“I will die for the people of America!” Sarah Palin declared in exchange for a hefty fee at last night’s Tea Party Convention. To which my immediate response on Twitter was, “Well hell, lady, get busy!”

Uncharitable, sure. It’s as charitable as Palin’s statement was realistic. This woman lives in a country that has seen peaceful transitions of power for 150 years, yet she talks like she’s about to face down Deng Xiaoping’s tanks in Tiananmen Square. Indeed, her lecture in front of an adoring crowd was chock full of frightening, over-the-top statements, only a few of which she had to write on her palm. Take this gem:

We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law standing at the lectern.

Right! Who needs that pesky Constitution anyway? Not Palin, who declared to the crowd that it is time for “another revolution,” and that America’s future lies in “seeking divine intervention again.” Did she mean “divine intervention” in the same way that Pastor Wiley Drake called for “divine intervention”? Or “divine intervention” in the sense of “It’ll take an act of God to get Sarah Plain in the White House?” Either way, it was an odious declaration in the midst of a terrifying evening. Sarah Palin declared jihad on Barack Obama last night, with all the fervor (and logic) of a holy warrior.

What a contrast to the man who currently occupies the White House. In a Washington Post article on Thursday that I didn’t stumble across until last night, Anne Kornblut documents how President Obama likes to keep his strong faith in God private, even though there are days when it’s the only thing that sees him through:

When Obama appears at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday morning — a regular presidential ritual — it will mark the rare occasion when he puts religion in the foreground. In that appearance, he will discuss “the need for civility in the public square, and how Americans can work together in a spirit of goodwill,” a senior administration official said.

Now that’s leadership. Obama, in private, has a very strong, personal Christian faith. In public, however, his message is ecumenical and inclusive.

Paid pundits like Roland S. Martin are in a tizzy about Tim Tebow, and how courageous it is for a superstar pulling down millions of dollars to express his faith in Christ and his belief that women are chattel. Sorry, not impressed. What’s impressive is someone like Obama, who weds a strong personal belief to a public secularism that stands on its own foundation of logic and empathy. The atheist creed that religion is a cancer that must be excised from the human politic is a load of bunk. We need to recognize that religion’s place is our souls and our homes, not our civics. (And yes, “religion” includes the religions of “no religion” and “none of the above.”) Good ideas can come from religion, but their appeal has to be broad; they have to translate into the language of reason and humanism, and not be grounded solely in personal religious fervor or – worse – blind faith.

Obama gets that in a way that Sarah The Divine Interventionist never will. As Andrew Sullivan notes, she’s making a play for the Presidency because she believes God is in her corner.

And just for the record, God? If you make a play in 2012 on her behalf, your ass is sleeping on the couch.

barack obama, politics, president, religion, sara palin, spirituality