The “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” Party had their “grassroots” convention at one of the most expensive venues in Nashville recently.   In media interviews the naivete of some of the Tea Party attendees in their almost Stepford-like repetition of the same slogans made them seem ripe for exploiting.  And indeed they were by the convention ticket prices and travel expenses and Palin’s speaking fee and now the push to have them contribute to the new Tea Party PAC.  Zut Alors!  They’re already beginning to look like the Republicans and Democrats they decry.

 

On the same day Palin said she would contribute her $100,000 speaking fee “to the cause” she also said she now might run for President in 2012 if it was good for the Palin Family.  Ohhhhhh, THAT “cause”.  By the way, Sarah, looks like that talk-to-the-hand speechy stuff is workin’ out for ya’ in Big Bad Hollywood.  Gonna call your new reality show The Wasillbillies?  

 

Former Colorado Republican Representative Tom Tancredo’s xenophobic rants notwithstanding, even Le Figaro covered the event.  But then we know how those French love protests since they go on strike at the mere drop of a beret.  Le Figaro likens this movement to a strikingly similar one in France 55 years ago.  University of Houston Honors College Professor of French History, Robert Zaretsky, writes about the “mass demonstration in Paris of the Poujadist movement”.  It was born of a populist anger at both the traditional right and left in French politics.  Their issues then were the same as today’s Tea Party:  taxes, bureaucrats, inflation, and as always for the French, greater individual liberties.  Pierre Poujade’s Party did win some elections but then hit the reality of governing with, as Zaretsky put it, “the common tendency to grasp for simple solutions to complex problems”. 

 

There are no simple solutions.  But there certainly are people willing to take your money to convince you otherwise.  Sounds like Republicans now have their own.....gasp!..... “community organizers”.