Posted on 03/08/2013 2:14:23 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster against the confirmation of CIA Director and "drone czar" John Brennan offers a "teachable moment" to the media and the left about the Tea Party. As they seethe in outrage and confusion that it took a Republican to question the constitutionality of drone attacks, it is important to remind our friends on the other side that it wasn't just any Republican, but a--gasp!--Tea Party Republican who spoke "truth to power."
Not only that, but the Senators who were first to offer their assistance were also Tea Party Republicans--the so-called McCarthyist Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco "Water Break" Rubio of Florida. All three of these Senators won their primary elections against candidates favored by the Republican establishment. All three have been attacked by the left and smeared as racist and extremist for belonging to the Tea Party. Yet without them, no one from either party would have questioned a policy that the left once saw as a dangerous abuse of executive power.
Only one Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, supported Paul. (Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois came to the floor very late in the game to offer a few challenging questions and formally end debate when Paul finally yielded.) Ryan Grim and Mollie Reilly of the Huffington Post observed: "...progressives who might have assumed to have been supportive were absent, leaving members of the GOP as the sole defenders of civil liberties. The White House was equally silent." Some Democrats, notably Maxine Waters, even slammed Paul as "destructive."
What many on the left and in the media have willfully failed to understand is that the Tea Party exists to defend the Constitution from unconstitutional encroachments on power and dangerous expansions in the size and cost of government....
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“And which individual did the most to put those three senators where they are today?”
Jim Robinson.
Sarah Palin!
No, but Jim has met her.
LOL!
“LOL!”
I do think the early warning alarms sounded here did a LOT to mobilize opposition to Establishment Choice (Crist and Dewhurst), which was critical in allowing the Tea Party alternatives to get traction.
I specifically remember both cases where dejected people posted here about how The Establishment was going to stick a real scumbag down their throats, how hopeless they felt, but also that there was another choice (i.e., Rubio and Cruz). Getting that alternative choice’s name out (who was much less well-known in both cases), was absolutely critical and needed to be done early enough to gain traction and money.
And then history was made.
That was the basis of my vote for you.
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