Sarah Palin Frustrates Me and Makes Her Fans Look Stupid
Let me just say this in advance. Your welcome for attaching Sarah Palin’s speech at the Tea Party convention in all of its agonizing glory.
I will admit that I didn’t and will not watch the entire speech. I simply do not have the migraine medication for it. I did, however, catch highlights on CNN – the sorta trusted name in news. The story was “Sarah Palin Rips Dems” with the occasional switch of “Dems” for “Obama.”
Really, CNN? That’s the best you can do? That’s like saying, “This just in… it’s winter.”
Anyway, Sarah Palin did indeed rip the Dems and Obama. What I caught her ripping them for, though, was for supposedly not including tort reform and allowing people to shop for health insurance across state borders in the Obama health care package.
I can’t speak for the state borders concern, but I can speak for the tort reform concern. The President had literally just addressed tort reform when he went to Baltimore to speak at the GOP get together.
In his speech Obama points out how Republicans bitch and moan for tort reform when he’s already said he’s willing to look at it, but is concerned by the fact that the CBO has already said it won’t save that much in health care costs. It’s not like Obama gave this speech in some backroom without cameras, as Sarah likes to claim he does so often. He gave it in their domain! The antelope went to the lion cage and frankly came out unscathed, yet she completely neglected the fact that this exchange took place.
On cue, her fan base applauded wildly. Two things with this.
1.) I’d be willing to bet that a sizable portion of her audience has no idea what tort reform is. My guess is they thought it was some sort of pastry. There’s no shame in that, though! I had no idea what it was until I looked it up. Ignorance is bliss, right? (Actually I was kinda ashamed in my uniformed-self.)
2.) Making these bold criticisms that the President has already addressed makes her fans look ridiculously stupid when they applaud wildly for them. I know it’s not common practice to think about statements given by keynote speakers, “Hmmm, tort reform. Do I know what that means and what has the President said about it?” but you think the leader of such a base wouldn’t want to make them look uniformed. It’d be like a head coach actively trying to put together a crappy team. Major League except in real-life, important shit.
Then of course she went on to ask Obama’s voters how that “hopey, changey stuff is working out for them.” First of all, it’s not a magical potion, and I swear to God if you quote the “Obama mortgage girl” I’m going to lose it. Second of all, it’s actually working out a lot better for me than I imagine any elixir I’d have to drink if she were vice president – that is if she didn’t pull an Alaska and resign.
Sure I have my areas of disagreement and concern. For instance, I had been wondering where the guy who gave the speech at the GOP conference had been for the past year. But this crap Palin and other Tea Party leaders pull where they simply ignore areas where the President has supported conservative values (ONE THIRD OF THE STIMULUS WAS TAX CUTS!!! REPUBLICAN PORN!) is agonizing. I hate to watch people be made to look foolish, like a puppy who can’t find his ball because you only pretended to throw it. Except I’m cool with the latter scenario, because a puppy chasing false hope is adorable. When humans do it, it’s just sad.