Sarah Palin gave a rousing speech at the Tea Party convention, raking and mocking President Obama with zingers like "How's that hope-y, change-y stuff workin' out for ya?" The crowd enthused, having paid $350 to hear the speech live, and the left’s commentators tut-tutted over Palin’s writing notes on her hand to help her remember her key points. All in good fun.
But there was a truly ugly side of the convention. Tea Partiers can no longer pass off the birthers as a tiny group of nuts that aren’t representative of true Tea Partiers. Not after the crowd’s wild enthusiasm for Tom Tancredo’s keynote speech. Ex-congressman Tancredo (R-CO) explained that “Barack Hussein Obama” was only elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote." [Wild cheers]
"People who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House." [More wild cheers]
I’m not sure who he was referring to. Perhaps it was Latinos and African-Americans who couldn’t have voted had there been a literacy test—like in the good old days when blacks were turned away from polls all over the South, no matter how literate they were, because the point of the tests was to turn them away.
I’m pretty sure, however, what the crowd was cheering. It was that Obama voters were others, a different species, not even entitled to be part of the American system. The crowd responded to hate speech with cheers.
5 comments:
I agree that Palin is a hate-monger of the most dangerous breed. Chris Matthews has been really sharp on his criticism of her - how truly frightening and dangerous to have such an empty (and empty-headed) vessel as the de-facto lead of an extreme right-wing (and other loons) cult-like movement. And how cynical and irresponsible it was of McCain to bring her on board in the first place. She cannot even respond coherently or consistently to her own questions that she has already prepped for. She preaches secession and the "true america". Her very presence in the public spotlight is an offense, and the fact that a bunch of bible and gun-toting fascists would actually vote for HER for president of the united states...it is truly remarkable...and sad and scary.
But I ramble...and perhaps tip my hand...
Thanks for the clarity in this post, Bob. But are you serious about Palin? She has never been the best of anything. She was her usual divisive self. To say that she was the best of anything is to denigrate everything. Now, if this was the point I could concur.
I'm largely with Anonymous in his comment above, although I have not been watching much news lately and do not typically watch Chris Matthews. He often seems full of himself and overrides his guests with his opinions. I'm not a huge fan. The media by and large really has to understand that it's not about them! Fat chance, I know.
Judith got my intent right: Sarah was the best of a very scary lot. I find her not as scary as her fans. Actually she did give a pretty good speech--good in zingers and theatrics, not substance.
I agree with you both about Chris Mathews. It's not fun watching a loud-mouth bully, even if he IS a left-wing loudmouth. HOWEVER, watch his Sunday am show--it's terrific.
Bob - I'll check out Chris Matthews tomorrow. So, you're no longer here, eh? Okay, I'll see you over there.
It's terrible that people go for that kind of crap. Going to be some big trouble before it goes away I think....
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