PLANT CITY, FLORIDA — Conservative South Florida Congressman
Allen West, looking every inch the soldier he was for 22 years,
knocked ‘em dead in this small city east of Tampa Saturday
night.
The 400+ plus Republicans who gathered to break bread and
listen to West’s sermon at the Arthur Boring Civic Center here were
anything but bored. No one nodded off over the peach cobbler, even
though coffee was not served.
West gave a stem-winder based on conservative values and
principles and a call to action to save the republic. The gathered
faithful loved it. They loved West. They love what he’s doing. They
love the way he’s doing it.
Lefty Fort Lauderdale Congresswoman Debbie
Wasserperson-Schultz (D-Karate Chop), au the contraire, couldn’t
have gotten a single vote from this crowd for Miss
Congeniality.
As even people in Kuala Lumpur must know by now,
Wasserperson-Schultz (pardon the slight rearrangement of the name,
but feminist etiquette must be observed, as Debbie herself would
insist), Chairwomanperson of the Democratic National Committee,
made some inflammatory remarks about West on the House Floor last
week. She said in effect that West and conservatives who supported
Cut, Cap, and Balance were stupid and venal and were not only
snatching food from the mouths of widows and orphans, but were
shoving them out of doctor’s waiting rooms as well. They’re doing
this, our Debbie helpfully explained, so that they can direct more
money to their rich oil and corporate patrons, just like those
selfish and heartless conservatives always do.
Of course, this abusive nonsense was nothing new for DWS.
She’s been making inflammatory and insulting remarks about
conservatives for years — with an uptick in frequency and
intensity since she was made a Democratic poo-bah — and paying no
price for it. But this time she picked on the wrong conservative.
West is a counter-puncher, and fired off an email to
Wasserperson-Schultz that contains strong language, including the
words “vile,” “despicable,” and “sophomoric.” He also demonstrated
a firm grasp of the obvious by asserting that Wasserperson-Schultz
is “no lady.” (Why anyone should take umbrage at this is a puzzle,
as geek-branch feminists like Wasserperson-Schultz consider the
title “lady” an insult.)
Well now, we can’t have this. Under the current
Vagina-Monologues rules of engagement, when a leftist woman rains
down inaccurate and insulting abuse on conservatives, the only
proper and allowable response is, “Yes, dear.” But West, a former
combat infantryman who has faced much tougher and more dangerous
opponents than DWS, isn’t playing this mug’s game. The left-stream
media are shocked, shocked that West isn’t rolling over and
apologizing, and have circled their pathetic wagons around their
heroine.
Columnists and pundits are on OT, and will be dining out
on this inelegant little dust-up for quite a while. One of the more
amusing non-sequiturs to come out of this one is that West is being
labeled “sexist” and a “misogynist” for daring to call out our
Debbie. For alert TAS readers who may be confused by this,
I’ve looked up “misogynist” in the “Liberal’s Political
Dictionary.” It means disagreeing with a liberal woman.
But this unedifying episode was not what West talked about
Saturday, though clearly many of the folks in attendance would have
enjoyed it had he done so. West confined his remarks to the
critical challenges facing America, which West described as “the
most exceptional country in the history of mankind.” Thanks to the
political left’s incontinent spending, their assaults on
traditional American liberties, and their attempts to create a
“social utopia” through ever-expanding government, “the light is
starting to dim a little bit” on the shining city on a
hill.
West called out President Obama and the U.S. Senate for
not being serious about the country’s current debt crisis. He said
it was “heinous” that the Senate would not even debate Cut, Cap,
and Balance legislation passed by the House. West said it’s
critical that we get our annual federal expenditures below 20
percent of GDP. It’s now at 24.4 percent and rising rapidly, on its
way to 30-plus percent and banana-republic land at current levels
of spending. After the current crisis is dealt with, West wants a
balanced budget amendment to prevent us from marching back to the
edge of the cliff.
“America is standing on the precipice with one leg
dangling over the edge,” because of the current debt and spending
crisis, West said.
West says there is something downright fishy about the
leftists’ calls for “shared sacrifice” in the current debate.
Shared sacrifice translated means raising taxes. Already, West
said, the top one percent of taxpayers pay 32 percent of the
nation’s income taxes, the top five pay more than half, the top 20
pay 86 percent. West pointed out that already 47 percent of
American wage-earning households pay no income tax at all. West
worries there may be a tipping point where the entitlement class
could politically dominate the productive class.
West ticked off the well-known laundry list of ways the
republic is in worse shape since Obama took office: the price of
gas, the unemployment rate, home values, number of people on food
stamps, the crushing debt, ever increasing regulations, et al. All
this, West says, is “snuffing out the entrepreneurial spirit” that
is the basis of America’s freedom and prosperity. In this
atmosphere, West says he is not surprised that “entrepreneurs are
not looking to invest.”
West said the political left in this country is succeeding
in making America not only more socialist, but more secular as
well. Contrary to the hopes, dreams, and fervent efforts of the
political and cultural left, West says America is a Judeo-Christian
nation and should remain one. We should not be ashamed of
conservative values.
“There’s nothing wrong with believing that marriage is
between one man and one woman,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong
with trying to protect the life of the unborn.”
West didn’t just criticize Democrats. He pointed out that
the national Republican Party lost its way for years.
“The Republican Party has to regain its credibility,” the
colonel said. “When Republicans had the presidency and both houses
of Congress they did not do what the American people sent them
there to do.”
All these things were what West’s audience came to hear.
They were on their feet numerous times to cheer. They responded
when West exhorted them to get out there and block and tackle
during the next election cycle. Mixing and mingling after the
services it was easy to encounter the sentiment that the Allen
Wests of the world represent the hope and future of the Republican
Party in Florida, not the squishy establishment types that Debbie
Wasserperson-Shultz has so enjoyed working with for
years.
