Sarah Palin just got paid $100,000 to give a 40 minute keynote at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville that was full of sound-bytes, cheap jabs and appeals to paranoia and frustration that were passed off as common sense. She called the Tea Party movement "the best of America" and "the future of politics." I’m terrified. Is it important that frustration is taking on the banner of a convention? Yes. Is it the best of America? God help us if fear and anger are the best we’ve got. Is it the future of politics? Well she did draw the lineage of the Tea Party from Washington to Lincoln to Reagan to, well, you get the worldview idea. 

She took the obligatory jab at President Obama, calling him “that charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” You get the idea of her tone. She’s good at the one-liners, and she’s good at picking the low hanging fruit. She’s pretty thin on any kind of policies or actual ideas that go beyond feel-good phrases that feed off of fear and frustration. Again- she’s got a point, the whole Tea Party has a point. But please, America, don’t put Sarah Palin or anyone else claiming the Tea Party flag in a position of power. Let them keep buying books, watching Fox News and holding town meetings in the mythical “Real America” that Sarah Palin loves to invoke.

But what does Ms. Palin have to say?

"Opponents of this message, they are seeking to marginalize the movement. They want to paint us as ideologically extreme. But unlike the elitists who don't want to hear this message...I've traveled across this great country and I've talked to the patriotic men and women who make up the Tea Party movement and they're good and kind and selfless and they are deeply concerned about our country...the best of America can be found in places where patriots are brave enough and free enough to be able to stand up and speak up and where small businesses grow our economy one job at a time."

[This is where I do one of those John Stewart pause/stares…]

“… I've talked to the patriotic men and women who make up the Tea Party movement and they're good and kind and selfless and they are deeply concerned about our country…”

All those good and kind and selfless people out there. Ms. Palin- will you be donating your book profits and fee for this speech to the families that are losing their homes? Is that the kind of good, kind and selfless patriotic men and women that make up the Tea Party movement?

“…the best of America can be found in places where patriots are brave enough and free enough to be able to stand up and speak up…”

Where exactly are those places? Where people are both brave and free to stand up and speak up? Nashville? Alaska? When people stand up and say something you don’t like, like President Obama calling for government-provided health care or abortion rights, will they be the free and the brave?

It’s like a trainwreck where you can’t look away. Except, I’ve been trying to look away since LAST YEAR when Palin lost the election.

Want to watch the speech for yourself? Go ahead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP4PJlufZ0c

Photo Credit: geerlingguy (via Flickr under CCL)