The TEA Party Makes It Official

Up to just the last couple of decades the President’s State of the Union message was a one-sided thing where the President satisfies his constitutionally required duty to deliver to Congress “Information of the State of the Union” “from time to time,” and there was no answering speech by the party currently not having a president in office.

 

Then, in 1966 an official response to the presidential address was organized, with the opposing party picking one of their own to make its case to the public should they deign to listen.

I always thought that it was a pointless exercise in that it only underlined the fact that everything they mention is not an actual agenda item of the Executive Branch. Besides that it is an open admission that they wield no power.

But be it as it may, it’s a good thing that we had a two-party system or we would have to suffer through God knows how many opposing speeches as they might have in Italy.

Up until this year, that is.

This year, the TEA Party made it official that they are becoming a third party in that they will have their own serious response to the president’s speech. It’s true.

Marco Rubio will be the next Bobby Jindal this week, signaling again the Republican Party’s desperate attempts to make themselves look like a multi-cultural diverse party. But then we get to hear the TEA Party’s opposing views which are, presumably, not the views of the mainstream Republican Party.

And even better, the TEA Party speech will be delivered by (Ayn) Rand Paul. You may recall that in two previous years, the TEA Party's response were laughingly delivered by Congreswoman Bachmann (T - Whacktown) and failed presidential hopeful Herman (9-9-9) Cain. This effort marks the first time that an actual serious TEA Party operative will deliver the speech. It is the first legitimate TEA Party response.

One wonders if Senator Paul will take shots at both the President’s and Rubio’s speeches or whether he’ll concentrate on one side or the other.

I find this to be a fascinating turn of events and underlines what is clearly becoming a deep schism in the party of Lincoln (a party, I believe, that Lincoln would not be a party to today). This could mean the beginning of the end of the conservative movement in this country where the fight for dominance will do nothing but render each faction completely impotent.