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This isn't the first time Tea Party organizers have announced their intentions regarding the Republican Party. And it probably won't be the last.

But it's nonetheless well worth documenting that Judson Phillips, the organizer of last week's National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, went on Fox News yesterday with Gretchen Carlson and said it quite clearly:

Phillips: And part of it's gonna end up -- where this Tea Party movement goes, is partially gonna be dependent on the Republican Party. If they're going to keep pushing people like Dede Scozzafaza or Mark Kirk on us, the Tea Party movement is not gonna vote for somebody just because they have an R behind their name. We don't like people like John McCain. We want good conservatives in office.

And if the Republican Party is not going to help us do that, then in 2011 there's probably going to be a pretty big push to set up the Tea Party as a separate political party. I don't think that's the best idea in the world, I'd really prefer to see us take over the Republican Party. But there's a lot of pressure from our people right now because we want conservatives in office.

Bet that works out about as well as NY-23 did.

From Think Progress:

Tonight, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin spoke to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, TN, an event that was ditched by other high-profile Republicans who disliked its for-profit model. After her speech, organizer Judson Phillips asked Palin several questions. One of them was about what needs to be done when there is a “conservative House and a conservative Senate.” Palin jumped right in and said, “We’ve got to rein in the spending, obviously.” However, she then seemed to forget her next talking point and glanced down at her left hand, as if there were notes she had scribbled down. She went on to talk about “energy projects.”

Oliver Willis points out that during this same speech, she referred to Obama as "the guy with the teleprompter."

Really, I don't care that Sarah Palin read notes off her hand. So her ideas aren't logical, consistent and coherent enough to answer a question without prompting - is this news to anyone who's paying attention?

And will it affect her popularity one bit? No, it will not.

But it's the continued hypocrisy of conservative figures that irks me. I mean, she's disparaging Obama's teleprompter use in the same speech in which she's using cheat notes? Does her brain even have the function that would note that as a contradiction?

The real problem isn't that conservatives are hypocrites. It's that they're such shameless, proud hypocrites - and that they're so willing to exploit worried Americans who can't figure that out.

(h/t Media Matters)

Just further proof that Sarah Palin's political career is entirely due to all these Republican men thinking with their GOPenises.

In an appearance on Imus in the Morning (now airing on the Fox Business Channel, which is why you probably didn't know it was back on the air), Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace** exposed a little more of his psyche than he probably should have:

WALLACE: We are going to have the first Sunday show interview ever with Governor Sarah Palin. We’ll be down in Nashville with her at the National Tea Party Convention and…I’m excited. First of all, I’m excited to finally meet and interview Sarah Palin. We’ve been chasing her like Captain Ahab and the great white whale for the last year and a half, so it’s going to be interesting to sit down with her and talk. And in addition, I’m interested in going down to the Tea Party convention and get a sense of other than seeing them on TV what they’re…what their platform is, what they’re interested in.

IMUS: When she…when you interview her, will she be sitting on your lap? [laughter]

WALLACE: One can only hope. [laughter]

Ewwww. The dirty old man chuckling made me more than a little nauseated. This is not the first such occasion where Wallace has made really inappropriate statements, as documented by our friends at Media Matters:

Wallace on Brown's looks: A female Fox anchor said, "you guys have all had Sarah Palin, now we've got Scott Brown"

Fox's Wallace asks conservative host Gallagher to "do me a favor ... put in a good word for me" with Palin

Fox's Wallace on ACORN booking: I wish we "were going to have the prostitute [Giles] because she's pretty cute"

Fox's Wallace: NTSB chair Hersman "a babe ... you would not expect a government bureaucrat to be an attractive woman"

However, this time, Wallace got the condemnation of none other than GOP also-ran Fred Thompson and wife, Jeri. Dude, when Fred Thompson wakes up enough to say you're out of line, you have really messed up.

**Corrected. No one should confuse the quasi-journalism/propagandizing of Chris Wallace with any other family member

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Sarah Palin confirmed on Greta Van Susteren's show last night that she's very much planning to show up and speak at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, despite the distinct odor of Scam the whole affair is giving off.

Palin: Oh, you betcha I'm going to be there. I'm going to speak there because there are people traveling from many miles away to hear what that Tea Party movement is all about and what that message is that should be received by our politicians in Washington. I'm honored to get to be there.

This, even as some of her fellow wingnuts are catching the same whiff -- namely, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn, who have pulled out of the event:

In separate statements, released by their congressional offices, the lawmakers said that appearing at the convention might conflict with House ethics rules. But they also said they are concerned about how money raised from the event will be spent.

Palin last night had no such concerns -- and said no one should be concerned about that big wad of cash the convention organizers are paying her:

Palin: The speaker's fee will go right back into the cause. I'll be able to donate it to people and those events, those things that I believe in, that will help perpetuate the message, the message being: Government, you have constitutional limits. You better start abiding by them.

Hmmmmm. It sounds like we're going to have to rely on Sarah's say-so when it comes to how she actually spends the money. Smells even more like Scam, doesn't it?

Of course, the whole scenario, as David Corn explored with Keith Olbermann last night, is developing into quite a fiasco -- mainly because Tea Partier and Birther J.D. Hayworth has decided to challenge Palin's former running mate, John McCain, in the Arizona Senate primary.

Palin is staying loyal to McCain. This has outraged the Tea Partiers, as Alan Colmes points out:

She has now chose to align herself with several bad actors. What should this be called, the Rinoization of Sarah Palin. [...]

She is certainly entitled to write a book and make money for her and her family, but other than what has she has done to support Republican and patriotic candidates. … Perhaps, Sarah was too busy talking to her agent about her Fox deal. Where the hell was Sarah?

This is what you get when you build a movement around paranoid right-wingers. There is probably no faction more historically famous for viciously turning on each other in struggles over money and power than right-wing populists.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

Buldge Redux Discourse.net

Remember all the stuff about whether Bush was wired for the debates?

My brother’s column yesterday, The Second Memo, closes with this little jem:

The folks over at isbushwired.com would like you to take a look at this clip from Bush’s April 28 press conference, when Bush looks down, pauses in the middle of a sentence, mutters, “in a minute,” then resumes his answer.

Democrats and Country Music      Music Row Democrats

I find it interesting that so many people are talking about Democrats in Nashville suddenly having the "courage" to admit that they're Democrats. Why should it take courage to admit membership in America's oldest existing political party? Many people consider the modern Democratic Party's first president to be Davidson County's own Andrew Jackson, 176 years ago. To hear some people tell it, you'd think we were saying we're in the Nazi Party or the Communist Party. This demonization of Democrats is right-wing propaganda that goes way beyond the sphere of conservative talk radio. Maybe it did take a little courage for us to "come out," but if that's so, then that just proves that we were long overdue. We have to make up our minds that we absolutely will not let our enemies get away with lying about us, and the best way to start is for us to stop believing those lies ourselves.

Just as Republican PR has given birth to the notion that it is now unSouthern to be a Democrat, they have also politicized OUR MUSIC.  this clip from Bush’s April 28 press conference, when Bush looks down, pauses in the middle of a sentence, mutters, “in a minute,” then resumes his answer.

via TBobb: Bill Frist: Cheating, two-timing man-slut: Dvaid Brooks finds honor in sleeping around on your fiancé:

Bill Frist was his high school's class president. He was a quarterback on the football team and a member of the honor society, and lived amid the upper crust of Nashville society. He dated the head cheerleader, and while he was in med school they were engaged to be married. But while interning in Boston, he met another woman, spent a dinner and a night with her, and fell in love. Two days before his wedding, he flew back to Nashville and broke off his engagement....read on

via The Carpet Bagger : I admit from the outset that I know literally nothing about this group or who's behind it, but for those who believe the "religious left" should do more to take on the "religious right," it appears there's a new organization committed to doing just that...read on

I sure hope this takes off. Men like Dobson and Robertson have taken hold of religion by the neck and tried to turn it into an "ownership society." They hold the mortgage. I was talking to a friend of mine who is an incredible flutist with the LA Philharmonic and an Evangelical. She told me how upsetting it is for her to see these guys on TV trying to define what she should believe in. "There are more than two issues that make me a Chrisitian, " she said.

Jerry Falwell is gunning for Hillary: "The Lynchburg minister told the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Nashville yesterday that the Christian group now has its eye on defeating Hillary Clinton if she runs in the next presidential election." (ok, no jokes about Lynch-burg)