That’s Sarah Palin. The Age of the Idiot means that, as I write, no transcript is available of Sarah Palin’s address to the Tea Party Convention. I would have preferred to speed read through the thing, but I am forced to view this. Thanks BAB readers for your solid comments on the speech in the previous post.

• Plenty babble about democracy being beautiful. The founders founded a republic, not a democracy, because they feared majorities as much as they detested monarchy.
• National security. More nonsense. The response to the pantie bomber is far more dangerous than the Mirandized man could ever be. Terrorizing the American sheeple at airports began under Sarah’s man, Bush. She repeats the asinine idea that the American military bestriding the globe, a presence that cost us a $1 trillion a year, is protecting our constitutional rights. Poppycock.
• Terrorists are trying to destroy the American Constitution, says she. Nonsense. American governments have beat them to it. To all intents and purposes, the Constitution is dead. If the lady doesn’t get it, then…
• Support for democracy and its dissemination across the world, now that’s an idea I’ve heard before. Bush branded the United States as the world’s “partner for a better life.” He also recommitted “our nation” “abroad” “to an historic, long-term goal”: seeking “the end of tyranny in our world.” If the Tea Party doesn’t reject root-and-branch this odious neoconservative formula; I’m out of there.
• “We need a strong national defense.” Middle America, or is it Meathead America, erupted in cheers when Sarah got militant. Uttered by Sarah this is code for gallivanting around the world, which Ronald Reagan, whom she invoked, did not do. He withdrew from Lebanon, remember? I’m for strong defense—of America’s borders, of her neighborhoods via local militias and well-armed citizens.
• I’m against sanctions, which Palin trumpets. We killed enough kids in Iraq through sanctions. “Trade, not democracy, is the best antidote to war. The more economically intertwined countries are, the less likely they are to go to war. Boycott Iran less and barter with it more and it’s bound to tone down its belligerence.”
• I liked the mention of Barry Goldwater, naturally. “We can be conquered by bombs, but we can also be conquered by neglect, by ignoring our Constitution.”
• TARP and bailouts. Didn’t her ticket support the Bush bailout? Isn’t she preparing to stump for McMussolini, the man who’s all for this Keynesian kookiness?
• Only twice did Palin get worked up in a real good way, and that was when she spoke of the effects of the bailouts and TARP on the states and the toll it would take on the Tenth Amendment. She should have remained a governor. She was good at that. The other instance was when she delved into energy issues—yet another of her strengths. If you read her book, you’ll know that, “when it comes to the ins-and-outs of the oil and gas industry—ownership, extraction, contracts and leases—Sarah Palin is as sharp as a tack.”
• The federales keep “making us take these steps toward insolvency.” Good. Palin did say that the federal government was printing dollars, funny-money, or worthless paper. More of that was in order.

Someone pick up from here. I’ve had enough.

Update I: GLORIOUS GIMPS. There, I’ve said it. In her advocacy, repeated in last night’s address, on behalf of “special” children, Palin is strengthening the contemptible tradition, embraced by “traditionalists,” of a politically correct tyranny, to say nothing of statism (when she ran as VP, Palin promised a department devoted to the developmentally challenged. Have I used all the right lingo?).

Palin is no different from her buddy, blond bubblehead Elizabeth Hasselbeck, in galvanizing the PC police to mete justice to mouthy individuals.

Ha’aratz:

(Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential hopeful, demanded on Monday that President Barack Obama fire his White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, over a reported expletive [“f—-ng retarded”] he is said to have uttered, CBS News reported.)

Palin is pathetic on this front. She also has it all wrong. If anything, a traditionalist ought to defend manners. I find the plain rude “f-cking” more offensive than the legitimate colloquial “retarded.”

Update II: Palin a product of affirmative action? I can’t begin to think why anyone would so assert. Not true. Palin comes from a poor, hard-working, wonderful family. She worked like a dog for everything she has, including catching and gutting fish, and eventually owning a fishing concern with an equally rugged mate, Todd. In her family, the college-goer paid for his or her education. What parent that you know (or who partakes on this blog) has done that bit of character- building for their brats?

Read her book before you declare Sarah a product of affirmative action. Her political career is also anything but. Campaigning for governor involved getting in the pick-up with Todd and the kids—and if Todd was on The Slope in a hard hat, then without the remarkable hunk—cranking up the music and traveling for hundreds of miles around Alaska to meet the folks.

The woman is fearless.

Anyone who doesn’t recognize Sarah for the remarkable lady she is a plain fool. I challenge him or her to read Sarah’s book, the worst sections of which entail her entanglement with the man Barry Goldwater despised, McMussolini; the best tell of her early familial and political years (and too little of the Love of her Life).

The press lied about the content of Going Rogue. Despite the shoddy treatment Palin received at the hands of a bunch of sleazy McCain handlers, she remained gracious and genteel. Moreover, the book is substantive. Liberals simply consider the kind of ideas Palin expresses and the way of life she likes an abomination.

Having said all that, problems remain with her stunted politics.

Update III: I’m shaking; Iran and Sudan are talking. (In reply to the odd comment hereunder, which I had hoped someone else would do on my behalf). And in reply to “Ms Palin’s advice for Mr Obama, on Sunday, to attack Iran”:

WHY on earth? Iran is no danger to the US. If it sends a missile our way, we’ll intercept it. But if the missile lands on a city (DC?), Iran will be communing with the 12th Imam in a matter of minutes. One push of the button is all it takes for the US to nuke Iran out of this hemisphere. Obama, who has been very active in bombing Afghani terrorists, their families and villagers with the aid of drones, will press the button.

Any American who says he’s afraid of Iran is lying, is chicken, or is really afraid for Israel.

I too am afraid for Israel. As I’ve said, Israel has been threatened by Iran. If the Jewish state perceives an impending danger of a nuclear attack from Iran, then the Israelis must do what it takes to defend themselves.

Since backward, poor Iran poses no danger to the US, what our somewhat disingenuous neoconservative contributors are in fact suggesting is that the US fight Israel’s battles. I cannot condone that—certainly not while pretending that Iran poses a danger to the US, when it does not.

Update IV: PALIN STATISM. Other than perpetual war and a department for the disabled, Sarah Palin is a staunch supported of some other big-government items.

Larry Auster notes that “she is a passionate advocate of Title IX, the federal statute barring ‘discrimination’ against females in education which, in Atlas Shrugged manner, [I don’t get this obfuscating reference Auster has inserted] by requiring that there be an equal number of girls’ and boys’ sports teams in each school, has forced hundreds of schools around the country to discontinue boys’ sports teams. And she supports an expansion of federal aid to education–the very essence of the big government, socialist mindset!”

Update V (Feb. 8): BACK TO IRAN.

WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he 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 or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but – that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you’re not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I’m not suggesting that. I’m saying if he did, things would dramatically change. 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 we think he’s—than he is today,” and there wouldn’t be as much passion to make sure that he doesn’t serve another four years.

Naturally I oppose a Palin foreign policy whereby we send our men to die for the safety of our satellite states.

One more pesky detail, for those of you itching for some war games (as you are not going to be fighting the war you promote): The US can’t afford the wars it’s in.

That said, you’d have to be an idiot to deny what Iran has been broadcasting: The Islamic Republic is cooking-up a Bomb. The French are afraid. So are the Germans.

So for America, war is out. All else is in. Get the IAEA’s ElBaradei working. He did a good job in Iraq before Bush kicked him out and flattened the place. Have the Europeans strain their nukes on Iran and create Cold-War deterrence. The peaceful options are endless.