The tea party key-noter

I saw Sarah P.’s address to the Tea Party convention tonight. As always, my starting point with Palin is that I instinctively like her. But boy did the charm wear off quickly. After a few minutes of that voice, that shrieky voice (haven’t any of her many advisors advised her to have some sessions with a voice teacher?), all I wanted was to escape. And the cliches! The interminable, make-conservative-hearts-race cliches without let-up! Both in the speech and the question period, which were supposedly about a new politics, she said not a single substantive, specific thing.

For example, regarding terrorism, she declared that her policy was Reaganite: “They lose, we win.” Fine. But what does that mean?

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Ben W. writes:

Am watching Palin’s address to the National Tea Party Convention. $100,000 and much anticipation for this? One cliche after another. Not one original thought. Nothing substantial in terms of policy initiatives. Her shrillness is interpreted as a political high note.

It will be a Republican tragedy to elect her as Presidential candidate. Obama will carve her up.

How no one has picked up the fact that her language is simply that of old fashioned demagogues amazes me. She’s a master of the cliche. Not a single original sentence with a fresh set of words.

Plus the fact that there is a glaring contradiction in Nashville—she says she had the honor of running with McCain a day after Tancredo said that a McCain administration would have been a disaster. And no one points out this paradox …

Mitt Romney is head and shoulders above this woman.

Ben continues:

Concrete example of the Palin vacuum. In the Q&A after her speech, she was asked, “Given the Obama plan, what is yours?” A rather vague question. Presumably the questioner had either health care or the economy in mind. Her answer? Just as vague. “I am rather simple minded and my plan is very simple in nature: let America do what it’s always done.” [LA replies: I thought she was that her plan was to return to America’s founding principles.]

Never facts, never arguments, never plans or policies. Just platitudes. Trying to get something specific from her is like waiting for Godot. And once again every second sentence was about the elite crowd, the media, her tormentors … her self-referential victimology trotted out masking itself as political energy and forthrightness.

LA replies:

I didn’t get the impression of victimology or of excessive self-reference.

A. Zarkov writes:

Palin is not the only Republican who talks in worn out cliches. When you question a Republican or a conservative about how they will actually govern you can’t get any kind of answer. For example I’ve asked Republicans who want to run for Congressman in my district: “How are you going to sustain the Medicare program?” Cut benefits? Raise taxes? Control costs? All I get is a blank stare. How can Republicans beat something with nothing?

Van Wijk writes:

I know she can’t help it, but that wiss-CAN-sinn esque accent could grate carrots. I can’t bear to listen to that woman for more than 5 minutes (and I’ve been conditioned to endure pain with patience). Why couldn’t she have been from the South?

LA replies:

Anyone can help it. People who don’t want to keep an uncouth regional accent and want to improve their speech and pronunciation do so.

Al H. writes:

After reading your post I got to thinking about George Will’s latest column on Rep. Paul Ryan. If conservatives were serious about making fundamental changes in how government should work, Ryan should have been given a platform to express his proposals. He should have been the keynote speaker at the Tea Party convention, he should be the keynote speaker at CPAC. Instead they have Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck telling us Obama’s policies are taking us in the wrong direction. As if we didn’t know that.

I also have to take objection to Van Wijk’s statement that Palin’s accent is Wisconsin esque, I’m from Wisconsin and nobody I know speaks anything like that. Aside from a few small communities near the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) nobody in Wisconsin has much of an accent at all and from what I’ve heard nobody from the Anchorage or the Mat-Su Valley area speaks like her. Kind of a mystery why she speaks like that.

Keep up the good work.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 07, 2010 02:02 AM | Send