Not Part of Oprah's Book Club

In her recent acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin offered this quote from Westbrook Pegler, who was a 20th century journalist and writer from, believe it or not, the United States: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity."

It is important to note that, in her speech, Palin understandably does not refer to Pegler by name but merely cites "a writer". And although the above quote from Pegler is completely harmless and innocuous, we need to examine other statements and events from Pegler's life to understand why:

1. "It is regrettable that Guiseppe Zangara hit the wrong man when he shot at [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt in Miami."

2. In conjunction with the attacks from Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), Pegler accused the State Department of being too accepting of homosexuals. Five of his columns were addressed directly to Secretary of State Dean Acheson and offered suggestions to help the State Department reflect "the distinctive spirit and character of so many of the personnel". Pegler recommended that Acheson change the name of the street adjoining departmental headquarters to "Grimm Street" after the author of the fairy tales, change the name of the smoking room to the "fag room" and replace the standard handshake greeting with a curtsy and the standard mode of address from "your Excellency" to "precious". Pegler also proposed that courses in interior decorating might provide better preparation for entry into the foreign service than either history or political science.

3. "[It is] clearly the bounden duty of all intelligent Americans to proclaim and practice bigotry."

4. Pegler declared that Jewish people could not claim to be victims of persecution because persecution "connotes injustice" so they are, instead, enduring "retaliation or punishment".

5. He was removed from the journal of the notorious John Birch Society in 1964 for anti-semitism.

6. Pegler constantly referred to Jewish people as "geese" due to the fact that, in his opinion, they hiss when they talk, eat anything placed in front of them and defecate on their surroundings.

7. And last but certainly not least, as Robert Kennedy was considering his own run for the presidency in 1965, Pegler expressed his hope that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies".

Now I know that a quote is just a quote and I also know that Palin did not personally write her acceptance speech. (Trust me, after watching the first two minutes of her interview with Charles Gibson with ABC's "World News", I was able to confidently deduce the level of her writing skills.) The right has claimed that her speechwriter is fully responsible for the content of her speeches, not Palin herself, and that claim is completely moronic. Palin is running for the Vice President of the United States! Therefore, she must be fully aware of the information (including any quotes) she is delivering in her speeches, especially if the source of the quote is a known racist and fascist.