Sarah Palin makes my dogs howl and other creepy moments from the Republican Conference
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MSNBC runs in the background most of the day in my house. It more or less keeps me updated on what is going on in the world. At one point, toward the end of the week, my dogs started to howl. Since it was during the day I knew they weren’t talking to the neighborhood coyotes. There was only one other possibility: Sarah Palin. Yes! Sarah Palin’s screeching voice makes my dogs howl. I came into the house and there she was: the Palin, looking like she had gained a few pounds, howling from my TV. I reached for the remote and switched to something a little more intellectual like Malcolm in the Middle and the dogs stopped howling. For highlights of the silliness at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference that was, most ironically, held in New Orleans, read this great story from Alternet:
Anyone interested in taking the pulse of the GOP base in 2010 has a few options. They can watch Fox News at any hour of any day. They can trot down to their local Tea Party, where the overwhelming majority of participants vote, and have always voted, Republican. They can visit the various official party Web sites, where the leadership has crafted a message to resonate with the angry anti-government mood that defines today’s conservative grassroots.
But while all of those political thermometers are fine as far as they go, there’s really no substitute for hanging out at the New Orleans’ Riverside Hilton bar during the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Only there can you relax in comfort and enjoy a Caesar salad while being lectured to by the president of the Louisiana Women’s Republican Club on why the idea of a secular American republic is “a lie sent directly from the flaming pits of Hell,” and why secular Jews (like this reporter) must accept the Word of God before the coming Final Battle, after which it will be too late.
Yes, you can experience that and much more at the annual SRLC, which concluded on Sunday with a “Pink Tea” event for Republican women. By now, the newspapers and blogs have relayed the major news items from this year’s gathering in New Orleans. The conference, part midterm pep rally, part starting-gun for 2012 jockeying, was marked by a predictable mixture of bombast and contrition.
Liz Cheney tore into what she sees as Barack Obama’s foreign policy of appeasement, apology and abandonment. Newt Gingrich railed against the Democrats’ “secular socialist machine,” pausing only long enough to offer an Orwellian 2010 GOP slogan of “2+2=4.” Rick Santorum apologized for endorsing Arlen Specter in 2004. Michael Steele apologized for everything. The conference featured about 25 teleprompter jokes, plus one gay joke (see below). It concluded with a meaningless straw poll that saw the absent Mitt Romney triumph by a single vote. One after another, speakers preached a message of conservative unity and focus in the run-up to November.
If all that sounds like more fun than a French Quarter whorehouse, here are five other memorable SRLC moments you can kick yourself for missing.
Newt Gingrich playing tough guy to ‘Eye of the Tiger’
In a perfect world, politicians would have their own entrance songs on debate nights. But blasting your pump-up music before a set piece of shadow boxing? For that, only one song really works, and that’s the one song associated with the most famous training-scene montage in film history. Yet even that might be hard to pull off if your name is Newt Gingrich. On the opening night of the conference, following a 30-minute speed bag display by Liz Cheney, the portly Gingrich attempted to play the role of Rocky Balboa for an excruciating two minutes.
To raucous applause, the former House speaker and presidential hopeful appeared through a ground level entrance just as stage speakers spat out Survivor’s famous power-chords. This brought the crowd of 3,500 southern Republicans immediately to its feet, each one trying to catch of view of Gingrich as he worked his way, eyes ahead and without irony, through the crowd.
Gingrich might want to review his Rocky films. “Eye of the Tiger” appeared in Rocky III, in which Balboa is not the underdog challenger, but the 10-time defending world champion. Using the Rocky III template, Rocky is Obama, who is in possession of the championship belt known as the White House. Gingrich is not only without a belt, he is fat and retired, busy making direct-to-DVD Bircher-circuit documentaries about Christ and Country.
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I’m a “centrist”, Mike. And, yeah, I think that I know a fellow centrist when I see one. Trust me (and, yes, you’re own judgement, as well), there weren’t any centrists at that podium.
She scares my cats too, because I get kind of heated, when I see her or spawn of Satan Liz Cheney on tee vee. My poor kitties do not deserve that.
No they don’t Jess!
lol Mike I think you capture the moment perfectly.
Thanks Bill 🙂
I am surprised they could find an arena big enough to fit all those egos in the same building, especially the expert on everything known to man, Liz Cheney. Where does she get off being an expert on foreign policy, she couldn’t have got her knowledge from daddy Dick because he was a royal screw up on the international stage.
You are correct Holte. Egos and foul ups all under one roof and generally under the same head of hair.
First I have to start out with compliments on the Sarah poster. It’s subtle nuances and visual tones produce thoughts that haven’t been experienced since throwing up all those white Russians and confetti at Mardi Gras.
It seems like the Republicans are out of control right now. On one hand they are catering to the extremes of the right, but on the other hand none of those people can get elected. Sarah Palin will be chewed up and spit out like used chewing gum if she makes it past the Repug primaries. Stupid is as Stupid done..(or something like that)
The centrists, if there is any left, need to take control of the party direction and leave the junior high cheerleaders like Palin strictly for fundraisers.
I couldn’t help but appreciate the description of the SRLC as “centrists.” No one that is “southern” is a centrist. Secondly, they pick New Orleans. The city that was virtually destroyed by the inattention and fecklessness of their beloved leader George Bush.
They sort of know what they stand against (Fox’s depiction of the Democratic party), but do Republicans even know what it is that they really stand for? If it weren’t for the fact that the possibility exists that they will be in power again someday, you could laugh at their antics like you would a poorly produced and executed grade school play of Gone with the Wind.
After hearing the results of their “straw poll” I had to laugh at their choices for 2012:
Mitt “the Mormon” Romney
Ron “the Racist” Paul
Sarah “the Silly” Palin
No chance in hell they could win. No chance. No chance right?
Romney could win the general election (well, better chance than the others) but could never get the nomination because fundamentalists think Mormons are of Satan.
Palin could win the nomination, but not the general.
Ron Paul probably couldn’t win either. Besides, he would make dogs whimper and hide.
LOL Infidel. Ron Paul is not a nice man and those critters know that 🙂