The clown car of conservatism known as the Faith And Freedom Conference pulled up at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington D.C. this weekend and disgorged its contents of conservatives and evangelicals for 3 days of attacking President Obama and liberals, with some old-fashioned victim-hood wallowing for good measure. The speakers railed against everything and anything that they felt threatened their “freedoms.” That included, of course, immigration and the make-believe oppression of their brand of “Christianity.”

The Faith and Freedom Coalition, the main sponsor of the conference, was created in 2009 by Ralph Reed as a way to bring tea partiers and evangelicals together. The theme this year was “Road To Majority,” (hey, stop laughing – they’re serious!) and they brought in all the big names: Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Mark Sanford, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, Herman Cain and E.W. Jackson all preached to the choir over the conference’s three days. Here’s some of the best (?) diatribes, zingers and facepalm moments:

Herman Cain introduced a new shorthand with his “ETA” plan, “enthusiasm, targeted races and activists.” He stressed the need for new faces in the movement: “We have got to stop sending nearly 90 percent of the people in D.C. back to D.C. We should expand what we’ve already been doing. Create a groundswell of activists, and citizens and patriots.” Patriots, eh? It might be good if you stopped using that word since what you really mean by it is “those who agree with my ideology.” I suggest “sycophants.”

E.W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor of Virginia, let his preacher half take over in his 10 minute speech: “Freedom doesn’t mean ‘Do whatever you want.’ It’s the pursuit of character, integrity, decency, honor. Now we’re being told freedom is license.” Freedom does, indeed, mean that we can do whatever we want… as long as we don’t violate the freedoms of others. And I mean real freedoms, not your fantasy freedom to shove your religion on the rest of us.

Michele Bachmann, who has been screeching about amnesty lately stayed with that theme: “The people who will suffer the most, if we move forward, in my mind, with what is a very foolish action the people who will hurt the most are Hispanics and African-Americans who already suffer very high levels of unemployment.” Oh, please. Like you give a shit about Hispanics and African-Americans.

Jeb Bush, who may be contemplating a 2016 run at the White House (saints preserve us!) also spoke about immigration: “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.” And he’s supposed to be the smart one? Wow.

Rick Perry, the Texas Twit, invoked St. Ronald: “We stand for the principles that made America great. We should exude those principles with joy. Smile when you disagree with a liberal. As Ronald Reagan said, liberals know so much that isn’t so. Our conservative convictions will win this country back if our tone shows we’re comfortable with our own ideals.” Sure, go ahead and smile when you disagree with us – it won’t make you any more correct. Because we know a lot more that is so than you do.

Paul Ryan, still smarting from he and Mr. Plastic’s loss is still blaming President Obama: “We kept sort of shadow-boxing the big government in theory. We had to argue against the promise and the rhetoric of President Obama. The great soaring rhetoric, all of the empty promises. Because remember in his first term, his first two years, he passed his program, but he didn’t implement his program. Now in the second term, we are seeing it implemented, and it is pretty darn ugly.” No, I’ll tell you what’s ugly, Paul. That you can’t accept responsibility for your own words and actions and still need to blame Obama and the poor and unemployed. You asshat.

Allen West, also still sulking over his ass whooping, called Booker T. Washington the “first black conservative” and more: “Some of you maybe will leave this beautiful hotel where you’re having this conference and go into some of the black neighborhoods here in Washington, D.C., and see the decimation of progressive socialist policies that have broken down the family unit in what used to be the strongest family community that this great country ever knew.” Ouch. Word salad with stupid dressing for lunch, anyone?

Which brings us to Sarah Palin. The newly re-employed Fox News pundit had a lot to say, being back in the spotlight again. Her advice on Syria? “We’re talking now more new interventions. I say until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander-in-chief who knows what he’s doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren’t even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, ‘Allah Akbar,’ I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say let Allah sort it out.” Ooooh kay. That will end well. Palin also said that we need to “… rededicate the country to our one true heavenly Father…” Because hey, screw the Founding Fathers – what did they know?

The overall message to the attendees seems to be that they know best how to run this country. The Founding Fathers were just a bunch of faithless liberals, I guess, since the Constitution and Declaration of Independence enshrine ideals that these tea party/evangelical chimeras find repulsive. They can’t seem to see the conundrum into which they have painted themselves (or maybe don’t care): they invoke the Founding Fathers as validation of their ideology yet they reject the actual creed those great men espoused and wrote down as the best way they saw in which to run a country. I think they did a pretty good job but the conservative cabal of clownery apparently thinks that they know better. I wish they would just go form their own country somewhere and leave this one to those of us who understand the instructions left for us. I hope they have TV, radio and internet there, though, so we have plenty of comedy coming from Batshitland for our entertainment.