Well, apparently, if you're the vice-president, and definitely if you are one of at least four editorial writers for the New York Times, this is representative of the image that comes to your mind:
(Sarah Palin on Hannity, courtesy Fox News Channel, used under Fair Use)
I was all ready to write some sort of response to remarks allegedly made by Joe Biden that Tea Partiers acted like terrorists, as well as to multiple NYT editorials (none of which I care to link) referring to Tea Partiers similarly or using terms like "waging jihad", but thanks to my all-too-typical delays in writing, I was beaten to the punch by Sarah Palin. And it's just as well, really, since Governor Palin put it much better than I could, unloading on the administration for its skewed perception of what constitutes terrorism. As she put it on Fox News Channel's Hannity last night:
If we were really domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us, wouldn’t he? I mean he didn’t have a problem with palling around with Bill Ayers back in the day when he kicked off his political career in Bill Ayers' apartment, and shaking hands with Chavez, and saying he doesn’t need any preconditions with meeting dictators, or wanting to read US Miranda rights to alleged suspected foreign terrorists. No, if we were real domestic terrorists, I think President Obama wouldn’t have a problem with us.
I can hear some of my acquaintances on the other side already screaming that Gov. Palin's statement was out of line, that she shouldn't say those kinds of things about our president. But when multiple eyewitnesses are saying that his vice-president is saying the exact same kind of things about us (I don't know about you, but I have never hung around with an admitted domestic terrorist, by which I mean a real terrorist, not someone who uses governmental procedure to shape a debt-ceiling bill), I see no reason for her not to unload with both barrels on this administration. Somebody needed to do it.
The above transcript was courtesy The Right Scoop, who wanted readers to "be surprised" by the second part of her interview. I, however, thought this portion of part two needed to be highlighted:
[t]hat's why I'm an optimist heading into this next election cycle. I believe that the Tea Party patriots really have been strengthened, and evidence of that is the vitriol which you see targeted towards these Tea Party patriots who just want a sound fiscal policy adopted in our nation, so we will not become a bankrupt nation. And, now more than ever, the Tea Party patriots have got to be energized. They cannot be numb and calloused and depressed about some of the "two steps forward, three steps back" that we saw happening in the last couple of days with the debt ceiling increase. They need, now more than ever, to really be united. Work extremely hard to get the right candidates in there, despite the boot on the neck that many of us feel that government is trying to do to us, and those on both sides of the aisle who kind of run the political machines, that boot on the neck trying to take us down and keep us down. No, now isn't the time to retreat, but it's the time to be united, to move forward, very very powerful grassroots movement, I believe, that will grow even more in these coming months as the election approaches.
I think Governor Palin is setting herself up very nicely, not necessarily to lead the entire Tea Party movement (according to some who only think they have a clue, the Koch brothers already hold that position, and doggone it, I'm still waiting for my check, y'all!), but certainly to be a strong guiding force. She isn't afraid to take a controversial stand, as she certainly did with regard to the debt ceiling debate, and she issued a fairly sharp rebuke to Mitt Romney last night for not articulating any position until the deal had been struck. Gov. Romney's approach to this debate seems to match the typical "finger in the wind" take on an issue by which most politicians live. Gov. Palin represents a breath of fresh air compared to that approach.
Check out the entire interview (parts one and two) here:
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