has called Haley a “fucking raghead,” like such other sober-minded religion-and-politics commentators as David Brody and David Gibson, we feel entitled to turn our attention to Mrs. Haley’s suddenly parlous situation and make so bold as to suggest that such language falls outside the pale of propriety established by the Constitution’s proscription of religious tests for office.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Haley, who until recently proudly embraced her South Asian heritage, has now sort of suppressed it, and is about the business of expressing her devotion to Jesus and the Methodist Church to which her husband belongs and in which her children are being raised. Which kind of confirms the point Sen. Jake Knotts was making; i.e. “She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hide it
behind being Methodist for political reasons.” And which makes us wonder how they’re feeling about her candidacy at the gurudwara in Columbia and elsewhere in the Sikh community that used to celebrate her progress as a politician. As for what the South Carolina voting public makes of her, we’ll see on Tuesday.