There were a number of videos documenting Palin's involvement in NAR, made during the 2008 elections. These were widely discussed and footage of Palin appearing at NAR ceremonies was even shown on national television. Here is one by Bruce Wilson.



Its bad enough that Miller hasn't heard of such a major movement in evangelicalism and so presumes that no one else could have either. What's worse is that she writes that the recent stories in The New Yorker,The Texas Observer and The Daily Beast "raise real concerns about the world views of two prospective Republican nominees" -- and then spends the rest of the piece telling us why we should not be concerned. Her main point is that not all evangelicals think like that. True. But no one said that they do.

She says that the "echo-chamber effect" of the articles "reignites old anxieties among liberals about evangelical Christians." This might be an interesting point, but she does not bother to provide any evidence that this might be so, and if it was, what the consequences might be. And while we might not be surprised to find liberals who make broad brush generalizations about evangelicals, what is astounding is that Miller would try to make her point by making broad brush generalizations about liberals.

The very next sentence is similarly revealing. "Some on the left" she claims, "seem suspicious that a firm belief in Jesus equals a desire to take over the world." That may be. But she does not say who, or how many, the extent that such views might exist and of what consequence they might be.

The whole column is like this.

"'Dominionism'", she declares, "is the paranoid mot du jour." Unfortunately, she does not say who exactly is being paranoid or what exactly they are paranoid about.

If the knocking down of straw men is remarkable in this piece, so is the use of false equivalence.

"Certain journalists" she claims, "use 'dominionist' the way some folks on Fox News use the word 'sharia.'" She does not name any journalists who do this. She offers no examples of scary misuse of the term dominionist. She makes no effort to show how her unsubstantiated charge against unnamed journalists is in anyway like what happens on Fox News.

Finally, there is her stated reason for this column. "It’s a plea," she writes, "given the acrimonious tone of our political discourse, for a certain amount of dispassionate care in the coverage of religion."

I hope Miller will take her own plea to heart.