Mrs. Palin gave the keynote speech at the Tea Party Convention.
Some of my favorite parts of the speech are:
1. She says we need to push the reset button on health care reform, and get a plan that has bi-partisan support. She forgets the fact that Republicans have not come up with their own ideas. They simply say no. She and her fellow Republicans only want Obama to fail, regardless of the cost of the status quo. Do you remember the profit Limbaugh (yes I mean profit, as in money) saying he that the failure of healthcare reform would "kill Obama"? She touches on tort reform (litigation limitations), forgetting that litigation is only a drop in the bucket of the overall healthcare problem. It is also something that was addressed when Bush was president.
2. She wants President Obama to be "transparent" about national security threats. She forgets that she said nothing while Bush was wiretapping Americans (a blatant violation of the constitution), and running an illegal "extraordinary rendition" program. Bush was not "transparent" about these. When the "mainstream media" got wind of these programs, the Republicans said it was a matter of "national security", and thus was a secret. Why is Sarah so quick to forget these things?
3. She complains that the Obama administration used the term "overseas contingency operation" to describe the two wars we are fighting. She is oblivious to the fact that a "contingency operation" is a legal term to describe certain operations. Adding the word "overseas" only means that the operations are not taking place in the United States. She again forgets that Bush liked to rename things. Bush renamed taliban soldiers as "enemy combatants" thinking he could get away from the pesky geneva conventions. He renamed a host of torture methods as "harsh interrogation techniques".
4. She complains about the Christmas bombing attempt, and how the Obama administration is treating it as a "law enforcement issue", rather than...she doesn't say. She forgets that this happened in American airspace. As such, this man is entitled to all the protections under the constitution. She goes on to say that we need a "commander in chief, not a professor of law". She seems to think that the President is above the law. Probably in her eyes he/she is. I do not share that belief.
4. "Hope-y change-y stuff". She asks how the "hope-y change-y stuff is working out for ya". She then goes into "transparency", and how Joe Biden's meetings with the "transparency and accountability board" was closed to the public. Let me first say that the existence of this board is "change-y", since Bush didn't care about being transparent. Secondly, I don't believe this board was ever meant to meet publicly. If every meeting were public, the tea bagging dogs would be there screaming, and no one could get any work done. However, the findings of this board are made public. Take that, Barbie!
5. She says that the tea party is forcing both parties to change the way they do business. That would be good, if it weren't simply the screams of a semi-militant piece of the Republican party. They call themselves "Patriots", but they were content to sit by while Bush also ran up huge deficits, and disobeyed the law. They also seem to oblivious to the fact that the "socialist takeover" of several industries began under the Bush administration. Many of these tea baggers would be without jobs had there not been a rigorous attempt to stabilize these industries.
It is very sad that this movement can't be non-partisan. It is sad that they can't call all politicians to task for outrageous spending. It is sad that they resort to screaming spin, rather than rigorous discussion of the issues. They complain about everything, yet they provide no ideas. They are like a child in the "terrible twos", who just throws tantrums and screams NO to anything and everything.
Now that my morning rant is finished, I think I will go get some coffee.
