Posted on 02/16/2010 8:10:38 AM PST by rabscuttle385
During her speech to the first ever National Tea Party Convention in Nashville on Saturday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin discouraged the very idea of a national organization, urging the movement to stay leaderless and decentralized. This was the most important and valuable part of Palin’s speech.
As for the rest of it–Sarah sounded pretty much like the same old Republican Party.
Despite the many independents that make up the movement, the tea parties in large part represent a long overdue reexamination of conservative principles. A big-spending Democratic president seems to have awakened grassroots conservatives enough to finally lament the big spending of the last Republican president, and plenty of incumbents from both parties face voter backlash in 2010 and possibly beyond, particularly if they supported bailouts, stimulus, national healthcare, or other massive debt-incurring legislation.
The tea partiers are right to acknowledge and denounce Bush’s big-government growth of Medicare, the implementation of No Child Left Behind, and Dubya’s other expansions of the domestic state. But what they still seem to forget is what made conservatives so tolerant of big government during that time—an almost religious preoccupation with supporting the Iraq War.
Today, defense spending remains the largest part of the federal budget, dwarfing the bailouts, stimulus, healthcare, and other government programs that offend tea partiers most, and President Obama is still expanding that budget and escalating our wars. One would think cost-conscious voters would at least question Obama’s wisdom in continuing Bush’s exorbitant foreign policy. Yet few tea partiers are asking such questions, and according to Palin, Obama’s primary weakness is that he’s not enough like George W. Bush.
Following up her tea party speech on “Fox News Sunday,” Palin said of Obama, “If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would perhaps shift their thinking a little bit and decide, Well, maybe he’s tougher than …he is today, and there wouldn’t be as much passion to make sure that he doesn’t serve another four years.”
What is Palin trying to say? That tea party anger towards Obama would lessen if the president was to “toughen up,” becoming even more intent on waging war? Does Palin believe that the massive domestic spending conservatives don’t like would be tolerated so long as Obama increases the massive foreign spending conservatives do like? Isn’t this exactly what happened under Bush?
At a time when a more radicalized, grassroots conservative base could feasibly be persuaded to question government spending as a whole; Palin seems intent on leading the populist Right back into the same old, big government, pro-war, any-war mindset. Conservatives as thoughtful as columnist George Will and as bombastic as radio host Michael Savage have asked recently if American dollars and lives are worth spending in Afghanistan. But for Palin, still, there is no question.
The necessity of endless war and the gargantuan government needed to sustain it is also not in question for the neoconservatives. When uber-neocon Daniel Pipes wrote an article for National Review Online last week called “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran,” the alleged purpose of the piece was to give the commander in chief some pointers on how to keep his command in 2012. But make no mistake—Pipes’s main concern is that somebody bombs Iran, regardless of which president or party. Pat Buchanan responded to Pipes in his syndicated column, asking if Obama would indeed play what the Buchanan calls “the war card,” something presidents have done in the past to boost their popularity. The difference is, traditional conservative Buchanan was clearly chastising what the neoconservative Pipes was advocating—the U.S. waging war simply to boost a politician’s poll numbers.
But Palin didn’t make the distinction, telling Fox News, “Say [Obama] played, and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day. Say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran… things would dramatically change if he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation…”
If the tea parties are supposed to represent a break from the big spending of both parties, Palin’s foreign policy views alone negate the entire tea party message. If the largest part of the U.S. budget—defense—is to be expanded indefinitely in the name of “toughness,” how can grassroots conservatives argue against bailouts, stimulus, and national healthcare, each of which costs much less? Real “toughness” might include not just using the same old Bush jargon, but a serious cost/benefit analysis of the U.S.’s habit of putting soldiers in harm’s way halfway around the globe for no discernible reason—while just mindlessly assuming our government has America’s best interests at heart.
Above all, real conservative “toughness” might require a real questioning of government at all levels. Unfortunately, conservatives whose attachment to the warfare state remains every bit as passionate as liberals’ attachment to the welfare state, continue to prove they have no serious intention of dismantling big government–only making noise about it. Just like Sarah Palin.
Above all, real conservative “toughness” might require a real questioning of government at all levels. Unfortunately, conservatives whose attachment to the warfare state remains every bit as passionate as liberals’ attachment to the welfare state, continue to prove they have no serious intention of dismantling big government–only making noise about it.
DUH!
Sarah is NOT the ‘same old Republican Party’!!
She is what they SHOULD be.
I see your true Paultard streak is coming out here, Rabs.
Talk about Clinton-esque waffling. At least Palin is consistent, these guys jump from side to side on the issue depending on whatever is popular at the time. I guess you can say they were for it before they were against it? Where have we heard that before?
“...Today, defense spending remains the largest part of the federal budget, dwarfing the bailouts, stimulus, healthcare, and other government programs that offend tea partiers most, and President Obama is still expanding that budget and escalating our wars...”
The above statement is true only on a one to one program comparison but defense spending does not dwarf “social spending”. Defense spending is about 23 percent of the budget. Too high????...perhaps in dollars but not as a percentage if government spending was where it should be then defense spending would be at least fifty percent of the budget.
The neo-hippie right. They like to say they are paleo-cons but real paleos would slap the hippie right out of them.
Simply not true. Annual defense spending is smaller than any of the others and the entitlement programs make up almost half of the federal budget and the number is increasing every year as the baby boomers retire. The entitlement programs represent an unfunded liability of almost $60 trillion.
Talk about going off the deep end. You sound like a Pat Pukecannon isolationist. Why don’t you go post this crapola over at HuffPo where it belongs.
Somehow, I don’t think Rabs is going to get much traction by posting Buchanite antiwar idiocy to try and bash Palin. Maybe he should try this over at one of the Paultard forums, they’ll lap it up over there.
It was treating Acts of War against the U.S. (by the Clinton administration) that led the global Jihadi's to believe that America had become a toothless "paper tiger," which led directly to the dreadful assault on 9/11. It was our decision after that (by the Bush administration) to treat these as Acts of War that kept us safe for the next 7 years.
Now the O'Blamebush admin is returning to the disastrous pre-9/11 Clinton mindset that will again invite horrors upon our shores, and it is THIS that Palin rightly comments on--not "war-mongering!"
Imbeciles who can't (or won't) correctly hear her when she speaks is what lends any credibility at all to the fabricated myth of Palin's ignorance.
;-/
I don’t think many take him seriously any more. Kind of like the old guy that seems to be in the corner of every coffee shop talking to himself who seems to know all the answers to everything in the world.
So, you would contend that it is possible and practical to expel 100% of the illegal aliens currently in the country. You would also seem to indicate that there are not illegal aliens currently in the country who for one reason or another would be more desireable as a permanent resident than the next person in line.
Apparently there are only two choices, kick everyone out or let everyone stay and if you are kicking them out, if even one gets to stay, that amounts to amnesty.
I see the “palaeos” have discovered another “fat Zionist.”
Is not deportation the penalty under the law for violating valid U.S. immigration law?
Are you advocating non-enforcement of valid U.S. law?
“I see your true Paultard streak is coming out here, Rabs.”
Yes, pay no attention to the actual words of Palin and instead let’s attack the messengers.
What exactly about Rabs post was a lie? If Palin wants to come out against ANY kind of amnesty than she has every opportunity to do so with all her speeches, interviews and Fox News gig. But she doesn’t. She waffles, obfuscates, misdirects and in effect refuses to answer the question she’s asked.
When Palin is forced to answer, there is going to be another huge let down among her middlin’ supporters but her die hards will just spin it as a “brilliant manuever” as they did with the McCain endorsement.
There is no middle ground on Palin here at FR anymore, you’re either with then or against them.
IMO a decidedly UNconservative position. For years people have complained about the GOP forcing candidates down throats and now the same people who complained are forcing Palin down ours.
Et tu Brute?
She is playing all sides. That's why she endorsed a libertarian/Constitutionalist (Rand Paul) and a statist RINO (McCain) while giving money to the RINO's lap dog (Graham).
Unfortunately, one can not try to walk two divergent paths simultaneously without falling down.
This Hunter guy needs to study up on the Federal Budget and military spending.
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