There may be a few hawks in the tea party, but I haven't met or talked to any. The vast majority are libertarians IMO.
Just because the neo-cons have seen our numbers and tried to co-opt the movement doesn't mean we're falling for it, or that we accept 'neo-con barbie' as any sort of leader. She has no credibility with anyone I've heard of, and I've been here awhile. Dr Paul has been an inspiration, but we are grass-roots, adult, free people, able to lead ourselves.
And poor Norman needs to work on understanding the difference between isolationism and non-interventionism.

wanting tax cuts, deficit reduction and all the facilities of a nanny states at the same time.

And that includes the war on illegal drug users. If they are going to pick and choose when it's ok to spend huge amounts of public money on questionable projects, they shouldn't get so bent about it when other people keep on doing that as well for their own favorite projects.

I'm not sure who thinks Sarah Palin has credibility with the libertarians. Sarah Palin's credibility is limited to the 20% of the population that worships her. Everyone else views her as a nut.

A Republican takes a hawkish stance on defense spending? What's next, advocating gun rights? Stopping illegal immigration? Cutting taxes? Denying global warming? That Palin really is a maverick!

I hope no one forgets in the fog of partisanship that while reducing the capabilities of the US military is a bad thing, getting better efficiency in our defense contracts is a good one. We don't need cost-plus contracts; we don't need to subsidize bottom-of-the-barrel companies like Halliburton and McDonnell Douglas; we can get better destroyers, better fighters, better everything for less than we're paying at the moment. (If nothing else: buy new vehicles from Germany and South Korea; they have better engineers than we do, and I'm sure they're selling. Remember that the M-16 is an English design -- the Armalite AR-15 -- and that the US almost adopted the Belgian FN FAL; US employment of foreign-designed equipment is not new.)

I'd also hope that Palin, or any other non-anti-military leader who comes to power after Obama's out, will give H. John Poole a chance to make his case in the Pentagon; his ideas are well worth reading, and the tactics he describes and advocates, combined with American airpower, would be unstoppable.

I agree with some other commentators up there who point out Palin is not really in any way a "leader" of what is called the Tea Party, nor does she reflect the thinking of the many people I've met who call themselves members of such.

The idea of Glenn Beck and Palin somehow being torch-bearers for the Tea Parties is something, in my view, of their own creation; doing what politicians always do, finding a parade and getting in front of it. And the media, particularly left leaning, tends to reinforce that myth because these characters are so widely reviled.

Tea Party people i've come across tend to come from a few different corners: libertarians fed up with 3rd party failures, small government republicans driven to madness by Bush and his spending spree, and even a few antiwar moderate democrats who believe the only way to reform both parties is to cut off the money and get some structural change.

What they *arent* are cultural conservatives, or supporters of hardline militarism. People who lived through Vietnam tend to remember that Staying The Course is often a death spiral, and that ending the wars in Iraq and afghanistan may make sense now that the objectives have faded into vague 'nation building'. Many are fervent supporters of the military, but also critics of how that military is being used as a political tool, or how spending is disconnected from the actual requirements of a modern force (e.g. the Raptor, bloated artillery & warship concepts designed to fight an enemy that doesnt exist)

Frankly, I dont believe many in the GOP understand that the Tea Parties hate Big Spending Republicans as much as they do Democrats. Many of these people in office change their rhetorical tune from time to time, but few have any credibility with the Tea Party movement, which largely wants to unseat incumbents; not get pats on the head from establishment politicians.

The problem with the Tea Parties is also their virtue; the fact they have no coherent platform or leadership. If one emerged, i'd think it would come from the bottom up, not from idiological contortions performed by a hack like Palin. There were many on the center-right (myself included) who have bemoaned the dumbing down of national discourse under Bush, and the pervasive anti-intellectualism of people like Palin, who proudly strut their policy ignorance, appeals to pathos, and gross misuse of language as a point of pride. Whatever happened to politicians who thought like George Will? Conservatism used to be a haven for thoughtful intellectuals, sober realists. It was hijacked by movement-conservatives, with wedge-issues like Abortion, Gay Marriage, Immigration, Religion in the classroom, and so on. They abandoned concepts of fiscal austerity, prudent monetary policy, encouragement of free trade, lower taxes, and individual rights. This is why the Tea Party came into being in the first place. My fear is that the Tea Party itself will be hijacked by these very same Nationalists, Racists, and Religious fundamentalists who have steered the GOP so far off course. The idea of Palin as a "leader" of the Tea Parties seems to be a sign of that very effort.

/...Norman Podhoretz is one of the people who have steered the country far in the wrong direction himself, with his neoconservative project that has produced nothing but foreign policy disasters, empowered Iran, rationalized Executive Supremacy, and defiled our country's reputation by condoning torture.

He had his moment to test his ideas in the real world, and we can see where it has gotten us. Kudos, Norman. You broke it, you bought it.

I hope no one forgets in the fog of partisanship that while reducing the capabilities of the US military is a bad thing, getting better efficiency in our defense contracts is a good one. We don't need cost-plus contracts; we don't need to subsidize bottom-of-the-barrel companies like Halliburton and McDonnell Douglas; we can get better destroyers, better fighters, better everything for less than we're paying at the moment. (If nothing else: buy new vehicles from Germany and South Korea; they have better engineers than we do, and I'm sure they're selling. Remember that the M-16 is an English design -- the Armalite AR-15 -- and that the US almost adopted the Belgian FN FAL; US employment of foreign-designed equipment is not new.)

I'd also hope that Palin, or any other non-anti-military leader who comes to power after Obama's out, will give H. John Poole a chance to make his case in the Pentagon; his ideas are well replica omega worth reading, and the tactics he describes and advocates, combined with American airpower, would be unstoppable.