Sarah Palin: Liberals think "Barack's bombs are the bomb"
President Obama's decision to authorize U.S. airstrikes on military strongholds of Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria as well as a group said to be plotting an attack on the West is just another "scandal" liberals are clinging to in order to "distract" from all their other controversies, Sarah Palin told a thrilled crowd Friday.
"These Alinsky-lovin', Orwellian, out-of-touch command-and-control elitists who've been running the show?" Palin told the Values Voter Summit audience in Washington, D.C. "Well, they used to rail against big government and the man. Remember that? Huh? They are the man! Their M.O.? It's to play the politics of personal destruction against anyone that they would deem a threat to their power.
"And they distract," she went on, "be-bopping 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 9? Barack's bombs, oh; they're the bomb.' Well, goodness sake."
Always a big draw at conservative cattle calls, the former Alaska governor-turned-professional pundit peppered her remarks with signature catchphrases like "the status quo has got to go." At one point, she wielded a coffee cup in a gag aimed at the president's now-infamous "coffee cup salute" moment.
Palin also lamented that truth has become an "endangered species at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue," presumably attempting to pan the White House, which is actually located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She later took to Twitter to make light of the gaffe, writing: "Doggone it! That explains why my Christmas cards keeps getting returned!"
Speaking ahead of her, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who rocketed to political stardom as the effective runner-up for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, bragged that he's been to all nine Values Voter summits. He implored the audience - keen to his mantle of social conservatism - to "quit being scared and start being activists."
"I have never been involved in a race, where you play defense on an issue and yet you put points on the board - and yet that's what we do," Santorum said. "If you look at the current conservative movement, the Republican Party, there are issues we haven't even lost yet, and we're talking about giving up."
And wrapping up the afternoon session, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal delivered a speech that sounded very much like a trial run for a 2016 White House bid. Though he tossed some red meat to the audience on social issues like religious freedom, one of his most talked-about lines accused Mr. Obama of harboring reservations about ISIS leaders being "hunted down, killed and destroyed."
Earlier in the day, two other Republicans who frequent 2016 shortlist speculation took the stage: Sens. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, both fired up the GOP's religious wing, warning the audience of Christians that their faith is under attack at home and abroad.
