This is what Sarah Palin said:

PALIN: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln’s words when he said — first, he suggested never presume to know what God’s will is, and I would never presume to know God’s will or to speak God’s words.

But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that’s a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God’s side.

That’s what that comment was all about, Charlie. And I do believe, though, that this war against extreme Islamic terrorists is the right thing. It’s an unfortunate thing, because war is hell and I hate war, and, Charlie, today is the day that I send my first born, my son, my teenage son overseas with his Stryker brigade, 4,000 other wonderful American men and women, to fight for our country, for democracy, for our freedoms.

This is remarkable, for almost too many reasons to describe.  I’ll concede what the howler monkeys of wingnuttia have been crying all night, which is that Palin is correct:  Gibson omits an arguably vital part of her original quotation.  But look at what Palin offers as an explanation before she proceeds to argue that yes, indeed, God’s side and “our” side are aligned.  She claims that when she was addressing the kids at her old pentecostal church earlier this year, she was “repeating” — those of us on the coastal elite wine track call this “quoting” or, less formally, “offering a shout out to” — Abraham Lincoln.  What she doesn’t say* is that the quotation derives from a pre-Civil War anecdote in which Lincoln receives a delegation of secessionists who insist that their cause is God’s cause and that, if war erupts, the South will triumph.

Lincoln’s response, fictional or not, is to chasten his callers by asking them to reflect, humbly and with extraordinary care, on the possibility that they’re about to embark on a reckless mission that does nothing to further “God’s plan.”  This would not only have required Lincoln’s visitors to consider what, precisely, “God’s plan” happened to be, but also to consider — in earnest detail, with considerable attention to actual historical facts — whether the Confederacy’s cause was indeed as righteous as its standard-bearers assumed.  It was, in other words, an admonition against a transparently stupid course of action being waged by regional ideologues who, it turns out, well-nigh wrecked the republic.

What Bush and Cheney have offered — and what Palin-Chernenko McCain are promising to re-up — is a foreign policy orientation that is exactly the opposite of the sort of patient reflection, self-criticism, and wisdom that Lincoln was encouraging in his southern brethren.  If this is indeed God’s plan, then it’s high time someone punched God in the face.

*because I don’t think she knows this**

**because I don’t think she was actually intending to quote Abraham Lincoln***

***because I don’t think Sarah Palin had ever heard this quotation before the two-week cramming session she completed before the interview