Oh what a night! It was everything a bunch of grass-roots revolutionaries looking for a better (or is it tax-free?) America could have hoped for. Intense excitement filled the air as "The Future," former Alaska blink-of-an-eye Governor Sarah Palin, took center-stage at the cultish Tea Bag Party Convention in Nashville Saturday (haven't these poor people yet realized they've named themselves after a nadsack on the chin?).
There was absolute joy among Palin's ever-shrinking far-right-wing base when she bragged "0-for-3," referring to the three key Republican victories in recent months in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. "How's that hope-y, change-y stuff workin' out for you?," she obnoxiously asked in that painfully annoying fake-cutesy voice.
Now I'm no math whiz, but I do know that "0" means zero. And that would mean that Democrats have not won any key special elections this past year. But wait...didn't Bill Owens defeat Republican Doug Hoffman in New York's 23rd Congressional district, where a Democrat hadn't won that House seat in 140 years? Or how about Scott Murphy's upset victory over Republican Jim Tedisco in New York's solidly GOP 20th District? How about California Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi's defeat of Republican David Harmer in California's 10th Congressional District? Or Kirsten Running-Marquardt's landslide win over Republican rival Josh Thurson? Or Democrat Terry Mills' special election victory in Kentucky's 24th State House district, where Republicans had held court since 2003? We could keep counting, but already that flips Palin's tally to 5-3 for Democrats. Seems like the moose-shootin' Wasilla Wonder with the irritating accent has as big a problem with math as she does geography, current events and grammar.
But math seems to be a huge problem for other prominent Republicans as well, as demonstrated by Rudy Giuliani's bold declaration following the recent underwear-bomber terror attempt that "We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we've had one under Obama." The only problem with this score is that it leaves out the biggest fucking terror attack in the history of mankind, which occurred nine months into George W. Bush's presidency. But what's 3000 dead Americans when you're puking up propaganda, right?
During her 45-minute blabberfest, Palin blasted President Obama for being weak on terror, shouting "We need a Commander in Chief, not a professor of law," to her 1100 ravenous groupies. Perhaps she's forgetting that Obama's ordered 40 drone missile attacks into Pakistan since taking office, more than Bush fired in the last three years of his presidency. Or that Obama recently ordered an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan. Sounds pretty Commander-in-Chief-y to me.
And here's one for the hypocrisy file: In talking about the Tea Bag movement's leadership needs, Palin took a cheap shot at Obama's presentation skills: "This is about the people. It's a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter." This coming from an airhead who literally wrote crib notes to herself on her hand.
"Run, Sarah, run," chanted the kool-aid drunken crowd, as Ms. Golly Gee made her exit at the Nadsack convention. And maybe they'll get their wish, as the very next morning Fox News aired a taped interview from Saturday where Palin hinted she'd run for president in 2012.
I'm sorry, but Sarah Palin is a moron and, quite frankly, anyone who would vote for her for president is an even bigger moron. Which is why, as Hardball's Chris Matthews often demonstrates when putting leading Republicans on the hotseat, none of them are willing to say publicly that she's qualified to be president.
The truth is, Palin can read all the prepared speeches and palms she wants in an effort to make her look presidential, but I'd bet $10,000 that if she spent another 5 minutes with Katie Couric she'd once again reveal her true dimwitted self.
Over 100 people attended our event (and many more would have if not for the size of our state and time/money constraints on travel) and it wasn't covered in the mainstream. 600 people paid $500 for the Tea Baggers Convention and Palin got a big chunk to speak-- Big Yawn. How many people do they really represent?
Sure there is anger and frustration out there, but it isn't just with Tea Baggers; as I said we've been growing the Green Party for 20 yrs. At times we've had over 300,000 registered Greens in the U.S. and the most our National Convention would get is a few hours on C-SPAN.
Hundreds of thousands more people agree with our platform and vote for us (e.g. Peter Camejo in various Gubernatorial runs, www.laurawells.org) and I don't have to tell you all the barriers third parties face in our screwed up electoral system.
The Green Party is an international party attached to an international green movement. A Green Party member is a Nobel Peace Prize winner (and it isn't Al Gore, ha), it's Wangari Maathi, former Parliment member in Kenya and founder of the Green Belt Movement.