Tom Tancredo, former Congressman from Colorado, opened the Tea Party convention by attacking not only the President, but the current system that allowed Barack Obama to be voted into office in the first place. Some choice quotes from his "speech":“people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.”
“the cult of multiculturalism, aided by leftists, liberals all over who don’t have the same idea about America as we do.”
“we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”
This is the "keynote address" for the Tea Party convention. The Tea Party movement, which was started to protest the growth of the Federal Government and a perceived lack of response from elected officials, has devolved into a home for the disgruntled and disenchanted of all stripes. I would ask those who are asking for “their country back”, to define exactly what that means. I do believe that there are people who initially joined the TP movement out of a sincere concern for they viewed as a lack of response from leadership. The movement was quickly taken over by those who saw it as a great way to cover their “Fear of a Black Planet” (to quote Public Enemy). Tancredo is obviously making it perfectly clear what he means. In his America, those who don’t look like him are not welcome in the political discussion. In his America, the President will always be a White, protestant male. In his America, people of color know their place. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for the rest of us), that country doesn’t exist anymore and we are all the better for it.
I honestly believe that there is reason to think that our elected officials have lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent. I believe that there is an argument to made about the size and scope of government as well. However belonging to an organization that is rapidly taken over by bigots looking for cover to attack the very diversity that has made this country what it is, does not seem like the best way to get a point across. As for Tancredo, people like him will always look for an audience to try and spread their particular brand of hate. We can only hope that as time goes on, the audience for this particular brand of “political speech” gets smaller and smaller.
