Queen of OIP Derangement Syndrome

This week former half-term governor Sarah Palin said on Fox News:

You could hearken back to the days before the Civil War, when too many Americans believed that not all men were created equal. It was the Civil War that began the codification of the truth that here in America, yes, we are equal and we all have equal opportunities, not based on the color of our skin. You have equal opportunity to work hard and to succeed and to embrace the opportunities, the God-given opportunities, to develop resources and work extremely hard and as I say, to succeed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that the gravity, that mistake that took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.

Yes, in Palin’s mind, the current President of the USA wants to return the country to its social system before the Civil War. (Though, as David A. Graham of the Atlantic pointed out, Palin wasn’t actually able to use the word “slavery” in describing the country at that time.)

All because as a law student Obama supported Prof. Derrick Bell, a former civil-rights lawyer for the US Justice Department, in his campaign for a more racially integrated faculty of the Havard Law School.

Thus, to Palin and her advisors, asking for more integration is actually the equivalent of seeking a return to black slavery and white supremacy. Half a second’s consideration might tell us that’s not what two black men were really seeking, but Palin perceives otherwise.

This is the workings of OIP Derangement Syndrome, combined with ignorance and self-righteousness on an epic scale.