Huffing and Puffing Again, Are We?

I realize I should never read the toilet paper while I'm on the throne. But I was bored and there it was, another hit piece (feigning shock) from the Huffington Post. At first I thought liberals either live in another world or it's just a parallel universe over there. But after more thought, I realized that it was just another lame attempt to bash Sarah Palin by tearing down her International Council of Shopping Centers convention speech in Las Vegas Sunday. So fire up the smoke machine again and lets give it a try, right Huffington Post?

Jason Linkins piggy backs off a column by Joe Weisenthal on Business Insider. Between the two writers, they found three people who didn't like the Palin speech. This of course merits headlines like "Palin Speech In Vegas Panned By Realtors" or " Sarah Palin Gives Disastrous Speech At Commercial Real Estate Conference, Calls Obama An "Opium" Addict."

There were 30,000 people at the event.

Linkins missed what real estate writer Doug Bardwell wrote:

Heavy applause rocked the room when she declared that "every politician should be forced to operate a small business before being allowed to hold office. Doing that develops a real work ethic," she added. She generated a good amount of laughter as she said "Right now, so many politicians are addicted to opium, that's spelled O-P-M, which stands for 'Other People's Money.' And with that addiction comes the thinking that the money will always be there, and that you can always take it from somewhere or someone else, and not actually have to produce before you receive."

Again, applause was forthcoming as she suggested that "the best thing government can do is to foster an environment friendly to business and then get out of the way, letting business owners do what they do best." She described her position as being "anti-over-reach of government" and preferring instead, the "incentivizing of business to help the community thrive."

Listening to conversations as people left the hall, it seemed that she said all the right things to a crowd of people who desperately want the economy to come back, so their businesses might prosper once again.

Sounds like a real dud of speech there, guys.

The Las Vegas Sun also found some people there with opinions on the speech:

Ryan Olson, a real estate broker from Bellevue, Wash., said he agrees with Palin’s free-market ideas.

“I think she hits the nail on the head when she talks about stopping wasteful government spending,” he said.

Mary Hsu, a real estate investor from San Marino, Calif., said she mostly agrees with Palin’s economic ideas. But she said health care, for example, hasn’t worked as efficiently in the private sector.

Maybe Linkins and Weisenthal heard the speech Sarah Palin gave in a the parallel universe.