Sometimes I wish I was a whole lot smarter than I am. Having a degree in government policy would come in extremely handy from time to time. Having the ability to instantly respond to current situations and circumstances in an intelligent manner would be 
killer stuff. Since I do not possess those qualities I have to revert to thinking about it and doing some research.
Saturday night’s Tea Party convention in Nashville featured key speaker Sarah Palin. I watched the speech online on Sunday. Super geek that I am about this, I took notes. Since then I have watched and read reactions from all sides and all pundits. I felt that I needed to say something about this because I am in a continuous state of “what are some of us thinking” to allow this crap, believe it and continue to promote it.
When we were all blessed with the introduction of Sarah Palin back in ‘08, we found her to be quite interesting as well as a surprising choice by the GOP. She was down homey, quirky, not bad to look at… she was the “Average Joe” or Mrs. Joe six-pack. This was what someone was spinning and it only took a couple of weeks to realize that the choice that the GOP had made was F-ING RETARDED.
(I use the “R” word here in a satirical manner, which Sarah says is ok)
Since the election my opinion of her has not changed much. I think she is no one we would want to ever consider to be in a leadership position. If she wants to work for Fox and spew the same old Fox shit that they spew, fine. Go for it. As long as she is in that position and we can actually label her as a political editorial columnist, I have no issues. If she collects a check from Fox, I have no issues.
Here’s where I have some issues. I believe that Sarah is nothing on her own. I believe that she was a fucking train wreck mistake from the day someone at the GOP decided to name her as VP candidate and since that time the GOP and Fox and a number of other behind the scenes people continue to see what they can salvage. How can they save this mess and re-brand her for their own use.
The speech was written for her, as was her book, as was almost every other thing that she has been “allowed” to say in public. When she does “go rogue”, it is probably a bone chilling experience for whoever is supposed to be pulling her strings. The speech was typical rhetoric with a few down homey quips added to make it sound “extra Sarah.” Of course, this was not a real hard thing to do or put across to the crowd of 600 or so paid Tea Bagger attendees.
Let’s cover some of it. We start with mentioning America, how proud we are to be Americans, how supportive we are or need to be for all of the brave men and women serving and giving their lives for this great big beautiful country we all are fortunate enough to live in. We are blessed by God. (Aren’t the rest of us also happy to be Americans and blessed?) She wants to discuss some common sense conservative principles. She mentions Ronald Reagan… he would have been 99 that day. Ron’s ghost is hanging in the back wondering what the F this chick is talking about. She mentions that she will plan to take part in more Tea Party events in the future.
She talks about Scott Brown. She allows the Tea Baggers to claim credit for his Massachusetts victory. She has a “little bit of advice” from time to time and then inserts some phrase that will surely be used as a sound bite later on. She gives the government shit about the questioning of the underwear bomber on Christmas Day. She sprinkles into this argument all of the men and women who have died making our Constitution possible. She suggests that we have a choice in dealing with a terrorist before that terrorist lawyers up. That this dude should not be able to have the same rights to the game plan that he was trying to kill.
Waterboard him. Is that what we should do? Haven’t we discovered that THAT plan was not so great? Haven’t we also discovered that the underwear bomber has been very forthcoming with information even AFTER having been given the right to remain silent? She then at some point says “the events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to Sept. 11.”
Please give me a break, Sarah. Or, Sarah and Sarah’s speech writers… Is it actually written in your speech writing plan book to always – no matter how far reaching it may be – to tie something directly into 911. If you could have only spun it in such a way to say that “the events surrounding the Christmas Day plot directly resulted in the attack on Sept. 11.” I guess you could have done this but in the end it would have sounded pretty F-ing Retarded.
I think that this is the real deal: Sarah is an opportunist. After the failed campaign in ‘08, she was faced with another couple of years as governor of Alaska. Had she waited until her term was over to hit the book and speech for dollars trail, her novelty would have been long worn away. Why not remain controversial as well as aloof. Speak only to issues with much preparation. Speak in small sentences. Be quippy and quotey. Say just enough to spark some interest without adding any real substance. Some people will dig it. Make money.
Make money.
I think that this is what galls me more than anything else. Let me first give her some credit. She can read and deliver a speech. She looks clean and well put together. That’s about all the positive I can muster. The way I see it, she is completely fucking us over. She took $100,000.00 for this speech delivery and appearance on Saturday. $100,000.00. One Hundred Thousand Dollars. This for a trip to Nashville and a 40 or so minute speech.
With SO many people out of work, out of their homes, out of hope… how can she justify taking $100,000.00? I suppose if it was an option for me, I would certainly take the money. After, I would speak again somewhere. During this, I would hope that I would be doing something smart with the money. The difference here is that I would probably recognize that I was getting paid for my speech delivering qualities and had absolutely no business being the commander-in-chief.
I feel that she is taking advantage of many Americans.
