Fringezilla

Six hundred people at a $500 dinner is not a revolution. If a revolution is nothing more than a moderate-sized crowd at an event with massively overpriced tickets, then what does that make the Bonnaroo Music Festival?

You could find 600 people with stubborn, often unrealistic theories on anything from Bigfoot to state IDs nearly anywhere in the United States, but simply gathering them in a room and calling it a convention doesn’t give them any more importance.

The John Birch Society has been peddling much of the same message as the Tea Party movement for over 50 years now, with nearly the same level of self-importance, yet they are not covered by the mainstream media on a daily basis.

Also, a revolution is generally judged by the leader, who is the face of the revolution. Is no one troubled by having the leader of this revolution, if there is a leader, a person who has to write the words “tax cut” on her hand?

The right wing of this country has enjoyed making jokes about the fact that President Obama uses teleprompters for major speeches. And though he’s not the first to do so, it’s generally agreed by all sane parties that he comes across as an elegant speaker and an excellent orator.

The same cannot be said for Sarah Palin. Perhaps she should have invested some of the $100,000 she was paid for her speech in a teleprompter, instead of a Sharpie for her palm.

If you can’t remember the four buzz words (small government, tax cuts) that are as close to a policy position that the Tea Parties have — four words that have been repeated near ad infinitum by the right wing, particularly since the Reagan era — how will you lead an entire country?

I know many of her fans get some pleasure out of the fact that her inability to string words together in a cogent manner aggravates liberals (in much the same sense that George W. Bush did), but is that really enough to justify following her like lemmings?

The fact is, these nearly lily white Tea Party groups did not exist until we elected a black president. A black president whose economic policy does not differ greatly from the president before, including the financial bailouts that were started by a “compassionate conservative” administration. The most “liberal” move President Obama has made is to advocate not renewing the tax cuts Bush signed into law, increasing taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners by less than 5 percent.

There is no justification for electing a superbly underwhelming, attention-seeking, unintelligent person solely on some false basis that she “scares liberals.”

Because Palin doesn’t scare liberals. As Hunter S. Thompson described people like Palin: “(They) speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character ... the racists and hate mongers among us.”


E-mail: mrstraw@indiana.edu