The Pitbull in Lipstick is Back!

She’s “tired of hearin’ the talk talk talk” but Palin wowed Tea Party Nation Inc. with nastiness for fun and profit

By Joan Walsh Salon

Eric Hoffer didn’t live to see Tea Party Nation, but I always think of his most famous quote when I’m forced to deal with it: “”Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

I’m not sure the Tea Party cause is a great one, but it’s an influential one, and it degenerated into a racket lickety split, in less than a year. This weekend’s gathering in Nashville splintered both the Tennessee and the national Tea Party movement, as local go-getter Judson Phillips set up the once-anticipated “convention” as his own for-profit business. We’ll have a first-hand report from the racket that paid Sarah Palin more than $100,000 to speak Saturday night. But I can’t help weighing in.

Wow. This was the Palin we saw at the 2008 Republican convention, the snarling pitbull in shimmery lipstick. I know journalists aren’t supposed to use words like mean and dumb, but I can’t help it. Palin is one of the meanest people on the public stage today. She wallows in it. She loves it! Also? Possibly one of the dumbest. But mean works, and so does dumb. And so do lies, and there were many mean, dumb lies in her speech.

Read more at  Salon