From the Washington Times:

September 12, 2009. The Quincy Tea Party. Quincy, Illinois. A singer/songwriter from Los Angeles donned a baseball cap and sunglasses. What little one could see of his face was obscured by 4 or 5 days growth. He was completely out of his element…an outsider. He felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: he felt safe.

Thousands of hard working patriots listened to Andrew Breitbart explain the dangers of being a conservative in the entertainment industry…the bias, the vitriol, the potential loss of work should the liberal power brokers of Hollywood discover one’s conservatism.

It was Breitbart who introduced this singer/songwriter to the tea party… and the tea party to living proof that conservatives do exist in Hollywood.

This was the first time I performed at a tea party. I didn’t use my real name.

I didn’t use my real name but I was hooked. I was hooked on a strain of patriotism I had not been privy to in Los Angeles but had always felt inside. Hooked on the beauty and power of the individual with a voice…and a collection of voices that could actually affect change unified by the message of freedom. The tea party was bigger than any one individual and its goals were bigger than anything I ever dreamed I’d be part of.

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Across the country, families are gathering to celebrate the holidays. They will reconnect, reflect on the year past and voice their hopes and dreams for the future. At the same time, the United States Senate meets in a rare Christmas Eve session to pass legislation that, if enacted, will forever change the relationship between Americans and their government.

On October 12, 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama made a campaign stop in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. What was supposed to be an uneventful run of the mill “Grip and Grin,” turned into something quite the contrary.  Our future President and the world were introduced to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher: a proud American who unwittingly became the symbol of the “every man” trying to escape the far reaching arm of Big Government.

Joe the Plumber….a great American….A great bald American.  I do not come from a critical place when I mention the state of Joe’s hair, or the lack thereof. In fact, despite the flowing mane of the anonymous avatar under which I post here today, I too, am a follicly challenged American….but not for long.

And this is where the press and the world missed the real story behind that fateful exchange in October of 2008.

As are most Americans, I am closely monitoring the status of S.1796 – America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.  When it comes to Healthcare everybody has a different horse in the race. For example, we have all heard the concerns that a government run healthcare system would potentially “Kill Grandma.” Now this is a legitimate beef, but being that my grandmothers are currently not alive, this is not at the forefront of my concerns. However, what did occur to me was that in the growing chorus of objections to the bill, nobody seemed to be concerned about “Grandpa.”  Why? Why was Grandpa never mentioned? How come nobody was talking about killing him? Why does he get to live?

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