Day: 2/6/2010

The Tea Baggers Ball: Prom Night With Palin

Posted by on February 6, 2010 at 6:27 pm. 4 Comments :

Icantstandit-Icantstandit-Icantstandit. Sarah’s almost here. OMG!

Tonight’s the night that the Queen Tea Bagger, Sarah Palin, addresses the hive. News reports have indicated a high level of anticipation with some Baggers saying that they only came to see Palin and didn’t care about Tea. I’m a little skeptical because the convention’s web site still says there are tickets available. Maybe they just don’t know how to update their site.

Perhaps the anticipation is really for the potential Queen fight. The Queen of the Birthers, Orly Taitz, showed up in Nashville today and word has it that the media fled in mortal fear of being smothered by her. Those brave enough to stick around are hoping to get a front row seat as the rival Queens battle for camera angles.

This morning featured a stem-winding oratory by Drudge-spawn, Andrew Breitbart. His rabid rant, complete with frothing and spittle, was a non-stop harangue directed at the press – who were dutifully covering the whole thing from the back of the room. Breitbart delivered one contrived applause line after another, and the audience did their part like the good Pavlovians they are.

Outside the convention hall there were demonstrators who alleged that the convention organizers had hijacked the Tea Party movement for their own greedy purposes. It’s not likely they will be well received by the “establishment” Baggers. Especially after saying this:

“We don’t need Sarah Palin to be the face of our movement.”

Uh oh. Sacrilege never goes down easy. Even conservative icon David Frum is less than enamored with the Baggers. he penned a column today titled “Tea Party’s Fifteen Minutes Are Up, based on his visit to the ball.

Andrew Breitbart is introducing Palin. So far he has lauded her for being the first to talk about “death panels” and for referring to community organizers as thugs. Really? This is what she should be hailed for? Lies and insults?

Sarah opened with the courageous twofer that she is “proud to be an American” and a birthday wish for Ronald Reagan. Then she segued to a joke about Obama’s TelePrompter [insert rimshot here] that she read from her notecards.

Don’t wear yourselves out people. Chris Wallace has Sarah for the full hour tomorrow on Fox News Sunday.

Glenn Beck’s Common Cause With Al Qaeda

Posted by on February 6, 2010 at 11:46 am. 12 Comments :

This week Fox News discovered a videotape that they have been giving quite a bit of airtime. It features Yasir Qadhi, an American born Islamic scholar who once gave religious instruction to the accused underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. The video shows Qadhi expressing consternation that under democracy the law of man supersedes the law of God.

Qadhi: Can you believe it, a group of people coming together and voting and the majority vote will then be the law of the land? What gives you the right to prohibit something or allow something? Who gave you this right? Are you creators? Are you all-knowledgeable?

That, of course, is an untenable position that is contrary to the most cherished principles of our nation. It is also precisely the position held by the Christian extremists in this country. It is the philosophy of the American Taliban that is so perfectly articulated by Glenn Beck.

Beck: Endowed by their creator. Not endowed by their senator or their regulatory czar or their president. God is the grantor of rights. No one else. […] If God is somehow or other cut out of the rights process, you get all of your rights from government. That is in essence what our founders fought against. Government bestowing rights.

Beck has the same animus for democracy as Qadhi. They both discount the role of citizens to direct their society in favor of a social order mandated by religious doctrine. Contrary to Beck’s assertion, that is what our founders fought against. But as Fox News flaunts this video of a negligible Muslim teacher, it’s too bad they won’t provide the context for their audience to see that our country has people who hold similarly repugnant views; that dwelling on fringe characters like Qadhi is insulting to most Muslims; and that American theocrats with television shows are far more dangerous.