Palin’s Speech Brings CPAC to Rousing Finish                        

                         Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin roused the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday with a wide-ranging attack on President Barack Obama — charging at one point that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.”

 Obama’s “feckless” foreign policy has embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin — allowing some “very, very, very bad dudes to gain ground,” the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate said in her closing keynote at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor outside Washington.

 The president, she said, “would gut our arsenal while he allows others — enemies — to enrich theirs.
“Mr. President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke,” Palin said, drawing sustained cheers and applause from the packed ballroom audience.
But she later added: “I’m sorry. I’m probably being too hard on the president. After all, who could’ve seen this coming?”
The reference was to her triumphing over news reports that attacked her for predicting during the 2008 campaign that Putin would invade Ukraine if Obama won the White House. The audience went wild.
It was these zingers and one-liners — told in classic Palin fashion — that peppered her rollicking speech, which lasted nearly 40 minutes. They kept the attendees energized, excited — even chanting “Run, Sarah, run!” when she talked of the GOP re-taking the presidency in 2016.
The former governor started slamming Obama within seconds after stepping to the podium.
“I love coming back here,” Palin began, “because there are always so many young people. Or, as you’re known as by the folks across the river, Obamacare suckers.”
The president has long contended that millennials were crucial to the success of his signature healthcare law, because they would offset the cost of insuring older, sicker Americans.
“You are the ones,” Palin added. “You’re the ones who’ll pay the bills in our brave, new world.”
She said that in the past year, Americans have “woken up” to the realities of living under President Obama’s policies.
“Yes, something did happen: We became a wiser Republic. Americans know now what the giants of our movement have always told us. They all said, ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. . .
“There’s no free ride,” Palin added. “Someone pays. Someone always pays — and if you don’t know who that someone is, it’s probably you.”
She said that the “social-engineering politicos” in Washington also learned that “Americans aren’t quite as obedient as they thought we were.”
Citing such recent scandals as the IRS targeting conservative and tea party groups in the applications for tax-exempt status, the deaths of four Americans in the Benghazi attacks, and the failed promises of Obamacare, Palin said, “We didn’t jump through those hoops the way that we were supposed to.”
Americans “went rogue” — she said — and started attacking the government, including such Republicans as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
She praised the tea party-backed senator for helping to “keep them awake,” referring to him speaking for 21 hours and 19 minutes against Obamacare on the Senate floor last September.
“His filibuster worked in waking people up to the folly of a government takeover of another one-sixth of our economy,” Palin said. “He forced debate.
“But our army balked. We hoped that they were just reloading, but instead they retreated,” she added, referring to mainstream Republicans who voted to keep funding the healthcare plan in legislation passed last year.
“And worse — worse: They joined the lapdogs in the lamestream [media] to trash the foot soldiers who had fought for America.”
Besides Cruz, Palin praised such Republicans as Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, and Rep. Louie Gohmert, who also represents Texas.
“We’ve got some good guys in there. They carry the common-sense gene,” she said — pointing to the legislators as evidence of a bright future for the GOP in holding onto the House, while re-claiming the Senate this fall and the White House in 2016.
But what brought the strongest applause from the CPAC crowd was Palin’s variations on the Dr. Seuss 1960 classic, “Green Eggs and Ham.” Cruz read the book to his children during his Senate floor standoff last year.
Pulling out a copy of the book — some attendees shouted, “Read to us!” — Palin offered these lines:
“I do not like this Uncle Sam. I do not like his healthcare scam. I do not like these dirty crooks, for how they lie and cook the books. I do not like when Congress stills. I do not like their crony dills.
“I do not like this spying, man. I do not like ‘Oh, yes we can.’ I do not like this spending spree. We’re smart, we know there’s nothing free. I do not like reporters’ smug replies when I complain about their lies.
“I do not like this kind of hope, and we won’t take it — nope, nope, nope.”
Palin noted that some of the lines came from the Internet. “I winged the other ones.”