A Reminder from Sarah: Get Your Bibi T-Shirt Today!

At House Speaker John Boehner's invitation--not at the invitation of President Obama as is his exclusive right according to Article II of the U.S. Constitution--Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.

what eye thynk:    The Republican party--especially the Tea Party faction--loves to refer to themselves as "Patriots," suggesting that anyone who is not in lockstep with them and their agenda must be less patriotic, must love America less.

There is no evidence that any member of the Tea Party has even a passing acquaintance with an English language dictionary, so I can understand how they might have come to mis-use the term "patriot" when they chose that term to identify their political brand.

I'm here to help.  According to Merriam-Webster, a patriot is "One who loves his or her country" (so far so good) "and supports its authority and interests."  (Ooops!)  I will grant them some ambiguity in the term "interests."  Different political parties, different points of view can engender a grey area when deciding whose "interests" should be granted ascendancy.  But there is nothing ambiguous about "supports its authority."

For six years, the Republican party has ignored the authority of the electorate to choose a President.  For six years, the Republican Party has not only ignored but encouraged its members to ignore the authority of the President to BE the President.  Domestic obstructionism, originally used to support conservative party interests somehow morphed into obstructionism of authority... period.  "The people have spoken" became a Republican party mantra--only they didn't mean the people who used their constitutional authority to elect President Obama, they meant the people who didn't recognize his authority to hold the office.  Somehow their refusal to acknowledge the authority of a Democratic president became a shining example of the ultimate in patriotism.

If anyone needs more evidence that the Republican party has confused patriotism with party loyalty, I submit Tea Party darling (and political profiteer) Sarah Palin who is using these last days before Netanyahu's congressional appearance to sell  $35 "I Stand With Bibi" t-shirts.  You can purchase yours here!

Ms. Palin and her Tea Party buddies have the right to stand with whomever they wish, but by choosing Bibi over Obama they have lost their right to call themselves "Patriots."  The United States of America is a nation made up of 50 states--and none of them is named Israel.