That darling of the nativist crew, Tom Tancredo, opened the Tea Party Convention in Nashville last weekend with a litany of insults towards President Obama, John McCain, and the culture of multiculturalism (whatever that means).
ABC news reports:
The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”
The speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told about 600 delegates in a Nashville, Tenn., ballroom that in the 2008 election, America “put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House … Barack Hussein Obama.”
Tancredo did not stop at the Democratic president — ripping McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, for shaping up to be a repeat of “Bush 1 and Bush 2.”
“Thank God John McCain lost the election,” he said, voicing his belief that McCain would have presided over big budgets and lacked a tough stand against immigration.
Tancredo served 10 years in the House of Representatives and made a name for himself with his ardent opposition to immigration. He believes the 2008 election served to galvanize the right.
“This is our country,” he told the crowd. “Let’s take it back.”
Is anyone else uncomfortable with Tancredo’s words? Calling the president of the United States a “committed socialist ideologue” is disturbing. One wonders who he means when he says ‘our.’
Tancredo further described the American electorate as “people who cannot even spell the word vote, or say it in English.” Additionally, he called for a culture war in the name of preserving “Judeo-Christian principles whether people like it or they don’t.”
His rhetoric is unacceptable to many Americans. Hopefully the Tea Party people or whatever they want to be called will reject this kind of political mentality. It certainly doesn’t represent MY America. It is still unclear exactly who these folks are or what they want. To the best of our knowledge, and looking at who seems to identify with them, the Tea Party folks seem to be to the right of Republicans. Tancredo, Bachmann, Beck and Palin would fit this description. However, Scott Brown does not. It is expected that they will kick him to the curb now he is no longer needed to prove a point. Brown seems far too moderate and more like John McCain or William Weld.
Many of our contributors defend the Tea Party with their last breath. How do you see the Tea Party? What is their cause? Are they simply a grass organization? If so, why are there so many groups? Are they a populist group similar to the Perot people? Is there one definition of this group or does each splinter group have its own persona?
