WASHINGTON–The Family Research Council held its annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. this weekend, and the woman who embodies those values as well as anyone delivered a well received speech Friday to an adoring crowd.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s remarks included humor, a no-holds-barred critique of President Barack Obama, and plenty of red meat. But most of all her message was one of optimism and hope, from start to finish. She started by rallying her fellow conservatives and ended by painting a bright picture of the future.
“It truly is an honor to get to be here with all of you, and I just want to take some time here to thank you for your boldness, your courage, your ignoring of what the lamestream media does to you and a lot of us so often,” said Palin. “You’re strong and America needs you, needs your voice. So, to just get to kind of share some of that, to empower us all and inspire us all, to enlarge our ranks, I want to take the time to thank you.”
She said it was an honor to speak “to Americans who give more and volunteer more and serve more and do all those things behind the scenes that make America so exceptional.”
“You’re the Americans that the media loves to hate, but, you know, I think there – there’s a book out there that maybe some of them just haven’t really understood and in it, it says, consider it pure joy, my sisters and brothers, when you suffer trials of many kinds,” she said. “And considering the trials that the media dumps on you, this is the most joyful room in Washington.”
The speech closed with a glass half-full take delivered in plain speak. “Keep faith in the American Dream and share it, because the message resonates, and it has since that band of brothers dumped tea in Boston Harbor,” Palin said. “We can be optimistic, as they were. We can be optimistic about the future of our one nation because we’re under God. So stand up and stiffen your spine. The best is yet to come.”
In between, those in attendance at the Omni Shoreham Hotel were treated to inspiring words from the darling of the Tea Party movement.
With the end of the Obama administration in sight, Palin was able to point toward a light at the end of the tunnel. The huge ovations, laughter, applause and smiles proved those on hand liked what they heard, a lot.
“Are you ready to fight back and get back on the right track?,” Palin asked. “It is time. It’s time. All you Mama Grizzlies out there, rear up and charge against this lawless imperial president and his failed liberal agenda and the lying lapdogs in the media. And you strong men, it’s time to get off the hind end and expand our ranks and inspire others. I think we’ve all fattened up enough for what’s up ahead. So it is time to stand and fight like your country’s future depends on it, because it does.”
Palin blasted Obama for his manufactured phony persona while imploring the crowd to look forward to January 2017. “Rejoice,” she said. “In two years it’s going to be the end of an error, the Obama error. All that hopey-changey stuff that just did not work, not even a smidgen. Remember the Greek columns and the stadiums full of fainting fans and all that dreamweaver stuff, promising that the planet’s going to chill out, remember? And the seas – keep calm, the seas. He’d sink every putt. And you could keep your health care.”
None of Obama’s pie in the sky, smoke and mirrors promises came true. Although he’s certainly tried to sink every putt, no matter what real issues are affecting our country. Palin addressed those issues in a thoughtful manner while calling on Americans to stick to their traditional values.
It won’t be easy. Not after the hole in which the Obama administration has put the country. “These Alinsky-loving, Orwellian, out-of-touch, command-and-control elitists who’ve been running the show, they used to rail against big brother government and the man,” she said. “Remember that? They are the man. Their M.O. is to play the politics of personal destruction against anyone that they would deem a threat to their power. And they distract, bebopping from one scandal after another, knowing that there are so many that you can’t keep up with all of them. So no one’s ever held accountable, from the IRS corruption to you being spied on to, gosh, Benghazi, to bailouts, to, oh, Bush’s war was bad, but Barack’s bombs? Oh, baby, those red lines, the strategery there that was thought up on the back nine? Barack’s bombs? Oh, they’re the bomb.”
The audience clearly enjoyed Palin’s style. Joking about very serious issues to drive home vital points. That’s exactly what makes Palin Palin. In a day and age when we are inundated with teleprompter-reading academic milquetoasts, Palin’s brand of populism is a welcome relief.
As she always does in her speeches, Palin tipped her hat to our military. She also tied that into another disrespectful move by Obama. Recently a photo was taken of the president saluting one of our Marines while holding a Styrofoam cup. Mama grizzlies don’t like that. “Our honored military — when we talk about these national security issues, our honored military, on behalf of all Americans who do support you — and we honor you, we respect you — on behalf of all Americans who feel like I do, to your commander-in-chief, well, we then will salute him,” said Palin. “He still hasn’t learned how to salute our Marines.”
A core message in Palin’s comments was a call to stand up for morals and American beliefs. “It is time for the politics of values,” Palin said. “And I don’t want anybody to be afraid or ashamed of the core values that we are here celebrating.”
After all of the hits Palin has taken over the years she still can knock lines like this out of the park with a huge smile on her face. It drives liberals nuts. It delighted those at the summit on Friday.
Palin called out liberals for their tactics of hate. She called those who question why she sometimes doesn’t wear a wedding ring “haters” and intolerant.” We all know media members and politicians engage in these gutter tactics. Few however have the guts to call them out so explicitly like Palin does.
People who disagree with Obama’s policies are often called racists by talking heads and leftwing liars. Palin obliterated that tactic. “It’s not even smart, when one simply wants our government to live within its means and to not tax us to and beyond death, not to mortgage our kids’ future, and that being for today’s selfish wants,” Palin said. “Because of that, we’re racists? Well, what isn’t smart is when they try to slap that on Colonel Allen West and Dr. Ben Carson and J.C. Watts and Rafael and Ted Cruz and my husband, Todd Palin. Yeah, no, those truly prejudiced folks – just remember this – they scream racism just to end debate.”
Obama’s penchant for Pinocchio speak when it comes to Islam was addressed brilliantly as well. “The media’s favorite president, he just can’t stop telling lies,” Palin said. “You know, he just said that the Islamic State, ISIS, isn’t Islamic. You know who that is news to? The Islamic State, who calls themselves the Islamic State. And it’s news to thousands and thousands of Muslims who’ve joined their death cult. So if the Islamic State wasn’t Islamic, well, why does it have such appeal around the – you guessed it – the Muslim world? And like Jonah Goldberg asks, well, if they aren’t, then why do we give them Korans when we imprison them? Right.”
An action plan mapped out by Palin gave attendees some specifics on what to do to get our country back on track ASAP. She told them to demand the truth. Despite how bad this presidency has been Palin comforted the crowd by letting them know “we can end this error” and “we can survive this president.”
The unprecedented corruption out of Washington was not left untouched. Obama and friends have crippled our freedom at every turn. “Under the three strikes – Obama, Pelosi, Reid – the nation’s business is shackled to repression and to debts and corruption,” Palin lamented. “For instance, their most powerful agency, the IRS, decides that independent Tea Party Patriots, all of a sudden, they’re the enemy of the people.”
Palin said the “IRS decides it needed to know the content of pro-life groups’ prayers, and it would conduct two years of massive, burdensome audits of the most loving, giving families in America: our adoptive parents they would audit.” She said, “They’re the people who would extend their hearts and their homes to love the orphans and the downtrodden and the helpless. How about that IRS?”
Sobering.
Then Palin posed a simple question. “Do you think it’s time to abolish the IRS?” The crowd went into a frenzy.
Unlike so many in Washington, Palin recognizes our rights come from our creator and not from bureaucrats with an agenda. “Because it’s an inherent, God-given passion and a need to be free, Palin stated. “He created us with that drive to be free. And, friends, we in this room — we know it. We live it. We are the liberty movement. We the people — you — men and women serving in the military — and look at the representation of our military here in this room — you have secured the movement that liberates all United States citizens to dream and to think and to believe and to do, and God put dreams in you. You’ve got to get them. That’s how you live life vibrantly with no regrets.
“And you need freedom to do that. We’re not afraid of liberty because we know that in a free and open debate, well, our common sense, ethical fair ideas — they win. But that’s why they’re afraid. They’re desperate and divisive at Value Voters — they are because you are their threat. You value life, you value equal opportunity, and it scares the bejesus out of them because they know that they can’t argue against those things.”
The courageous among us were recognized by Palin. Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman who refused to renounce her faith even with her life and the lives of her children in jeopardy, was highlighted. Ibrahim will be honored by the Family Research Council this weekend. While Ibrahim is now free, Saeed Abedini is not. The Boise, Idaho pastor is imprisoned in Iran for simply being a Christ follower. Palin and her daughter Bristol have repeatedly called for his release. “He won’t renounce his faith either,” Palin said. “He shares moving letters now, changing lives. And they’re coming from his prison cell, and they’re letters that every free American should read so that we won’t take for granted what it is that we have here with our freedoms.”
Palin finished on a powerful note. “Don’t be ashamed to proclaim your values and to live them,” said Palin. “We are the movement that says yes — yes to time-tested truths, great virtues, great values. And approaching elections, we’re going to support great leaders that are hammering out and working so hard at that restoration agenda to break this country again from a failed liberal agenda — defeating crony capitalism and respecting and supporting, again, our armed forces so that we may have peace — peace through red, white and blue strength — and to value the sanctity of innocent life, where children are not seen as disposable and babies as punishment as our own president referred to — now, children are the best ingredients in this messed up world. Why in the world would you want to get rid of them? So we’ll support leaders who are not afraid of truth, and we’ll fight for it as ones worthy of a great nation.”
During the speech, Palin inadvertently referred to the White House address as 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue instead of 1600. Despite all of the important fact-filled components of her remarks the media blew that minor faux pas up, passing over her message of hope and traditional values to try to once again slam their favorite Alaskan target.
The response from Palin was perfect. She tweeted shortly after the speech “Doggone it! That explains why my Christmas cards keeps getting returned!”
Palin told values voters that they are winning and that they can and will continue to win. Palin’s tremendous speech and her constant mastery of dealing with the delusional Left through social media shows she is indeed winning as well.