Sarah Palin’s ‘patriotic’ speech at the Reagan dinner
Sarah Palin spoke at the Iowa Republican Party Reagan Dinner and delivered a speech peppered with the words “patriot”, “Constitution”, “freedom” and “liberty”.
The de facto leader of the tea party really let on to me what the tea party is today, a tool for mainstream Republican politics, much as I anticipated that it would.
There are several things Gov. Palin said in the speech in which if I had the chance I’d like her to answer some simple questions.
At approximately the 4:14 point in the first video clip she said that its time to elect leaders that would “reign in the federal government” and there would be “no more business as usual”. My question for Mrs. Palin is, does this also apply to reigning in the federal government in our foreign interventions or will that be business as usual?
At the 5:20 point in the 1st clip she starts praising Iowa republicans like Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep King. She goes on to say that Grassley “stood strong” against that mother of all unfunded mandates, Obamacare. Good, I’m glad. But does the Governor realize that Mr. Grassley voted for the ultra expensive Medicare Prescription Drug Act in 2003? I guess that doesn’t count since it’s only costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and it was under the administration of George W. Bush.
She goes on to say that Grassley will work to “repeal and replace this scheme with common sense reform. Repeal-OK, but replace it with what? A slightly less expensive and intrusive government program? What is common sense reform? She said “constitutional” numerous time during the speech, but interestingly not on this topic. If she truly believed in constitutional principle, she should of said the federal government has no authority to be involved in health care and has made health care worse and more expensive since 1965.
Mrs. Palin really plays the role of outsider throughout this speech. At the 9:10 point in the first clip she rambles about the GOP machine. She says, “I don’t know how the machine works, I don’t know who the GOP machine is and I don’t want to know”. Really Mrs. Palin, is that true? If that’s true, how did you become the 2008 VP candidate for the Republican Party for Republican tool John McCain? And now that you are a Fox “analyst” you are waist deep in the Republican machinery.
Did you know that Gov. Palin is the biggest proponent of freedom of the press? She tells us so at the 10:40 mark of video one. OK, great, I’m a huge proponent of the 1st amendment also so the governor and I agree.
But she also goes on to say that “our young men and women in uniform are willing to fight and die for our constitutional rights including freedom of the press”. Again I do not doubt that, but is that really what they are fighting for now? Is our occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan protecting our constitutional rights?
Within a minute into the 2nd video clip, Mrs. Palin lists a bunch of people she wants to “rally the troops” for the November election. OK tea partiers, let’s look at the list she presents: George W Bush (he should be public enemy no. 1 and a half to the tea party), Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, ok that’s enough you get the point. This is the neoconservative Hall of Fame. The de facto leader of the tea party, a neocon, wants to recruit some of the biggest names in current neoconservative circles to rally the troops. Don’t think we are going to get more of the same? To me, this is just another indication that the Fox News crowd has hijacked the tea party.
Later in the clip, the governor does this whole monologue on Ronald Reagan that sounds like it was written by the kind folks at the American Enterprise Institute and Sean Hannity.
She quotes Reagan as saying “Government is not the solution, too often government is the problem”. Fine words but did Mr. Reagan govern as well as his words? Of course not! Reagan grew the government by massive amounts during his 8 years in office. Funny how today’s Republicans always act like it was quite the opposite. Oh well, to hell with the facts.
Her foreign policy portion of the speech is exactly what I thought constitutionalists and tea parties would disagree but it appears that this aggressive foreign policy is part of the Republican/Tea Party agenda with no desire to change it.
Another thing that Republicans refuse to acknowledge, like Mrs. Palin in this speech (9:30 of 2nd clip) is that Ronald Reagan had a generally restrained foreign policy as compared to predecessors LBJ and Nixon and those who followed like GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush and Obama.
Palin says the differences between Reagan’s foreign policy and Obama’s is huge, and it is. However, it is Obama’s foreign policy which is much more aggressive than Reagan’s. If Mrs. Palin were elected President I guarantee her foreign policy would more mirror Obama’s than Reagan’s.
At the 4:55 point in the 3rd clip, the governor says something that so many others have said in recent years, “the military is a force for good in this world”. She follows that statement with “those are the principle on which this nation was founded”. Really Mrs. Palin? I would like to ask you which founding father said or implied that the US military is a force for good in the world? I invite you to contact this web site and you can answer this and the other questions I posed for you.
To end this analysis of Mrs. Palin’s speech I want to point out the numerous times the words “Constitution” and “liberty” were thrown out there. I would surmise that Sarah Palin used these words more frequently in this speech than all the speeches and debates she was part of during the 2008 campaign.
Why does she freely use them so often now? Does she really believe in the law of the land, the Constitution? Or is that just a popular buzzword for her in the neocons effort to fool the Tea Party nation?
You be the judge…
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